Category Archives: galleries

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.

creative growth holiday sale, creative growth art

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!

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.

Adam5100 & Rowan Morrison

Remember the hand stencil from SF Shout Out! the other day? Here’s the Oaktown version…

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It’s actually two hands… can you see that?

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I did a little research and found out (thanks to the gracious folks at Rowan Morrison, exterior pictured below) that the artist responsible is Adam5100. He’s a CCAC (now CCA) graduate who channeled his graffiti skills into more formal printmaking techniques there. He’s known for his use of complex multi-layered stencils, typically applied on canvas rather than concrete. If you check out his website, you’ll get the idea… it’s amazing these images are created with stencils! Here are a couple of my favs:
http://www.adam5100.com/display_image.php?image=36
http://www.adam5100.com/display_image.php?image=35

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He installed “the hand” on the side of Rowan Morrison’s building in June of 2008 in conjunction with a solo show there, entitled “The Heart Vs. The Mind in a Fight to the Finish”. I love that! Here are a couple snaps of the process, provided by Rowan Morrison (more on them further down this post… )

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He currently is exhibiting at White Walls in San Francisco for their exhibit, The Stencil Show which is up until 11/7, and also has a piece in London’s Stolen Space Gallery as part of local boys Green Day‘s commissioned pieces designated to accompany their new album 21st Century Breakdown. This guy is prolific!

And I found this great video of him doing a tiny stencil… basically a trailer for the solo show at RM. It’s only a minute long… you have to check this out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsqQWNkTTo

Now to Rowan Morrison… I hope you’re still with me, because this is a cool space. They’re located on 40th street near Broadway and have limited hours, but you can check them out on Fridays & Saturdays between 11am-6pm, or by special appointment. Run by husband and wife artists Pete Glover & Narangkar Glover (also CCA graduates), RM is a gallery/bookstore specializing in artist books, home grown ‘zines and special edition prints. They’ve got a great space for perusing these items in person, but if you’re more virtually inclined, they have an online store and a great blog about art books.  Please check them out.

And if you happen to make your way there… you can grab a bite to eat at Mama’s Royal Cafe just around the corner on Broadway.  I’ll probably do a whole post about Mama’s sometime in the future because it’s certainly worthy (full of funky art and fantastic food) and is simply one of my all-time oakland favs…  In the meantime, I’ll simply say, “It’s the best!”

Oh… one last thing.  We’re headed to the cemetery tomorrow… mwa ha ha haaaa!