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.

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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.

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2016 Highlights

EXHIBITIONS• Revel • The Curiosity Cabinet • Binaries • Redux • Home 2016 • Manufuturing • Border/Line

OUTSIDE EXHIBITIONS • Oakville Gallery, Ontario • Aspen Art Museum • SFO Museum, San Francisco • Jules Maeght Gallery, San Francisco • Ampersand Gallery, Portland, OR • Good Luck Gallery, Los Angeles • Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles • Cavin Morris, New York • 836M, San Francisco

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ART FAIRS • Outsider Art Fair, New York and Paris • D'Dessin: Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair • Tokyo Art Fair • NADA Miami • LA Art Book Fair • SF Art Book Fair

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PARTNERSHIPS • Anthropologie • Target • Levi’s • Vans/ Nordstrom • New Parkway Theater

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RELEASES • Creative Growth Magazine Issue Number One • Entwined by Joyce Wallace Scott • John Hiltunen's new artist book • Zoetrope: All Story

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LECTURES • University of Oregon, Eugene | Dept. of Folklore • Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C. | Celebrating a new acquisition of work by Dan Miller • Willamette University, OR | As part of a related exhibition at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art • Carson City, NV | In conjunction with their “artists make good neighbors” program • Stanford University | At Cantor Center for the Arts to discuss the History of Outsider Art • Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO | During Judith Scott’s exhibition Bound and Unbound

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Coming Up in 2017

collage_2017 Home @ 836m, San Francisco December 19 - January 27

Untitled Art Fair, San Francisco January 12 - 15

New Museum, New York January 18 Tom di Maria will be a panel speaker discussing representation of self-taught artists

Outsider Art Fair, New York January 19 - 22

Gender Bender, CG Gallery January 26 - February 24

Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair, Paris March 24 - 26

Beyond Trend April 8

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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.

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“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

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.

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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

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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

Franna Lusson Print

Ed Walters Print

Ed Walters Print

Marion Bolton Print

Marion Bolton Print

Susan Janow Print

Susan Janow Print

Barry Regan Print

Barry Regan Print

Barry Regan Print

Barry Regan Print

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