Octavia E. Butler has always been more than a writer. Her speculative worlds remain blueprints for how we might reimagine our future while dealing with the flaws of the present. The California-born author told stories that made space for Blackness, for queerness, for survival and reinvention, all while grounded in reality. Butler’s weaving of fact and fiction now serves as the foundation for Shaper of God: Apple Valley Autonomy, American Artist’s latest exhibition at the California African American Museum of Art, on view through March 1, 2026.
Shaper of God is the most expansive chapter of a multi-year project by American Artist, whose sculptures and drawings take Butler’s archive as inspiration. The title is drawn from Parable of the Sower, where Butler’s protagonist Lauren Olamina forms a new faith amid societal collapse. American’s work builds on this legacy, but instead of imagining outer space, the artist zooms in on the very conditions that made Butler’s voice possible, which were the everyday sacrifices of her mother and grandmother.
Born in Pasadena and raised in Altadena, Butler carried the imprints of California into her fiction. American Artist grew up in the same region, a link that deepens their connection. “Something that was really influential for me was knowing that two of my aunts were in the same high school at the same time as her,” they said. “To me that kind of made her presence feel so much closer.” That sense of proximity underscores the show’s personal dimension, transforming Butler’s archive into a mirror through which Artist reflects on their own family’s migration westward.
The exhibition focuses on Butler’s matrilineal lineage: her grandmother, Estella Butler, who ran a chicken ranch in Apple Valley, and her mother, Octavia Margaret Guy Butler, who labored as a domestic in Pasadena. These women, through quiet determination and material sacrifice, cleared a path for Butler’s singular career. “She always pays so much homage and respect to her mother and her grandmother,” American explained. “Those were two of the biggest figures in her life that were really influential to her. For me, I also wanted to think about the generational aspect of how Black people migrate and create opportunities for one another.”
Working with curator Taylor Renee Aldridge, the artist translated these intimate histories into sculptural form. Aldridge, who has long engaged with Black archives and feminist legacies, saw the potential to frame Butler’s world-building alongside California’s history. “Because CAAM is obviously in California, Octavia Butler is from California, I thought it could be a really great opportunity to bring in this idea of speculative fiction history,” Aldridge said. What emerged was not a standard curatorial exercise but a true collaboration. “It didn’t feel like a curator is just plucking a work to put in a gallery,” American recalled. “It felt like we were working through this together and learning together and exploring the archive together.”
Butler’s archive—an extensive collection housed at the Huntington Library—really brought everything together. Among the most affecting discoveries were journals written not just by Octavia but also by her mother. “Her mother worked as a domestic and had about three years of schooling before she was pulled out. But even without that experience, she still wanted Octavia to have a better life than she did,” Aldridge stated. She recounted how Butler’s mother saved money to buy her daughter’s first typewriter and paid for her earliest writing workshop, which were all investments that set the foundation for an award-winning career.
Aldridge sees the show as participating in larger conversations about Black women’s labor and cultural legacy. Examining the journals of Butler’s mother, she emphasized how small acts of beauty and care carry radical weight. “I guess the thing that I hope that people take away from the exhibition is that there are all these other ways that you can create beauty and create possibility in the lives of your offspring or in the lives of your family.”
Shaper of God: Apple Valley Autonomy is one chapter in an ongoing trilogy. American describes the broader arc as threefold—Butler’s relationship to California’s geography; her matrilineal inheritance; and finally, her visions of space travel as counterpoints to today’s privatized explorations. A monograph published by Pioneer Works Press documents this continuum, situating CAAM’s exhibition within the larger evolution of the project.
Ultimately, the show insists that Butler’s expansive universes cannot be separated from the histories of migration, labor, and love. By highlighting the sacrifices of her mother and grandmother, American Artist reminds us that world-building is not only about faraway galaxies; it begins at the kitchen table, in a mother’s diary, or nurturing a child’s future, whatever that may be.
“I think this is a great opportunity to figure out ways to instill confidence in younger generations and really pour into them in a variety of ways,” Aldridge explained. “Even if you may not have the best of means, there are all these different ways that you can create beauty for others. And I think us gazing back at this matrilineal lineage really allows us to study that and contend with that.”