Nordstrom Fall 2017 Campaign features Creative Growth

Creative Growth artists Elizabeth Rangel and William Scott and Director Tom di Maria are featured in Nordstrom's Fall 2017 campaign. Olivia Kim, VP of Creative Projects describes the campaign:

“People are the foundation of Nordstrom. They are our friends and our friends-of-friends, and in our Fall 2017 Brand Campaign we wanted to convey a sense of community and celebrate real people who are doing great and extraordinary things, who inspire us in our everyday lives. We always do our best to reflect the diverse customers and communities we serve so we work to represent all kinds of diversity in our campaigns whenever possible.”

We're thrilled to be part of such an amazing community! See the whole campaign, including videos, at nordstrom.com

Creative Growth + Museum of Ice Cream

From the Creative Growth creative community to the creative minds at Museum of Ice Cream, thank you for your support and welcome to the Bay Area! We're thrilled to be the non-profit partner of Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco. The Museum of Ice Cream is a pop-up experience that celebrates ice cream, imagination, and play; their mission, "to design environments that bring people together and provoke imagination" is one we share and celebrate!

Museum of Ice Cream opens Sunday, September 17 at 1 Grant Ave in San Francisco.

Follow them on Instagram @museumoficecream

Cedric Johnson Featured | Ceramics Monthly | September 2017

CLAY CULTURE growing creatively
A community of artists working together at a non-profit in Oakland, California, is shattering stereotypes by finding ways to overcome disabilities while creating in-demand artwork that helps them to make a living.

By Dawn Starin
September 2017

One small, non-profit organization in Oakland, California, has been at the forefront of changing perceptions of what individuals with intellectual, emotional, physical, and/or developmental disabilities can do.

For over 40 years, the Creative Growth Art Center has focused on encouraging and supporting artists with disabilities by providing a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition and representation, and nurturing a non-competitive, collaborative, and collective community of artists where both imaginative creativity and creative camaraderie blossom.

While the program is artist run and artist led, it does not, according to the director, Tom di Maria, “teach, guide, or steer people in one direction or another.” It does not offer therapy or instruction and it is not a drop-in center. There are no specific tasks, responsibilities, deadlines, or certain models of success and there are certainly no failures. In this non-competitive setting, the artists proceeding at their own pace in art-making are exercising total personal choice and personal control over their own work.

An Artistic Oasis

The center—thought to be the oldest exhibition space dedicated to the art of people with disabilities—is home to over 160 adult artists engaged in a range of artistic mediums: ceramics, collages, drawing, dressmaking, fiber arts, painting, photography, printmaking, rug making, tapestry, video animation, and woodworking. A variety of cultures, backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and disabilities are represented and many languages are spoken, though some artists do not speak or are unable to use language.

All of the artwork on display (and much of the work that is not on display) is for sale. Everyone here, even if they don’t sell anything, gets a quarterly check because there is a communal pool made up of proceeds from the sale of items priced at less than 25 dollars. This program not only provides the artists with an income, but also ensures that they receive recognition, encourages participation in a community while decreasing social isolation, and increases their sense of self-worth and self-sufficiency. Individuals who often have no access to complete self-expression and total creativity have been given an artistic oasis. And, the center’s safe and encouraging environment has made it possible for this community of creative individuals to reach out to the larger outside community and be accepted. Artwork fostered here has been the subject of articles, books, and films and has been included in numerous gallery shows, international collections, art fairs, and prominent museums throughout the world.

Possibly the most celebrated of the Creative Growth artists, the late Judith Scott, was born with Down syndrome and became deaf as an infant. In 2014 she had a one-woman show at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and today her sculptures sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Speaking about her sculptures, di Maria says “Her work is astonishing, rich, and varied. Her elaborate, enigmatic forms capture our imagination. I think of this work as a language understood only by the artist; a language without words for which there will never really be a translation. And, when we experience it, it resonates with us and we bring our own meanings to it.”

Walking around the center’s gallery and studio and witnessing the creativity and energy bouncing off the walls, floors, and ceilings and spilling out of the cupboards and off the shelves, it is clear that Scott is not the only master artist to have been nurtured here. It is also clear that the art created here has the ability to move an audience—perhaps the very definition of the value of art itself.

A Member Artist’s Perspective

Beanie-clad Cedric Johnson, a natural salesman, leads me through the studio and around the gallery, proudly showing me his work. Born in 1952, in Corpus Christi, Texas, Johnson has been creating a wide range of art forms at the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland since 1980. Exuberant, extroverted, highly animated Johnson, who “always knew he wanted to be an artist,” works in a wide range of artistic formats—ceramics, sculpture, painting, drawing, textile work, and woodwork—there is very little he does not attempt. When he creates, which he does five days a week, ideas “come to him through his imagination, from what he sees around him in the studio, or from pictures,” according to Jessica Daniel, Creative Growth’s marketing and community development manager. Like Scott, and many of the other artists working here, his imagination is surprising and his work is both intense and astounding.

Johnson has exhibited in group shows at Creative Growth, as well as at Rena Bransten Gallery and Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco. Ampersand, a Portland, Oregon, gallery that specializes in contemporary artwork, held Cedric Johnson’s first solo exhibition where he exhibited 20 artworks, including 6 ceramic pieces.

Myles Haselhorst, the curator of the exhibition, met Johnson when visiting Creative Growth for the first time. Haselhorst recounts seeing Johnson drawing a mask-like face on the pages of an old atlas. “I’ve always been drawn to masks of all kinds,” Haselhorst notes, “so I was thrilled to see that nearly every page of the atlas featured drawings that were suggestive of masks one might see in primitive cultures, but in Johnson’s distinct visual style.” Like his drawings, many of his ceramic pieces allude to masks and hang directly on the wall. “It’s remarkable,” Haselhorst continues, “how Johnson is able to translate his drawing style to his ceramic pieces, each one portraying a different character or state of mind. They are a bit larger than life, which, in addition to his bold color choices, makes for pieces that have an otherworldly quality.”

While their various disabilities lend significance to the Creative Growth artists’ creations, they, and their work, are not simply defined or limited by these disabilities. Looking at Johnson’s vibrant, glossy, Cubist-style, fantastical ceramic masks and clay whistles, and the artwork from many of the other artists working here, it becomes clear that he and his community of fellow self-taught artists are shattering stereotypes, creating works of distinction, and achieving recognition in today’s art world.

Creative Growth Magazine Issue 2: The Heart of Love

We are thrilled to announce the publication of Creative Growth Magazine Issue Number 2: The Heart of Love! This issue is dedicated to love: the love for our community, the love for our families, the love of beauty, freedom, and a better tomorrow. Creative Growth Magazine Issue Number 2: The Heart of Love features a variety of articles, interviews, and artwork to showcase the creative talent and energy of both the artists and staff. Featured artists include Terri Bowden, Zina Hall, Jane Kassner, Dwight Mackintosh, Aurie Ramirez, Larry Randolph, Lulu Sotelo, Ron Veasey and many more. Also included is a letter-pressed poem from Monica Valentine in Braille.

Edited by Kathleen Henderson and Matt Haber Designed by Brent Nuñez and Emily Rea Photographs by Kalia Bonnie and Melissa Kaseman 11 x 8.5 x .5 in; 144 pp. Published in May 2017

Beyond Trend 2017 SUCCESS | Thank You For Your Support!

Thank you for joining us in celebrating Creative Growth at this year's Beyond Trend Runway Event and Fundraiser. Your generosity and enthusiasm provides year-long support for over 160 artists who call Creative Growth home. Thank you for being a part of our community. If you missed Beyond Trend in person this year, there is still time to give.

Check out more from the event and share your photos on Facebook and Instagram with #BeyondTrend.

Thank you to our sponsors and collaborators: Photographs by Justin Clifford Rhody

In Memory of Leigh Markopoulos

The Creative Growth Community was saddened by the sudden loss of our friend and Board Member Leigh Markopoulos.  Leigh was a noted teacher, writer, curator and Chair of the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts.  She was held in high regard by her colleagues and was recognized for her work in the Bay Area and internationally. Leigh was a long time Creative Growth supporter and partner.  She was a member of the Board of Directors, and previously served as Board President.  In 2010, she curated our exhibition Love is a Stranger, which investigated artistic notions of longing and love. Yet Leigh’s primary engagement with the organization came from her deep respect, appreciation and enjoyment of our artists and their studio practice.

Leigh brought this same exuberance and excitement into her interactions with her students. They were a great source of inspiration for her, and she always made a point to bring them to Creative Growth so that they could experience for themselves her love of our artists’ work.

Her list of achievements is long and accomplished. Among them author, curator, editor, and teacher. She will be missed by so many who were fortunate to cross paths with her, and to benefit from her intellect, her warmth, and her genuine support of emerging artists and students.

The Creative Growth Board, staff, and artists send our sincere and heart-felt sympathies to her parents and to her family.

Leigh's family has requested that gifts in her memory be made to Creative Growth to support our studio art program for people with disabilities.

Online donations may be made here. Please let us know the donation is being made in memory of Leigh Markolopous in the special instructions field.   To make a gift by mail, please make checks payable to Creative Growth and mail to: Creative Growth 355 - 24th Street Oakland, CA 94612, USA

By telephone, please call Laura Marshall at 510-836-2340 x17

By email, or for questions please email tom@www.creativegrowth.org

Creative Growth is a 501 c3 non-profit organization.  Our tax ID number is 23-7319028.

Creative Growth Featured | Huffington Post | February 2017

Artists With Disabilities Toy With Gender Norms On And Off The Canvas At studio-gallery Creative Growth, artists are free to make what they want and be who they are.

By Priscilla Frank February 9, 2017

In her 1940 “Self Portrait with Cropped Hair,” Frida Kahlo paints herself in a menswear suit, her long locks lopped off and scattered across the floor like strands of seaweed. In her hand she wields her scissors like a weapon, eyeing the viewer as if posing a challenge.

The portrait casts Kahlo as an artist twice over ― not only does she render her androgynous semblance in paint, but she also constructs her gender-fluid persona in real life, over and over again, with every flowing skirt, menswear suit, floral garland or untamed unibrow.

Kahlo is but one in a long line of artists who have used their bodies and their work as sites to exaggerate, manipulate and topple conventional associations of masculinity and femininity. An exhibition currently on view at Creative Growth, titled “Gender Bender,” features contemporary artists who complicate the gender binary through observation, creativity and play ― both on and off the canvas.

Creative Growth is a gallery in Oakland, California, that represents adult artists with developmental disabilities. The gallery is attached to a studio where approximately 160 artists make work alongside a team of staff and volunteers. Not all of the artists have made work before coming to Creative Growth, but once inside the space, they are considered working contemporary artists ― no disclaimers or caveats ― and are encouraged to pursue whatever creative directions they desire.

The space was established in 1974 by artist and educator Florence Ludins-Katz and her husband Elias Katz, a psychologist. Appalled by the rapid closure of psychiatric hospitals in California during Gov. Ronald Reagan’s tenure, they opened a space in their garage for former state-hospital patients to make art. In a 1990 book recounting their experience, they explain: “Even though a human being may be handicapped or disabled, this does not change his need to fulfill himself to the greatest of his capacity.’’

Over the past 40 plus years, Creative Growth has earned acclaim not only for its philanthropic mission, but for the exceptional caliber of work its artists consistently produce. One of the most renowned in the gallery’s history is Judith Scott, a woman with Down syndrome and deafness who never learned to speak. She learned to communicate while at Creative Growth in 1987 through weaving wild fiber cocoons that wrapped household objects in their tentacle-like grasp. The sculptures have since been shown around the world, including at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the American Folk Art Museum.

Creative Growth holds approximately seven exhibitions a year, thematically organized around work the artists are already creating. “Our exhibitions result from a dialogue with the artists’ work,” Jessica Daniel, Creative Growth’s community development manager told The Huffington Post. The current exhibition, exploring the ways gender can be expressed and unsettled, is no exception.

“We review work from the studio almost daily and it’s the work itself that inspires the exhibitions,” Daniel said. “We follow the artists’ leads. In fact, a huge component of the Creative Growth process is to never direct the artists, but allow them to discover their own voice, point of view and creative practice.”

The current political climate ― formed in part by policies espoused by President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch that threaten the freedom and equality of LGBTQ Americans ― made the topic all the more necessary. “It felt timely and important to engage in the larger conversations of LGBTQ rights,” Daniel said, “especially as the Creative Growth community intersects so often with the LGBTQ community.”

Two Creative Growth artists in particular often return to the imagery of gender in flux.

One is Aurie Ramirez, a Filipino artist whose watercolors depict androgynous, Victorian-era, punk-rock royalty, floating atop clouds and drowning in snacks. Her paintings are instantly identifiable in that they depict a recurring visual fantasy, where rocker queens don fishnet tights, garter belts and harlequin face paint, and their clock-faced compatriots dress in snappy, pinstriped suits.

Ramirez, born in 1962, was diagnosed with autism and has difficulty communicating through speech. When she began working at Creative Growth, she fostered obsessions with the band Kiss and the Addams Family, traces of which are sprinkled throughout her images. Ramirez enacts her interest in makeup, masks and performative identities off the canvas as well. She often sports dramatic makeup, with shapes painted Bowie-style across her face.

Casey Byrnes also helped shape the show with his work. He makes ceramic sculptures of the male nude with various body parts stretched out or shrunken. The figures literally treat the human body like a clay sculpture, visualizing just how easy it is to render certain parts alien, absurd and unrecognizable.

Byrnes, like Ramirez, explores the slippery terrain between genders in his daily life, as well. The artist often wears dresses for the annual Creative Growth fashion show fundraiser. “He’s creating a gorgeous woven panel gown that he will wear on the runway this year,” Daniel said.

The remainder of the featured artists employ equally distinct and playful languages to address the more uncanny manifestations of gender expression. In Carrie Oyama’s fragile watercolor-and-ink paintings, drawn with her non-dominant hand, the lines that separate human forms wiggle and shift, a testament to the unfixed nature of being in a body. “Oyama’s delicate figures certainly relate to her awareness of the human body,” gallery associate Chloe Bensahel added, “having been a dancer in New York in the 1970s.”

Artist Terri Bowden lives with legal blindness, and befriended many people with albinism who also have sight impairments. In her work, Bowden often saps both pop culture icons and wild animals of their usual hair and skin tones, imagining what other creatures would look like if they, too, had albinism. In her featured piece, Bowden alters Michael Jackson, endowing him with white tresses and ‘80s-style makeup, making the King of Pop resemble a relative of Debbie Harry.

In “Gender Bender,” the artists of Creative Growth freely express their creative visions and ornate fantasies in a language uniquely theirs. In the safe space of the art center, they can make what they want to make and, more importantly, be who they want to be.

“Creative Growth Art Center is a place where these artists can be themselves and fully have a voice of their own, outside of whatever norms exist beyond these walls,” Bensahel said. “The artists are given the space to investigate and work with whatever fascinates them, and even if it isn’t always explicit, the work is often a result of their direct experience.”

The timely show is one amongst a string of recent and upcoming exhibitions similarly grappling with questions of gender, sexuality and identity in the modern world. For Daniel, the significance is clear. “It speaks, we hope, to how artists with disabilities are also just simply artists and individuals in the world.”

“Gender Bender” is on view until Feb. 24 at Creative Growth in Oakland, California. 

For original article, visit HuffingtonPost.com.

Creative Growth Featured | BrutForce | January 2017

Imagined Spaces at the 2017 Outsider Art Fair By Brendan McHugh and Ani Kodjabasheva January 31, 2017

On a late Sunday morning, the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan is busy with excitement and a mild sense of urgency. It is the last day of the 2017 Outsider Art Fair, and the opportunities to see old favorites or discover something new are waning–until next year. With sixty-two exhibitors, this is the event’s biggest iteration so far. There is a lot to take in, and the crowd only grows denser throughout the day.

Artists who made their debut at the fair in previous years, some now among the ‘classics’ of outsider art, share walls with newcomers. As we wander around the space, pushed along by the crowds, the exhibitors’ booths reveal their treasures: a Martin Ramirez or Adolf Wölfli; Domenico Zindato’s rhythmic patterns and Hiroyuki Doi’s circles; M’onma‘s nightmarish clown masks and Gil Batle’s carved eggs. It is a walk through memory, with fortuitous surprises along the way. Keep your feet nimble and your mind focused, as it will be a long journey.

A brochure for the fair invites us to see our visit as a “road trip” across the United States and beyond, as we discover local artists along the way. The idea of travel is not just a metaphor: if any single theme emerges from this year’s fair, for us it is architectural and map-like images. Many artworks explore space and place, and create the illusion of being transported to some real or imagined location.

According to Tom di Maria, the director of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, viewers love outsider art precisely because it creates an alternative realm with its own rules for the viewer to journey into. At the panel “From Obscurity to Prominence: The Discovery and Stewardship of Outsider Art,” held in association with the fair, di Maria said that artists at Creative Growth are “privileged” to live in a “little bubble.” They inhabit a world of their own making, where they are beholden only to their imagination. And we, the public, are privileged to be their fellow travelers, and that was the spirit we took with us upon attending the fair.

For original article, visit BrutForce.com.

Creative Growth Out of the Studio

Art and Fashion Panel Discussion at Untitled Art Fair Recorded January 14, 2017

Tom Di Maria (Director of Creative Growth Art Center) leads a discussion with Leigh Markopoulos (Chair of CCA’s Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice), Erica Tanov (Bay Area based fashion and home wear designer), and Ben Ospital (Owner, Modern Appealing Clothing), on the intersection of art and fashion and the nature of inspiration.

https://soundcloud.com/untitledartfairradio/panel-discussion-art-and-fashion

Director's Note | Year End Letter

Dear Friend, When you woke up this morning, what was the first thing you did?

My morning always starts with some exercise and a cup of coffee. For many of our artists at Creative Growth, just the simple journey they take to get to our studio each day can be met with challenges that test their resilience and strength daily.

Meet Monica Valentine.

Usually around 6:30am, a talking alarm wakes Monica up and by 7:30am she’s showered, has brushed her teeth, and is choosing her clothes for the day. She loves dressing in monochromatic colors, especially red. After she chooses her clothes, and before she moves to the kitchen, she makes absolutely sure she has earrings that match her outfit. Very important! Once she’s in the kitchen, she makes her morning cup of tea, packs her fanny pack, and creates her lunch for the day all on her own. Her morning routine ends around 9:00am, when she is picked up by Para-Transit and brought to Creative Growth.

Monica’s morning is as ordinary as anyone else’s start to the day, except for one barrier she faces day in and day out.

Monica is completely blind.

Due to an optic nerve disorder, she lost her eyesight as a child and later her eyes as a young adult. As her sister recounts, since Monica was a young child she has had the ability to determine the color of objects by how much heat she feels radiating from them. In the absence of sight, her sense of touch has amplified her ability to navigate the world through her fingertips.

“I love red because it feels warm." - Monica

Since she first walked in the door in 2013, she has flourished in her arts practice of detailed handwork on foam skulls, boxes, and other shapes using pins, sequins, and small beads. Her execution of intricate color patterns defies what some might expect her to do. Her artistic vision and uncanny sense of touch, coupled with the quality resources and support our studio provides has helped Monica’s artistic practice blossom. Monica is changing the way in which the world views artists with visual and developmental impairments.

With your support we will be able to continue supporting 154 resilient and passionate artists like her.

We’ve had an unprecedented year of accomplishments, and with over 60% of our funding coming from individuals like you, your support has helped our artists continue to make their mark in the contemporary art world.

Some of our notable highlights from this past year are:

• The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. acquired multiple pieces of Dan Miller’s work to be displayed in its permanent collection

• An unparalleled group show of 8 Creative Growth artists opened at the SFO Museum, and was extended through December 2016

• •CGAC artists participated in over 22 outside local, national, and international exhibitions, including our artists’ first presence at: Art Fair Tokyo, Japan; D’Dessin Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair, France; and the Codex Book Fair, Richmond, CA

• •Judith Scott's revolutionary show Bound & Unbound was exhibited in Canada for the first time this year and will head to Europe in 2017

With your pivotal support today, artists like Monica will have the chance to excel in their personal arts practice, and continue to enjoy the following core program services here at Creative Growth:

• $150,000 of high quality art supplies • Transportation from around the Bay Area to Creative Growth • Lunches for those who are unable to bring food • Exhibitions at galleries in five countries • •Support and mentorship from our talented staff six days a week

Monica is a prime example of an artist we are bringing to the forefront of a continually changing conversation around artists with disabilities in both the national and international artistic world. Please join us in this critical conversation and support our work today.

Email me at tom@www.creativegrowth.org if you have questions about what your support will do.

Wishing you peace and creativity this holiday season,

Tom di Maria Director

Jordan King Socks

P.S. With a one-time gift of $250 or a monthly pledge of $15 or more, be the first to receive a special-edition pair of organic cotton socks, designed by new Creative Growth artist, Jordan King.

P.P.S. Remember, you can also shop in our gallery every Saturday in December until Christmas from 10am to 3pm! Or anytime at our online shop.

Shop Creative Growth | New Limited Edition Gift Items

Creative Growth has new artist-inspired items for sale just in time for the Holidays! Discover a set of Old-Fashioned glassware featuring Aurie Ramirez designs, enamel pins from Valerie Tribble and Terri Bowden, shirts with artwork by John Mullins and Lulu Sotelo, a tote bag featuring a dynamic composition by Ray Vickers, Jordan King socks, and select cards. And don't miss the limited edition Edward Walters prints and John Martin shark tee-shirts curated by Park Life's Jamie Alexander. Find the perfect gifts while supporting Creative Growth artists and programs!

SHOP ONLINE HERE

New Artist's Book by John Hiltunen

Books for All Press published a facsimile of John Hiltunen's original artist's book.  Launched during New York Art Book Fair 2016, the book is now available in our Gallery shop. Books for All Press is a non-profit publisher working solely with artists with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities to publish artists' books. These books provide a unique opportunity for the artists and organizations with whom they work to create affordable publications of their work. Whether the works be facsimiles of already created hand made books, works made specifically for book form, or simply a collection of works made by the artist, we hope these publications will bring awareness to the natural creativity possessed by individuals with disabilities and mental illnesses.

Purchase in our Gallery or online from our shop.

Book Details:

John Hiltunen 96 pages, softcover 8.875 x 8.25 inches Edition of 500 ISBN 978-0-9979403-1-2 September 2016

Limited Edition Prints Available | Anthropologie & Co. | Palo Alto

Creative Growth Art Center is thrilled to continue our collaborative relationship with Anthropologie with the opening of the brand new Anthropologie & Co. in Palo Alto, California. A series of limited edition prints by Creative Growth artists Franna Lusson, Edward Walters, Marion Bolton, Susan Janow, and Barry Regan are available at this new concept store, Anthropologie & Co. in Palo Alto and online (click the images below to view the prints online.)

Franna Lusson Print

Ed Walters Print

Marion Bolton Print

Susan Janow Print

Barry Regan Print

Barry Regan Print

Zoetrope: All-Story | Fall 2016 | Guest Designed by Creative Growth

We are pleased to announce the release of the Fall 2016 edition of Zoetrope: All-Story

with special guest designer Creative Growth. Zoetrope: All-Story is a quarterly literary publication founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997 to explore the intersection of story and art, fiction, and film.  The Fall 2016 edition features work by Creative Growth artists Terri Bowden, John Hiltunen, Susan Janow, John Martin, Aurie Ramirez, William Scott, and Alice Wong.

Issues are on sale now at Creative Growth's Gallery shop.  Subscribe to Zoetrope: All Story here.

Cover of Zoetrope: All Story, Fall 2016, Image by John Hiltunen

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