A Minute With Creative Growth Art Center
Hi! This is a newsletter about artists I like.
I began acquiring art through some friends who worked in galleries. I started small, working on a limited budget for stuff I could afford. As time passed, my collection grew, and it was exciting to watch many of the artists I'd collected go on to bigger shows and critical acclaim. My goal with this newsletter is to make a digestible resource for anyone interested in artists making excellent (and still affordable!) work whom you haven't heard about... yet.
I’ve admired Creative Growth for a while now and was excited to see some teaser posts about their exhibition with the SF Moma. Along with the exhibition, CG was also celebrating its 50th year of serving artists with disabilities and providing support for their artistic needs.
I wanted to thank Ibby Sasso, the Director of Marketing & Communications at Creative Growth, who reached out and started this. She connected me to Tom di Maria, the Director of External Relations, who has been with Creative Growth for over 20 years.
From an art buying perspective, I can’t think of another place to buy and support such amazing artists and an organization. They also make it easy to do that because their online shop is terrific. I bought a work from Nicole Storm that is one of my favorite works that I get to live with. Also, their collaboration with skate brand All Timers is great: BUY HERE.
Thank you Ibby and thank you Tom!
How did the 50th show come to be and how long has that been in the works?
TDM: The collaboration between Creative Growth and SFMoMA, initiated by the new director, Chris Bedford, signifies an unprecedented integration of artists with disabilities into the contemporary art world. When Chris arrived in San Francicso he came for a visit and asked me what a partnership with SFMoMa might look like. I responded that a good start would be inclusion of CG artists into the SFMoMa collection, an exhibition to celebrate that work, and partnerships with Creative Growth as we hosted symposia and celebratory events for our 50th anniversary year.
Through multiple visits and curatorial insights, the partnership has led to the acquisition of works by eleven artists for SFMoMA's collection, marking a historic inclusion of disability art within a major contemporary museum setting. This move not only challenges institutions to foster greater accessibility and inclusion but also offers visitors a unique, uninhibited experience of artistic expression, advancing understanding and appreciation of diverse communicative strategies.
What do you think has allowed Creative Growth to remain such a force for 50 years?
TDM: I think it speaks to the undeniable power of art and our belief that together we can form supportive and hopeful places on earth for us to feel creative and meaningful. Those places survive because we need them, now more than ever.
Can you talk about the artists you want to share and what our readers may want to know? How can they purchase the work by these artists?
TDM: We worked with the SFMoma curators for a year to select suites of work by 11 artists for the first phase of our partnership. Their brief biographies are included below, but we really encourage everyone to come to the museum and encounter the work on its own terms.
The artists in the acquisition and exhibition are represented by the Creative Growth gallery and collectors can reach us at gallery@creativegrowth.org
The eleven artists are:
TDM: Josef Alef (b. 1981, Berkeley, California), who has practiced at Creative Growth 2001–2008 and 2013 to the present, creates abstract paintings that burst with energy. Their rhythmic compositions are filled with an expressive vocabulary of layered marks.
Before moving to Creativity Explored in 2001, Camille Holvoet (b. 1952, San Francisco) practiced at Creative Growth from 1988 to 2001. Holvoet creates psychologically rich drawings reflecting her memories, fascinations and daily life, exploring subjects ranging from the prescribed medicine she takes to her disorienting move to a new home.
A Creative Growth artist since 2003, Susan Janow (b. 1980, San Francisco, California) creates work across a range of media, including drawing, ceramics and video. Her best-known work, Questions (2018), is a 10-minute single-channel video that shifts between standard interview-like questions and personal inquiries.
Dwight Mackintosh (b. Hayward, California, 1906–1999) was 72 years old when he began working at Creative Growth in 1979. Over his 20 years at the organization, he developed a singular style of looped, radiating figures that blur the boundaries between internal and external body structures, inspired in part by his experiences with X-rays and a tonsillectomy at age 12. Other subjects include buses, musical instruments, self-portraits and an invented text that he transformed into flowing graphic imagery.
John Martin (b. 1963, Marks, Mississippi) has practiced at Creative Growth since 1986. Using vividly colored drawings, ceramics and woodwork, Martin combines memories of his childhood on a farm in Mississippi with his present life in Oakland.
Featured in the 2017 Venice Biennale, Dan Miller (b. 1961, Castro Valley, California) is one of Creative Growth’s most widely known artists. A Creative Growth artist since 1992, Miller works ambidextrously, using both hands to create densely layered paintings and works on paper. Words, numbers and punctuation populate the compositions, along with building materials and electrical objects. His clusters of drawn or typed words skate fluidly between elements to see and elements to read.
Donald Mitchell (b. 1951, San Francisco, California) Donald Mitchell’s drawings and sculptures explore the human figure, which he portrays as block-like bodies in dense crowds. His compositions often feature smears of color, while others are rendered in black and white, with a starkness that suggests anonymity and an air of loneliness. He has been a Creative Growth artist since 1986.
Judith Scott (b. 1943, Columbus, Ohio; died 2005, Dutch Flat, California) was an internationally known Creative Growth artist. Her work was featured in a retrospective organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2014 and included in the 2017 Venice Biennale. Scott started working at Creative Growth when she was 43 years old and created art there for the next 18 years, until her death in 2005. Her intricate, layered sculptures use yarn, twine and strips of fabric to wrap and knot around an array of mundane everyday objects.
William Scott (b. 1964, San Francisco, California) has worked at Creative Growth for over 30 years and his work was previously acquired by SFMOMA in 2017. Scott’s portraits feature personal heroes, celebrities, politicians and church and family members. He often depicts them as alternate or future versions of themselves. Scott also re-creates the San Francisco cityscape in drawings and paintings that are meticulous and map-like, yet still engage in fantasy, for instance through characters like Godzilla or UFOs boarded by citizens of “Praise Frisco,” Scott’s name for his hopeful, gospel-filled vision of a future San Francisco.
Ron Veasey (b. 1957, Las Vegas, Nevada) Ron Veasey’s brilliantly colored portraits are inspired by a wide range of source material, including fashion magazines, photography books and National Geographic. Veasey isolates figures on the page, outlining them in black marker and filling the flattened forms with bold colors and patterns. By capturing subtle details, direct gazes and strong poses, Veasey highlights confident and intense personas that he has honed over more than forty years at Creative Growth.
Alice Wong (b. 1980, Hong Kong) For the past decade, Alice Wong has used vintage photographic portraits donated to Creative Growth as the foundation for her paintings. She obscures the forms and faces with acrylic markers and enamel to reimagine them in bright, artificial colors. In revitalizing decades-old imagery of anonymous people, she renews their relevance in ways that are both disorienting and humorous. Wong has worked at Creative Growth since 2003.
With working with 140+ artists, how challenging is it with amount of space at your facility to give each artist their space to work? Or is it more of scheduling? Are there other challenges that you are focusing on and trying to figure out?
TDM: Even with the large industrial building we work in, space is always an issue. Artists like to spread out sometimes and that can be a challenge. We have room to support 90 artists a day and adjust our schedules with the artists to accommodate that daily limit. Some come everyday, some fewer. The whole world is changing right now for artists with disabilities and we work to support our artists leadership in the field as we celebrate this historic exhibition at SFMoma.
I’m in Florida and I help people with disabilities find jobs, I wish there was something like this here in North Florida as there aren’t a ton of creative outlets for some of the people I am working with. Are there any online classes or videos CG offers?
TDM: Creative Growth does offer some excellent resources. Creative Growth hosts an annual symposium known as the "Creating Community Symposium," which provides valuable insights and networking opportunities. The 5th Annual Symposium is scheduled for May 20-23, 2024, and it takes place both in Oakland at the Creative Growth Art Center and at SFMOMA in San Francisco. Although this event is in-person, it could be an excellent opportunity for learning and connection if you are able to travel. You can learn more about this symposium and register through our website: Creative Growth Symposium 2024.
Are there any plans for CG to expand in the near future?
TDM: Yes! While expansion is too strong a word in this case, we are opening a new store front location in a new housing development for people with disabilities in Berkeley, and we are excited to support our community there as well. Stay tuned as our plans take form!
Who should we have on next?
TDM: Phillip March Jones from March Gallery in NYC