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[Music Playing]

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Oh, I like painting, I like doing clay.

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I like all my artwork.

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This is one of my square drawings

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that I've done.

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This, uh, drawing right here,

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it makes me feel good

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and I show my inspiration.

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My name is Jackie

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and I am going to take you on a tour.

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I'll show you, that is a ceramics class.

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This is the work class, right here

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and there's sewing right here.

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What're you sewing, Theresa?

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My magic robe.

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Oh, okay. Her magic robe. Okay.

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And that's a teacher right here.

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How're you doing?

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Art is a great equalizer.

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That transcends language.

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That transcends culture.

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That transcends disability.

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Creative growth is about

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artistic expression as a form of
self empowerment

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as a form of aesthetic development,
as a form of saying

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"this is who I am in the world".

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Blue is cold and yellow is warm.

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How do you know when you're reaching in 
there what you're getting out?

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I can tell by the feel.

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The feel?

31
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Yep, the compartments, you know?

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So what is the feel of green?
What is that?

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Green feels like freezing,
red is hot.

34
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So you're working with freezing and hot
right now?

35
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Yes.

36
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Monica's been fascinated with color
ever since she was really

37
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a wee child, and I think losing her sight
opened up a different connection

38
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to the world of light, and shadow,
and color.

39
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Do you have a favorite foam shape 
to work on?

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I like the logs,

41
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the cubes,

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the little tiny cubes,

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and the spheres.

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Logs, tiny cubes, and spheres.

45
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Yeah, and the cakes too.

46
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Yeah, and the cakes turned out great.

47
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Yep.

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I see her becoming more and more dedicated
to her art

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and it seems to fulfill her in deeper and 
deeper ways,

50
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and for that, I feel so happy.

51
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You know? Because she has so much to offer
the world.

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Yes, um, my name is Rosena Finister

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[Crowd whooping and clapping]

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and I'm from a small town in Louisiana,
where all the poor people live at.

55
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That's where I'm from.

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This is the first type of art that I 
started doing.

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Creative Growth currently serves 
162 artists at our studio every week.

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When people come to the Creative Growth
studio, for the most part

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they've never made art before 
in their lives,

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and we kind of welcome that.

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Because it allows us to see who they are.

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And, you know, there's no
right or wrong;

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we don't teach in a traditional way.

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We say, you know, "what would you like
to do?",

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"what are you thinking about", "what did 
you dream about",

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"what color do you like"?

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Tell us your story.

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[Jazzy music playing]

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I've been coming here since 1992

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I like to paint, I like to draw, and
I like paintings of people --

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like, different people.

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And stars -- movie stars.

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There are wholesome people.

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Wholesome encounters.

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What do you like to look at?

76
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I like that one.

77
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This one?

78
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Yeah.

79
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Look at that one?
This is what?

80
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What do you call the name
of this painting?

81
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"Inner Limits".

82
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William is just such a brilliant artist.

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And look at this.

84
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Beautiful piece.

85
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Do you remember making this?

86
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I remember.

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That's what? Praise Frisco?

88
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Yeah.

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He envisions through his work
a utopian reality that he creates

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for us all to live in.

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A world where people who have died
come back to life,

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places where bad neighborhoods are safe,

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where his family is happy, 
where the world is peaceful.

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And, he believes the painting will be
powerful enough

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to make that a reality.

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Riding on the spaceship, wholesome
encounter spaceship.

97
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There's not gonna be no more evils.
No more aliens, no more monsters,

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no more evils.

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Uh-huh.

100
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Creative Growth is really a
Bay Area story.

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The disability rights movement in the
early 1970s,

102
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Creative Growth really comes from that.

103
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So, during that time, people with
disabilities in institutions

104
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were suddenly deinstitutionalized.

105
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So, artists came together in Oakland,
and put paint on a table,

106
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and said "well, these people are gonna
come here; creativity is the path forward"

107
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I'm just doing a tree right now.

108
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And, people with disabilities can
communicate and be a vital part

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of society.

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Part of the Creative Growth plan when you 
come here and make art,

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is that we represent you, and you show
your work in the gallery.

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If the work sells, the artist gets half 
the money.

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Creative Growth, the nonprofit gets half
the money.

114
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We buy supplies and support the
artists with that money.

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If you came to Creative Growth, you could
buy something for 10 dollars,

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and you can buy something for 
75,000 dollars.

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It's exactly like the contemporary art
world.

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As an artist's work develops, and it gets
into collections, and museums,

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and is highly sought after, 
the prices go up.

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And Creative Growth artists follow that
same path.

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Judith Scott is one of the most well-
known Creative Growth artists.

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As an artist, Judith Scott transcended
this difficult situation.

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Where she was separated from her
family and institutionalized

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for almost 40 years.

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She was Deaf and it wasn't known, so she
never developed language,

126
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and she was isolated.

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So in her 40's, she comes to 
Creative Growth.

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And, her method to talk to us

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was art.

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The process is very important to her

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and the result of that process with these
sculptures, with hidden objects,

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and accumulated, protected things that 
were sacred or important to her.

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I think Judith Scott's role in
contemporary art is that

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she has opened the door for a lot
of people to see

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who an artist can be.

136
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[Mumbling]

137
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Right?

138
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Right.

139
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[Mumbling]

140
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You know, Dan's work is based on words.

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He builds literally words on top of 
each other to form

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his communication with the world.

143
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Do you want me to pull it down?

144
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Yeah!

145
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Pull it gently, right?

146
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Right.

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[Mumbling]

148
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Right.

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We still don't know a lot about autism,
but there's this big barrier there.

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There's this person behind this barrier

151
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and he can't communicate in a way that
you and I can communicate with each other.

152
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And to put himself down on this paper, 
that's Danny's opportunity to talk

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to people.

154
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Dan's work has definitely progressed in 
the years he's been here.

155
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Dan became more and more interested
in the graphic qualities of the letters,

156
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of how to use paint, how to use the brush,
how to work on massive pieces of paper.

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He's very sophisticated, and he's a
colorist.

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He's clear about what he wants to do.

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You know? And I think when you see that
urgency in his work, it's because it's so

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important to him, and because its so
important for us to know who he is;

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that he has thoughts like we do, that 
he's smart, that he's not to be dismissed.

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[Music]

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Dan Miller is in the Venice Biennale this
year, which is this amazing achievement

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for him as an artist.

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It happens to be in the same room in the 
Venice Biennale as Judith Scott.

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So, here are these two colleagues --
their work looking right at each other

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in a pavilion of contemporary artistry,
using color in a powerful way.

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Not a pavilion of disability, not a
pavilion of the self taught,

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not a pavilion of the freak show.

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It's presented as an artist, making a
statement about the world today,

171
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and that's what they both did.

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They both have, like every artist, a 
history that informs who they are

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in the world today.

174
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We shouldn't need to exist.

175
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Dan should've gotten this in school.

176
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Or William should've had this 
opportunity his whole life.

177
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It shouldn't be that Creative Growth has 
to be here for those people; I am thrilled

178
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that we're here and we love our artists,

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but they should have access to creative 
outlets.

180
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It's a human rights issue -- to be 
diminished somehow.

181
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To be seen as not creative.

182
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When those prejudices go away, then
our artists have the same potential

183
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to lead the culture, to be a part of our
world, to inform me of who I am

184
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as a person.

185
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Look at all these people who -- they're
all coming back to new lives?

186
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Yeah, they're families.

187
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And what kind of lives are they going
to have now that they're back?

188
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They're gonna have good lives.

189
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Uh-huh.

190
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They're gonna have good lives.

191
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Uh-huh

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[People talking]

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To learn more about Art21 and our
educational resources,

194
00:13:08,642 --> 00:13:12,642
please visit us online at pbs.org/art21.

195
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Art in the Twenty-First Century, Season 9
is available on DVD.

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00:13:22,613 --> 00:13:29,733
To order, visit shop.pbs.org, or call
1(800) PLAY-PBS.

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This program is available for download

198
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on ITunes.