Draw an Uplifting Space in Your Community

In this activity, you will:

• learn about the importance of place
• create a drawing of a place that centers community
• write a reflection about the space you drew and its impact on your community

• Multipart Activity

• Pencils
• Colored pencils
• Paper
• Clipboard

Look at an Architectural Drawing of the First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church’s Interior

Before reading about the space pictured in this drawing, see what you can discover just by looking closely. Write what you notice, think, or feel about the church interior using the guiding questions below.

• Where does your eye go first in this room? Why might the architect, Paul R. Williams, have designed it that way?
• What adjectives would you use to describe the size of the space inside the First AME Church? Use the drawings of the people for scale.
• What do you notice about how the seating is arranged? What does that suggest about how people gathered here?

Optional Activity

To learn more about the history of this space and how it was used, visit Explore Paul R. Williams’ Drawing of the First AME.

Read About Placemaking, the First AME Church, and Counter-Narratives

Placemaking is the idea that the way spaces are designed shapes how people feel, connect, and see themselves. Placemaking is not just about aesthetics or the visual style of a place. It is about who a space appears to serve, and whose presence it celebrates or marginalizes.

The First AME Church in Los Angeles is the oldest Black congregation in the city. Its current building was designed by Paul R. Williams. Tall columns, careful symmetry, and thoughtful use of light created a space meant to inspire reverence and pride in everyone who entered. For a congregation that had long organized, worshipped, and built community in the face of exclusion elsewhere in the city, First AME wasn’t just a place to gather. It was a declaration that this community deserved a place as beautiful and dignified as any other in Los Angeles.

A space like the First AME also offers a counter-narrative of its own. At a time when segregation and discrimination told Black people that they belonged in lesser environments, First AME pushed back against this message. The elegance and grandeur of the building challenged the assumption that beautiful architecture was reserved for white communities alone. In this way, the building itself tells the story of a community that insists it deserves the best, even while being marginalized elsewhere.

In this activity, you will consider a specific place in your community and how it works for the community it serves.

Choose a Community Space

Think of a place in your community that gives you a sense of cultural pride, safety, belonging, or resistance to marginalization. It doesn’t have to be famous, fancy, or big. It just has to matter.

Some possibilities to spark ideas:

• a park, garden, or outdoor gathering spot
• a community center, library, or recreation space
• a mural, monument, or piece of public art
• a cultural or religious space where your community gathers
• a block, corner, or storefront with special meaning or significance

Think About How Your Space Serves Its Community

Consider the design of the space through these questions. You’ll then use these ideas in your drawing and reflection.

• Who was this space designed for? What community does it serve?
• How does the design reflect the community’s specific needs, culture, or history?
• Does the design reflect the community it was made for? Describe a specific detail that shows the designer did (or did not) consider community needs.
• In what ways does it uplift people, even quietly or imperfectly? How does it make people feel seen, welcome, or proud?
• Think about how First AME Church served as a counter-narrative for its community. What counter-narratives does the space offer?
• How does this space connect to Williams’ desire to design a place for belonging?

Draw Your Selected Community Space

• Grab your paper and pencil and head to the space you’re going to draw. If you’re unable to draw while in the space, you can take a photo of it to use as a reference rather than drawing it in person.
• Loosely sketch the basic, general shapes that make up the space in relation to each other. Try to fill the whole paper with your sketch. Artists call this first step “blocking in” the drawing. Try sketching lightly using the side of your pencil, and don’t get caught up in the details!
• Once you’ve loosely captured the shapes and forms that make up your space, you can start looking more closely at one area of your drawing and add details.
• Move around the drawing, adding details to each part without spending too much time in one area. Try to look more at the space (either the space itself, or your photo of it) than your drawing. Don’t worry about making a realistic or perfect representation of the space. The point is to look closely!

As you draw, ask yourself:

• Who do you think this space was designed for?
• What choices in this space’s design show care or intention? Consider materials, scale, detail, or beauty in your answer.
• Does the design reflect the needs of the community? What details reveal whether the community was genuinely considered?

Write a Reflection

Write a short reflection (1–2 paragraphs) to accompany your drawing. Address all of the following questions in your writing:

• Why did you select this space? What drew you to it, and what does it mean to you personally?
• What does it do for your community? How do people use it, feel in it, or relate to it?
• How does it connect to Williams’ work creating community spaces? In what ways does this space offer beauty, quality, or dignity to a community that doesn’t always get it?
• What aspects of the design, if any, do not meet the needs of the community? What changes do you recommend?
• What did you notice while drawing the space that you hadn’t noticed before?

The artistic or beautiful qualities of something.

A network or group of people, sometimes living in a particular place, who share interests, values, characteristics, responsibilities, or physical spaces.

A group of people who gather together to worship, pray, and practice their faith

A story, perspective, or account that challenges and offers an alternative to a dominant, mainstream, or “master” narrative.

Actions stemming from conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favor and empower one group over others based on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, language, age, national identity, and other categories.

The act or process of pushing a group of people to the outside of society, or treating them as unimportant or powerless.

The physical or social separation of people into different groups based on race, ethnicity, or other social traits, which can be enforced by law (de jure) or happen naturally through economic or social habits (de facto).