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Happy Birthday Creativity Explored!

Director’s Corner

This Director’s Corner was written by Pilar Olabarria, a Creativity Explored Teaching Artist.

Little did I know that when I walked in for my first day on the job at Creativity Explored in May of 1984, that I would still be walking into the center with the same readiness and enthusiasm nineteen years later. At that time, Creativity Explored was a year old and had sixteen member artists attending classes. With the help of the director, Ray Patlan and the teacher, Chuy Campusano — two muralists who started the program under the direction of Florence and Elias Katz — I was able to grasp the job and to appreciate the extraordinary world of people with disabilities.

The first thing that attracted me about the artists was their faces, their sparkling eyes and radiant smiles. They were the faces of loving, stubborn, smart and hard-working individuals — Heidi Hennessy, Melody Lima, Eddy Hippley, Michael Bernard Loggins, Lolita Pemberton, Larry Cather, Kevin Wong, David Jarvey, Ambrose Guillermo, Douglas Sheran, just to name a few. And minute by minute I was amazed by their capacity to welcome a new person into their lives.

Naturally, Toby Calonico cursed at me during our introduction and Linda Davenport covered her ears and screamed when I asked about her artwork. Some things remain the same — Toby still curses at me and Linda, when upset, still screams — but during my first year at the center, some things changed. New member artists arrived: Cam Quach, who spoke not one word of English, and Vincent Jackson, who arrived with a Macy’s shopping bag full of crafts materials dangling from one arm, saying “my case manager said that I can do art and crafts here.” My answer to him was “Art, yes! Crafts, probably not!” Today, Cam — whose ceramics are collected by many patrons — communicates in English and Vincent is a successful, indefatigable multimedia artist.

During these ninenteen years, I’ve witnessed relationships flourish and disappear, artists arrive and move away and, sadly, have experienced some deaths. One of my most loving memories is the day when two member artists, Heidi Hennessy and Vernon Streeter got married and a handful of us attended the wedding on a boat floating in the bay. My date for the day was Douglas Sheran, dressed by his caretaker in an elegant outfit. As we cruised through the bay, I watched him devour all the food and soda he wished — he drank every drop, ate every morsel and then proceeded to measure the length of the boat with the cotton string that he carried with him all the time. Douglas spent the first forty years of his life in a state hospital and abundance of good things was not part of his experience, even a drop of soda or a crumb were, and still are, precious to him.

Funerals were also events we attended as a group and they always brought unique moments into my life. One thing our member artists have is honesty — they speak what they feel. Sometimes that honesty is present in situations that require some tact, such as at the time when a group of us walked down the aisle at a funeral to view the body of an older female artist and Michael Loggins loudly exclaimed “Pilar, this one is not our Grace! Grace never wore glasses and make up!” He was right — that face was not entirely our sweet Grace, but the creation of a well-intended student mortician.

Sometimes death hit me harder than I expected. Smart and mischevious Duncan was special to me. His hobby, or perhaps his artistry, was to cut all the string from the staff’s aprons and tie them together to create a long string of knots and tangles which, when finished, he hid in places we did not dare to check. When Duncan died, I felt lonesome for a time.

Today, Creativity Explored has two centers and more than a hundred artists. We are well-known in our community and around the world. Our patrons, with their generous support, have given us the opportunity to keep making art. Our donors have made it possible to have a great gallery and artists in the community have donated their time and talent to doing public projects with our members.

I believe that it is thanks to all of those caring forces that the teaching staff has stayed at Creativity for so many years and has shaped the center into a nurturing, challenging and familiar place. For me, after nineteen years, Creativity Explored still is a place where even in the saddest moments I can find smiling eyes looking into my face; it is a place where each morning as I walk down Sixteenth street and see Sara O’Sullivan’s excited face waiting for me, I know that it is going to be a promising day.

Pilar Olabarria
Teaching Artist

# Posted on May 13, 2003