On the quiet corner of Degnan Boulevard and W. 43rd Place, the Art + Practice museum stands tall and proud among local shops within Leimert Park. Dominique Clayton, an independent curator and Leimert Park local, opened her new exhibit in the very neighborhood where she grew up.

The Art + Practice museum’s exhibit, “Giving you the best that I got,” opened Oct. 11 in collaboration with the California African American Museum.

The exhibit showcased artworks from several different Black artists, all of whom shared a deep understanding of Black motherhood. Derrick Adams, Karon Davis, Lanise Howard, Carrie Mae Weems and Ferrari Sheppard were just a few of the artists involved in this exhibition, which included works ranging from sculptures to oil paintings to mixed media of varying sizes.

“The first inspiration is my own transition into motherhood,” Clayton said. “It just made me think, ‘How can you be a mom and an artist or a creative?’”

Clayton said the exhibition’s title originated from the song of the same name, “Giving You The Best I That Got” by Anita Baker.

“[Baker’s] version is more of a love song. She’s talking about how much she wants to give to her lover, her partner, but that also translates into the motherhood experience,” Clayton said. “You’re giving all you can, especially Black mothers, who maybe are pouring from an empty cup, are giving the best that they can to their children, to their spouses, to their families.”

Upon first entering the exhibit, the once stiff and cold atmosphere of the room disappeared, as the faces of mothers and children surrounded visitors. A lone photograph hung on the wall, “Untitled (putting on make-up),” from Carrie Mae Weems’ “Kitchen Table Series II.”

Serving as the opening piece of the show, the photo depicts a mother applying her makeup in a small mirror as her daughter copies her movements with her own set of miniature equipment.

“I wanted to show, visually, what Black mothers and children look like and embody,” Clayton said.

In the middle of another room, a small stitched collage sculpture stood on a pedestal. Shefon N. Taylor’s “There bloomed a silence too old for a language and too precise for forgetting” sculpture acted as a vessel for how memories stay, despite being frayed and fragmented. Struggling with her own mother’s absence, Taylor’s work reflected the idea of how motherhood itself is like being broken into finer pieces.

“There’s a lot of artists who are motherless in the show, who’ve lost their mom at different stages of their lives, and their work carries this deeper weight to it. So that was the part I wanted to capture,” Clayton said.

Karon Davis’ “The Nun (Mother Superior),” made entirely of plaster bandages and steel, commands power, as the titular “nun” holds a long wooden ruler behind her back. Despite not being a direct mother-and-child piece, Clayton said some pieces refer to the mental state and the emotional depth of being a Black woman, being a mother or being a daughter of a Black mother who has shaped their life.

Across from the sculpture, a large oil painting depicting a triangle of Black women with blueish hair, Lanise Howard’s “The Nucleus,” hung in the center of a wide wall. The painting showcased the unbreakable bond that women share through the dreamlike imagery.

Clayton said Howard’s “With Open Arms (The Life Bearer)” stuck with her the most. She said the piece reflects what Black mothers give to the world: a warm embrace.

“She’s opening [her robe] without really revealing her body, but what she’s opening is her heart and her womb to her family, to her lover,” Clayton said. “There’s something that’s just so beautiful and sexual about that, but also spiritual and just inspirational.”

“Giving you the best that I got” will run through March 7 at the Art + Practice Museum.