[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 69 (Thursday, May 13, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E953-E954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CELEBRATION OF THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CREATIVE GROWTH ART CENTER, 
                              OAKLAND, CA

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 13, 1999

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in celebration of the 25th Anniversary 
of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California, This milestone 
was commemorated on May 7th with friends, distinguished guests, 
collectors and partners from many communities of the arts, business, 
educational, therapeutic and political, who joined in tribute to the 
organization's 25 years of community service.

[[Page E954]]

  Creative Growth Art Center was the first program of its kind in the 
country for people with disabilities. It provided national leadership 
in innovative programming in the fields of art and disabilities. Open 
to any adult who is physical, mentally or emotionally disabled and 
interested in art, it is internationally renowned for the quality of 
the art work by its studio artists, and is a model for many other 
programs throughout the country. The mission of the organization is to 
provide an environment where the visual arts can flourish, where people 
with disabilities have opportunities for creative expression and can 
achieve at the highest level. The organization also serves as an 
advocate for the arts and artists with disabilities.
  Initiated with a National Endowment for the Arts grant, more than 
4,000 people a year visit the art gallery, the first gallery in the 
country dedicated to the art produced by people with disabilities. The 
organization has been a trendsetter, featuring exhibitions which paired 
the work of well-known Bay Area artists beside that of severely 
disabled artists. Create Growth presented the first exhibition in the 
United States of Russian Outsider artists from the Humanitarian Center 
Museum in Moscow. In 1994, in conjunction with the Oakland Museum, it 
held the first Outsider Art symposium on the West Coast. The Center's 
enriched environment, as well as the creative process itself, provides 
beneficial results to program participants. Many studio artists have 
developed into award-winning artists whose works are exhibited and 
sought after by collectors the world over. Dwight Mackintosh, Gerone 
Spurill, William Scott, to name a few, are classic examples of Outsider 
artists who crossed over from the alternative gallery scene into 
mainstream art. A younger group of studio artists is carving out its 
own success with Camille Holvoet, featured in Truth from Darkness, a 
traveling exhibition of the work of people with mental illness. 
Creative Growth artists Juan Aguilera and Carmen Quinones were paired 
with Mexican artist Maria Luisa de Mateo in Arte Sin Fronteras, to 
demonstrate the artists' unique cultural influences. Studio artists 
just completed a 109 square foot tile wall mural at the Palo Alto city 
entrance. Adding Light is a limited edition print portfolio by able and 
disabled artists, a project cosponsored by the California arts Council. 
In San Francisco, the Grill of the Tenderloin, of the California 
Culinary Academy, is decorated with imaginative art by artists from 
Creative Growth Act Center.
  Among its artists whose works have been immortalized in books are 
Dwight Machintosh and Judith Scott. Scott, who is deaf and has Downs 
Syndrome, has been in the studio for 11 years and creates wrapped 
sculptures of yarn and fabric, using armatures of discarded materials.
  I build on the words of my predecessor, Congressman Ron Dellums, ``. 
. . that creativity is a human quality that not only transcends 
boundaries presented by mental and physical disabilities but national 
boundaries as well.'' Creative Growth Art Center provides the 
opportunity for us to understand that people with disabilities enrich 
and revitalize the community's cultural life.

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