Category Archives: First Fridays!

Creative Growth Gallery – Art Murmur (Act II)

Next stop on our Friday night tour was Creative Growth Gallery on 24th Street near Broadway for their annual holiday show & sale… and what a stop it was! I can’t believe I’ve never been to this place. I think it’s one of those Oaktown secrets. Or maybe I’m just slow.

The Creative Growth Art Center provides studio arts training by professional artists to adults with mental, physical, and developmental disabilities. The center’s mission is “to provide a safe environment that fosters and nurtures the creative process, and to promote and market the art of people with physical, developmental, and emotional disabilities.”

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It was the first of its kind in the nation when established over 30 years ago, and it’s been going strong ever since… producing works of art exhibited in, and collected by, such revered institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, San Francisco’s MOMA, and other major museums & galleries throughout the world.

In 2008 they completed a full one-million dollar plus renovation of their building, to provide their 140 artists “a better, safer and more organized studio and healthier place to be.”  They also opened a gallery in Paris called Galerie Impaire, in order to further the representation of their artists, and provide greater exposure of disabled artists’ works to contemporary art collectors.  These folks aren’t kidding around.

They currently have a holiday window display at Barneys in San Francisco (77 O’Farrell Street), and recently teamed up with celebrated fashion designer Marc Jacobs to produce a limited collection of wallets, t-shirts, and tote & shoulder bags, designed by four Creative Growth artists: Louis Estape, Dan Miller, William Scott, and Gerone Spruill.  Awesome.

From the look of things Friday night, I’d say their holiday sale is one not to be missed… I only wish I was telling you about it beforehand and not after, but you’ll just have to mark your calendars for 2010.

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welcome to magic show, william tyler, art at creative growth

There was an incredible display of the widest variety of art I’ve seen at any of the galleries in Oakland.  They had everything from handmade clothing, to 70’s style latchkey rugs and embroidery work (I bought one of these and it is very cool!), paintings, prints, mixed media, pottery, housewares, greeting cards… the list goes on and on.  In addition to the gallery displayed pieces, the studio area (which is HUGE) was filled to the gills with tables and bins and boxes of bargain basement priced art.  $10 tables, $5 tables, $2 bins…   I bought my Christmas cards (see below) and gifts to boot.

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studio art sale at creative growth, creative growth oakland

Holiday Sale at Creative Growth

Here’s a shot of the cards I got… designed by Lolita Triplette… isn’t it groovy? I love the little dragon tree-topper!

Lolita Triplette christmas card

They also got me for an annual membership.  Gotta support the arts!

And hey, if you missed this one and want to check them out, they have other events throughout the year.  Go to their website and either become a Facebook fan to be kept informed about upcoming events, or better yet, become a member.  You’ll be supporting a fantastic organization, and you’ll get 10% off any art purchases.  What a deal!

Oakland School for the Arts – Art Murmur (Act I)

So last Friday was another First Friday here in Oaktown, and this time I did it a little bit differently. My plan was to focus on galleries and spaces that were specifically set up with holiday sales…

My friend and I were on our way to grab a bite and a drink at Flora, probably my favorite restaurant in Oakland. At this point in time, that’s a pretty high compliment given the slew of fantastic restaurants that are springing up seemingly weekly. Oakland’s dining scene has been getting a lot of press and it’s very exciting. Here are a few samples…

East Bay Express:  America’s Next Great Dining Town

Wall Street Journal:  Oakland’s Temescal Goes From Rundown to Reborn

NYTimes:  36 Hours in Oakland

Diablo Magazine:  One Fine Night: Oakland’s Uptown

I’ve written about Flora before, and I’ll do an even more in-depth story in the future… I have plans for a whole Art Deco series thanks to a suggestion from my friend Jessica. But in the meantime, all you need to know, is they make fantastic cocktails and out of this world food. You’ll likely have to book early to get a reservation on a First Friday, but I’ve had good luck dropping in early and just grabbing a seat at the bar. A fancy libation and small plate delight and you are on your way to murmuring right!

We made our way down the block to a space we had passed earlier while parking… it wasn’t a gallery I was familiar with, and it wasn’t a spot on my list of to-see’s for the night, but hey, when you’re murmuring, you gotta kinda roll with it. And this was clearly a scene worthy of an adjustment to our plans. There was a crowd of people outside and an even larger crowd inside, snaking their way through a labyrinth of gallery walls chock full of art, accompanied by live music, spoken word, and improv rap.  This was a cool scene, and it was mostly kids… real kids.  We had serendipitously stumbled upon the holiday sale of the Oakland School for Visual Arts.

OSA, oakland school for the arts, oakland holiday sale, osa holiday sale

The Oakland School for Visual Arts (OSA) moved to the Fox Theater‘s building (also to be covered during Art Deco Days!) in January of this year. The brain-child of former Mayor Jerry Brown (Wikipedia), OSA is school is a public charter middle & high school with a mission “to provide students with intensive conservatory-style training in the arts while maintaining a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum.” They offer seven core artistic programs: Arts Management, Dance, Instrumental Music, Literary Arts, Theater, Visual Arts, and Vocal Music. Students wishing to attend have to audition to show they’ve got the artistic muster to make it… think Fame!

They currently maintain an attendance rate of 94%, one of the highest in Oakland. And their first senior graduating class (2006), graduated with 100 percent of the class accepted to four-year colleges (Wikipedia). That’s pretty impressive.

In fact, the whole scene was quite impressive. The huge turnout… the talented musicians… the amazing works of art (at bargain basement prices too!) I, for one, emptied my wallet in support of this school and its young artists. My only complaint would be that the lines for buying the art were too long, and that’s not a bad problem to have. Yay for OSA!

oakland school for the arts, small works show and sale, OSA small works sale

oakland holiday art sale, oakland school for the arts

OSA Small works sale, OSA gallery, oakland school for the arts

Check back tomorrow for the futherings of our murmurings… And if you missed the holiday sales this past weekend, check back later in the week for my best effort at a comprehensive list of arty/crafty holiday fairs and events next weekend.

Compound Studios & Gallery

So our next stop on our Art Murmur crawl was just next door to blankspace, at the Compound Gallery & Studios. A much larger space, Compound is home not only to multiple gallery spaces, but 10 artist studios as well, all fully booked. The space was opened by a husband and wife artists Matt and Lena Reynoso in 2008.  You may remember Matt’s name from my very first post… the Suits & Soldiers mural on the Emeryville border.  I’m hoping to have an Artist Interview with him soon. Also his wife Lena has a fantastic website called Curator of Oddities, and she really does have an odd, but fantastic, collection of work… everything from presidential paintings, to gorgeous graphic silk-screened posters, to random expositions on American folklore.  Very cool.

Compound Studios & Gallery

The primary installation in their main gallery is an interesting 3 dimensional landscape of sculptural pieces entitled 3AM: Under the Full Moon, by Christopher Romer. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of this exhibit as it was quite crowded when we arrived, but you can see a slew of pictures on Compound’s home page.  You’ll also find a wonderful write-up of the show there, which is more than you’ll get here, as I am, for all intents and purposes, sculpturally illiterate.

I felt a bit more at home in the adjacent gallery space, the Swee(t)Art Drawing Gallery, also part of Compound. The exhibit there was mostly two-dimensional (more my comfort zone), entitled “The Worship of Water,” curated by Obi Kaufmann and featuring works by several artists.  Here are two pieces by Savanna Snow…

The Worship of Water

And below are works of Shannon Ingraham (I think)… forgive me, but this was a quick tour as I was late to meet friends in the city for Devo. Yes, that’s right, Devo. They rocked.

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One of the cool things about visiting this gallery is that many of the artists’ studios are open to the public as well. We were able to walk through many of the spaces and view creative works in progress…

Another thing this studio/gallery/artist crew does is a really cool subscription service called Art in a Box. For a very reasonable monthly fee ($30 – $50), you receive one new work of fine art each month, in a box. You can specify preferred medium if you like, or just keep it a surprise.  Either way, you’ll be enriching your personal fine art collection, while supporting local artists… over 20 currently participating.  And this service has been so successful in fact, the Compound is seeking out new artists to participate.  You can see their Call to Artists on their Facebook page. Check it out!

Blankspace – This Is Not My Beautiful Life

So last Friday was another “First Friday” here in Oakland, and friends and I did an abbreviated gallery crawl this month, hitting two of the three galleries in the Golden Gate district of Oakland.  Didn’t know there was a Golden Gate district in Oakland?!? It was recent news to me too, but this tiny Oakland outcropping, stretching just north and east of Emeryville and just south of Berkeley, has apparently gone by this name since the late 1800’s.  The area was originally developed as the town of Klinknerville in 1885, changed it’s name to Golden Gate in 1888 (smart move), and was annexed to Oakland in 1897 [Wikipedia].

After drinks at Kitty’s, we made our way to blankspace gallery located at 66th Street and San Pablo. The contemporary art space consists of one main gallery room with a smaller gallery shop off to the right when you first enter, filled with small-scale affordable local artists’ wares. The space was first redeveloped from an old Bait & Tackle shop (I love that the old sign still exists) and was originally launched as Lucky Tackle gallery by Jason Byers back in 2002.  He now co-directs the space with Kerri Johnson.

Blankspace Gallery

The exhibit this month (opening reception was in late October) is titled This Is Not My Beautiful Life, an interesting twist on the Talking Heads’ song “Once in a Lifetime” written by David Byrne…

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

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Two artists (Michael Hall and Daniel Healey) shared the gallery, each with entirely different styles and techniques, but both focused on themes of “history, domesticity, and narrative.”

Healey’s pieces were rather large but meticulously constructed out of tiny collage bits, most originating from vintage magazines and other historical materials (though he was quite secretive about his process!) Some of the tiny elements could easily be recognized as home wares from some type of catalog, perhaps an old Sears & Roebuck… shelving, handtrucks, etc. Yet many were harder to identify, and some even had a tissue paper translucency to them that was quite beautiful when layered.

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I love this image above, because these patrons look perplexed… one literally scratching his head, trying to figure out how and out of what were these constructed, what they now represent, and most importantly, what does it mean?!

My friends debated the perspective from which to view these images. Some saw them as maps of a sort, as though viewed from the sky above…. landmasses jutting out into an abyss of some greater homogeneous body. I preferred to view them from my feet-planted-on-the-ground perspective, and to me they looked like fantastical creatures, blob-like with arms and heads and claws protruding. Here is another…

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Michael Hall’s pieces also begin with vintage photographs, though his work is more interested in the historical narratives found within. His canvasses were more traditional paintings than Healey’s, but the incorporation of elements such as date stamping, square formatting, and borders, gave clues to the photographic origination of the images.

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I am sorry that I don’t have more photos of his work here… my representation is not particularly balanced as each artist occupied half the gallery space. Please note it is no indication of preference… I found the subtle palettes and quite moments of Hall’s imagery lovely, and a perfect contrast to the vibrant chaos of Healey’s.  The show is up until November 15th… you can go see for yourself.

Tomorrow we go to our second stop of the night… Compound Gallery & Studios.