Creative Growth Art Center in "San Francisco" - Season 9 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

[Music Playing]

Oh, I like painting, I like doing clay.

All artwork.

This is one of my square drawings

that I've done.

This drawing I have done right here

makes me feel good

and I show my inspiration.

My name is Jackie

and I am going to take you on a tour.

That is a ceramics class.

This is the work class, right here

and there's sewing right here.

What're you sewing, Theresa?

My magic robe.

Oh, okay. Her magic robe. Okay.

That's a teacher right here.

How're you doing?

It is a great equalizer.

That transcends language.

That transcends culture.

That transcends disability.

Creative growth is about

artistic expression as a form of
self empowerment

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

"this is who I am in the world".

Blue is cold and yellow is warm.

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

I can tell by the feel.

Feel?

Yep, the compartments, you know?

So what is the feel of green?

Green is like freezing,
red is hot.

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

Yes.

Monica's been fascinated with color
ever since she was

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

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

Do you have a favorite foam shape
to work on?

I like the logs,

the cubes,

the little tiny cubes,

and the spheres.

Logs, tiny cubes, and spheres.

Yeah, and the cakes too.

Yeah, and the cakes turned out great.

Yep.

I see her becoming more and more dedicated
to her art

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

and for that, I feel so happy.

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

Yes, um, my name is Rosena Finister

[Crowd whooping and clapping]

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

That's where I'm from.

This is the type of art that I
started doing.

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

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

they've never made art before
in their lives,

and we kind of welcome that.

Because it allows us to see who they are.

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

we don't teach in a traditional way.

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

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

"what color do you like"?

Tell us your story.

[Jazzy music playing]

I've been coming here since 1992

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

like, different people.

And stars -- movie stars.

There are wholesome people.

Wholesome encounters.

What do you like to look at?

I like that one.

This one?

Yeah.

Look at that one?
This is what?

What do you call the name
of this painting?

"Inner Limits".

William is just such a brilliant artist.

And look at this.

Beautiful piece.

Do you remember making this?

I remember.

That's what? Praise Frisco?

Yeah.

He envisions through his work
a utopian reality that he creates

for us all to live in.

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

places where bad neighborhoods are safe,

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

And, he believes the painting will be
powerful enough

to make that a reality.

Riding on the spaceship,
there's not gonna be no more evils.

No more aliens, no more monsters,

no more evils.

Uh-huh.

Creative Growth is really a
Bay Area story.

The disability rights movement in the
early 1970s,

Creative Growth really comes from that.

So, during that time, people with
disabilities in institutions

were suddenly deinstitutionalized.

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

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

I'm just doing a tree right now.

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

of society.

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

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

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

Creative Growth, the nonprofit gets half
the money.

We buy supplies and support the
artists with that money.

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

and you can buy something for
75,000 dollars.

It's exactly like the contemporary art
world.

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

and highly sought after, the prices go up.

And Creative Growth artists follow that
same path.

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

As an artist, Judith Scott transcended
this difficult situation.

Where she was separated from her
family and institutionalized

for almost 40 years.

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

and she was isolated.

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

And, her method to talk to us

was art.

The process is very important to her

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

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

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

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

who an artist can be.

[Mumbling]

Right?

Right.

[Mumbling]

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

He builds literally words on top of
each other to form

his communication with the world.

Do you want me to pull it down?

Yeah!

Pull it gently, right?

Right.

[Mumbling]

Right.

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

There's this person behind this barrier

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

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

to people.

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

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

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

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

He's clear about what he wants to do.

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

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

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

[Music]

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

as an artist.

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

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

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

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

not a pavilion of the freak show.

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

and that's what they both did.

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

in the world today.

We shouldn't need to exist.

Dan should've gotten this in school.

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

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

that we're here and we love our artists,

but they should have access to creative
outlets.

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

To be seen as not creative.

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

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

as a person.

I look at all these people who -- they're
all coming back to new lives?

Yeah, they're families.

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

They're gonna have good lives.

Uh-huh.

They're gonna have good lives.

Uh-huh

[People talking]

To learn more about Art21 and our
educational resources,

please visit us online at pbs.org/art21.

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

To order, visit shop.pbs.org, or call
1(800) PLAY-PBS.

This program is available for download

on ITunes.