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The poppy super blooms that annually draw scores of admirers require fire to grow. In her commissioned series Dormidera, created for the Fire Kinship exhibition, Weshoyot Alvitre uses the poppy as a background for her portraits of three notable Tongva-Gabrielino women. These large-scale paintings form a dialogue with Emily Clarke’s Womanfire poem and Leah Mata Fragua’s poppy installation, also on view in the show.

Join us for an intimate gallery talk with Alvitre to learn more about what fire kinship means to her, the women she painted, her artistic process, and why she composed this series of paintings.  This talk will be moderated by guest co-curator Lina Tejeda.

Weshoyot Alvitre

Weshoyot Alvitre is a Tongva and Scottish comic book artist, writer, and illustrator. Born in the Santa Monica Mountains on the property of Satwiwa, a cultural center started by her father Art Alvitre, she grew up close to the land and imbued with traditional knowledge that inspires her work. Focusing on the comics medium for over 15 years, she uses art and writing to visualize historical material through an Indigenous lens. She has contributed an art response to contemporary Indigenous issues using pop-culture, sci-fi, and archival research materials to spark conversations and re-frame colonial narratives.

Alvitre’s work has been featured in Moonshot volumes 2 and 3, Deer Woman: An Anthology, Imminent Cuisine the zine, and Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices. Alvitre has received numerous awards for her children’s book illustrations in At the Mountains Base (Kokila 2019) and Living Ghosts & Mischievous Monsters (Scholastic 2021). Her current projects, Toypurina: Our Lady of Sorrows and Lone, focus on re-telling stories from her tribal community; and using recorded facts, primary accounts, and traditional knowledge to provide a fuller representation of Tongva history. Alvitre has made a conscious choice to work primarily with Native-owned publications and educational outlets, to further support a self-funded narrative about past, present, and future Native issues. It is through this voice and her artwork that she communicates her unique viewpoint and continues a strong dialogue on matters important to her as a Native woman.

Photo credit: Installation view, Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art, 2025, Fowler Museum at UCLA. Photo Elon Schoenholz