Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Creative Growth at 50: A Visual History
Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland, CA
September 13 – November 16, 2024
In Creative Growth at 50: A Visual History, Creative Growth Art Center celebrates their golden jubilee with an exhibition of artists they have hosted during their fifty year tenure in Oakland.
Creative Growth has maintained a commitment to their mission since their founding in 1974: to uplift artists with developmental, mental, and physical disabilities through the support and representation of their work. I first learned about Creative Growth in the spring of this year, when SFMOMA announced the acquisition of over 100 works from Creative Growth artists in concurrence with an exhibition of said works, entitled The House That Art Built (that is still up until October!). I’m looking forward to visiting the Creative Growth hub for the first time for this exciting milestone!
I am hoping to see more of the work of John Hiltunen, whose animal-human hybrid collages exude gentle playfulness alongside an astute diligence and, respectfully, remind me of the Animorphs book series that populated my elementary school library (and likely yours too) in the early 2000s.
Reflection: In your daily life, how do you prioritize your personal creative growth?
Misfit Memoirs
Happy House, San Francisco, CA
Opening September 6, 2024
Located in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, Happy House is a gift shop specializing in vintage tchotchke and artist-made goods. After moving to a larger location on historic Grant Avenue, they debuted a small gallery in the loft space above the retail sphere that shows thoughtful and distinctive exhibitions by guest curators and features local artists.
This month we have Misfit Memoirs curated by Brooke Farrington. This multimedia celebration finds beauty in what some may consider kooky or strange. This exhibition captures both literal and symbolic portraits of “misfits,” asking the viewer to consider their biases and what we can find in common with them.
It makes sense that Happy House is the venue for such a show. A self described “psychedelic general store,” the colorful storefront has named uplifting the Bay Area arts community as a central value since opening in 2022. The space itself is imbued with the idiosyncrasy that Misfit Memoirs seeks to uplift, an array of distinctive items so thoughtfully curated that it feels as though each one could have a story attached to it. I’m looking forward to seeing what else they have in store (pun intended) going forward.
Reflection: What is your relationship to “fitting in?”
Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s –1960s From the Collection of Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem
Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, CA
September 19, 2024 – May 5, 2025
In my work in art museum education, I often used a painting called “At Five in the Afternoon” by Robert Motherwell (1950) in facilitations with visitors. A series of irregular black shapes against an eggshell background, with thin lines etched in contorted patterns throughout the work, the painting depicts the devastation of Spain after the Spanish Civil War in 1936. I find that without sharing context, visitors easily catch on to the visceral agitation and unease the artist sought to exemplify, and relate those emotions back to a time in their life where they felt similar tension. Teaching with this painting drove home a point for me that I already knew, but finally understood: the abstract can be the most moving, most deeply personal works, despite the lack of literal depiction that can leave room for potential confusion.
The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art’s most recent exhibition, Light into Density: Abstract Encounters 1920s–1960s From the Collection of Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, sets out to capture the evocative nature of abstraction. I was initially drawn to this exhibition because of its distinctive premise—it is entirely curated and designed by thirty undergraduate and graduate students in art history, studio art, and design courses at UC Davis! The exhibition features work from renowned artists such as Salvdor Dalí and Vassily Kandinsky, and invites visitors to make sense of their unique visual languages that, perhaps to our surprise, reflect our lives back to us with great precision.
Reflection: Consider a time where an artwork reflected your emotions. What qualities about the work made that possible?