Public Art Project Call to Artists

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APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday, October 26, 2012 (5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time)
Applications should be sent to Steven Young, Executive Director at The Crucible via email, stevenyoung@thecrucible.org. Applications will not be accepted after the deadline.

ELIGIBILITY
In an effort to support The Crucible’s mission, priority will be given to artists residing in the Bay Area.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and in support of the West Oakland Renovation Project, The Crucible is seeking artists to construct a commissioned piece of artwork that will be displayed at The Crucible’s newly remodeled front yard. We are seeking two artists, each will display one piece.

The Crucible is a nonprofit arts education organization that fosters a collaboration of arts, industry, and community. Through training in the fine and industrial arts, The Crucible promotes creative expression, reuse of materials, and innovative design, while serving as an accessible arts venue for the general public. From blacksmithing, welding, foundry to neon, glass blowing, welding, and kinetics, The Crucible provides innovative visual arts education programs to 5,000 adult and youth students annually. The finished artworks will represent the areas in which The Crucible teaches, and should promote the reuse of materials.

SITE DESCRIPTION
The chosen artworks will be displayed in the front of The Crucible in our newly constructed sculpture garden. The garden was renovated this past spring, and funded by the City of Oakland in support of the West Oakland restoration efforts. The artwork will be displayed on two pads with an area size of 3’x3′ each. Each artist will be responsible for designing and constructing one piece of artwork to fit on one pad.

The Crucible is located across from the West Oakland BART Station, and is visible to an average of 4,895 commuters per week. The site is also seen to many pedestrians and traffic entering into the West Oakland corridor, and traveling on the freeway, as it is located on 7th Street.

PROJECT BUDGET
The total budget for artwork is a $2,500 stipend per artist, inclusive of all artist’s fees and associated expenses for design, fabrication, insurance, transportation and installation.

PROJECT SCHEDULE (subject to change)

  • RFP Deadline: October 26, 2012
  • Selection Panel Approval of 2 Artist Projects: October 31, 2012
  • Artwork Fabrication begins: November 2012
  • Artwork Installation: December 2012

ARTIST PROJECT SELECTION CONSIDERATIONS

  • Priority will be given to local Bay Area artists with an emphasis in the reuse of materials.
  • All projects should represent one or more of the technical areas that The Crucible teaches. Mixed media and artist collaboration is encouraged.
  • Artistic excellence, innovation, and originality should be evident in the proposal concept submission and artist work samples.
  • The artist’s professional experience will reflect an ability to meet the time demands of this project.

TO APPLY
All application materials must be submitted via email to Steven Young. Application materials include:

  • Letter of interest including the project scope and description
  • Resume
  • 5 images of previous
Public Art Project Call to Artists2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Hot Couture 2013 Call for Artists

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Something amazing is in the
works at The Crucible. For the second time in our history, we’re
launching an event bringing the creativity, skill and glamour of high
fashion together with the strength, power and volatility of the
industrial arts. Introducing HOT COUTURE: A Fusion of Fashion and Fire.

As
our 14th year anniversary event, Hot Couture seeks teams of designers
to collaborate and design industrial haute couture. Our event concept is
to blend the intensity and craft surrounding true French haute couture
with the raw energy and materials found in the industrial arts. We’re
calling for fashion designers to pair with industrial artists to use
talents from both fields to create bold design, visionary fashion, and
accessories that can only exist in this rare coupling of worlds.

Leather,
metal, paper, stone, silk, fire, electricity… All materials and methods
of beautifully integrating them with the human form are up for grabs.
The supporting event will be produced in proper Crucible style, with a
focus on industrial elements set to a backdrop of metal and fire.

Once
the show run has completed, all pieces will be included in a moving art
installation as part of a set of exhibits in museums throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area.

We are currently seeking submissions and team proposals from fashion
designers and industrial artists. Interested participants should click here to fill out our proposal form.

Requirements

  • Design teams much produce a minimum of four complete looks for the show.
  • Looks must be imaginative and well executed.
  • Wearable is a guideline; we are looking for fashion sculpture.
  • All designs should be flame resistant.

Event Details

  • The dates for the show will be Friday and Saturday nights, January 11th and 12th, 2013.
  • The Crucible will provide a materials stipend for each team selected.
  • The Crucible will own the works after the show.
  • All artists and designers will be credited for their work.

HOT
COUTURE: A Fusion of Fashion and Fire fashion is a spectacle that you
won’t want to miss. We’re looking forward to supporting you and your
team, and we’d like to get started as soon as possible.

For information on haute couture and it’s place in France’s fashion DNA, Vanity Fair has this: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/09/couture200909 

Interested in participating? Click here to fill out our proposal form!

Hot Couture 2013 Call for Artists2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

It’s Time to Sign Up for Youth Workshops!

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While it’s true that most of courses we offer are geared towards an adult audience, youth programming still forms large portion of what happens at The Crucible. Inspiring creativity, responsibility, and an understanding of the way things work in youth is incredibly important to our operations. Not only do we offer regular courses geared towards our younger fabricators, we also offer very specific programs including scholarships, internships and a large selection of youth-specific workshops.

Our youth workshops are one of our most popular programs, growing in size and scope every year. We host several types of workshops with local schools and organizations, working in collaboration to teach skills necessary to complete a variety of projects. Our past collaborations include Girls, Inc., Lick Wilmerding School, Athenian School, Drew School, Marin County Day School, KIPP Bridge Charter School, New Highland Academy and The Tesseract School.

Our workshops are all project-based, and are wonderful opportunities for students to participate in group projects, or create individual projects. Designed to be fun and informative, our workshops facilitate team-building opportunities as well as encourage individual exploration of the arts.

Why do people choose The Crucible? For starters, we give students an equal footing in a unique, supportive and non-competitive environment. We encourage group problem-solving, encourage creative ways of communicating, and we address California educational standards in the areas of art, science and math. We offer projects and disciplines that fit your specific student needs, and we work towards developing each student’s individual artistic expression.

Workshops are offered in most of our disciplines. Blacksmithing, glass flameworking, kinetics, glass fusing, foundry / sand casting, jewelry, glass blowing, woodworking, bike alterations and welding are all part of our curriculum. We teach youth to use skills like these in creating projects like schoolyard benches, school signs, mosaics and garden sculptures.

We offer half- and full-day programs ranging from 3-hour to 8-hour design / build large art projects, and can accommodate multiple-day workshops. We can provide food and photography services, and provide exhibition opportunities.

If you’re looking for activities to engage your students over your spring and summer breaks, workshops at The Crucible are a great way to keep young minds active and engaged. For more information contact Carla Hall at 510-444-0919 x112, email carla@thecrucible.org, or visit the Youth Workshops portion of our website.

50% Educator Discounts

Along with out workshops, we also offer substantial discounts to educators in the bay area. As part of the educational community we’re happy to offer you a 50% discount on tuition for classes at The Crucible. This discount is valid for all pre-K to 12th grade teachers, principals and school administrators working in a California School District. The discount can only be applied over the phone or when registering in person, and does not affect the cost of materials required for classes. For more information visit the Educators Discount portion of our site.


It’s Time to Sign Up for Youth Workshops!2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2012

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The very core of The Crucible is about learning and doing: inspiring creativity in everyone, and unleashing their potential to make things. It’s no surprise then that you’ll find us at the 2012 East Bay Mini Maker Faire. If you like building / tinkering / fixing / prototyping / making things, block off October 14th on your calendar immediately…

A Maker Faire is about celebrating learning and doing, not the finished and perfect end product.  It’s a place to share what we’re learning with others, and celebrate the fun and freedom of being an amateur.

Featuring both established and emerging local “makers,” the East Bay Mini Maker Faire is a family-friendly celebration coming to Oakland for its second year on Sunday, October 14, 2012.  It will feature rockets and robots, DIY science and technology, urban farming and sustainability, alternative energy, bicycles, unique hand-made crafts, music and local food, and educational workshops and installations.

Maker Faire started back in 2006 as a spin-off of MAKE magazine.  The original Maker Faire entertains over 100,000 visitors in San Mateo over a weekend at the end of every May, and additional Maker Faires have now happened appeared in Austin, Detroit and New York City; Mini Maker Faires have started to sprout up around the United States and the world, including events in Ann Arbor, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Shenzhen, Dublin, Brighton.

The East Bay Mini Maker Faire follows the “big” Maker Faire model of celebrating do-it-yourself creativity and tinkering, but is smaller in scale (150 makers vs. 800 makers; 5,000 people on one day vs. 50,000) and will showcase the wonders of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The East Bay Mini Maker Faire is fortunate to have Park Day School as its host and sponsor.  Park Day School has just expanded its campus to 4 beautiful acres snuggled behind Oakland Technical High School in the Temescal district, and is opening its doors of this secret wonder to the greater East Bay for the Mini Maker Faire. The Faire also utilizes the wonderful and adjacent facilities of Studio One Art Center, Oakland’s only city-run building and program dedicated to studio arts instruction in a wide range of media for persons of all ages.

The Crucible will be on hand with demonstrations and information, complete with red hot metal and roaring fire effects.

Additional Resources




East Bay Mini Maker Faire 20122017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Hot Couture Artist and Designer Application

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Call for Fashion Designers and Industrial Artists

Application submission deadline at 10pm on September 25, 2016

The Crucible is seeking designer and artist submissions for Hot Couture 2017, our annual show integrating bold design, visionary fashion, and fire accessories. Our four-night event, February 16-19, 2017, will feature artists and designer teams creating haute couture concepts that illustrate the intersection between fashion, traditional industrial materials, and fabrication.

 
For Hot Couture 2017, we are inspired by the boundary-defying showmanship of Prince. He embodies what we want for our fire fashion show: innovative artistry, iconic fashion, perpetual creativity, bold vision, and lots and lots of love. Like his collaboration with other talented artists, we encourage designers to build strong runway presentations that celebrate diversity and funk and excellence in all its forms. As such, the theme for the next Hot Couture will be “The Beautiful Ones”. 
 
The Hot Couture fashion shows will take place Thursday, February 16 to Sunday, February 19, 2017. The final dress rehearsal (open to the community) will be on Wednesday, February 15. An initial run through/fire rehearsal will be on Friday, February 10. The Crucible will provide a materials stipend for each designer/team selected. Designers will have access to The Crucible for meetings, production rehearsals, and several fabrication tools. All artists and designers will be credited for their work and the contracted designer will receive four complimentary tickets for one of the shows (night TBD). The Crucible will hire and staff all production details for the runway show. This includes lighting, pyrotechnics, ticketing, security, hospitality, and front of house. Designers are responsible for hiring their own models, makeup artists, and hair artists.

Application process:

Professional and amateur designers are welcome. To submit an application for inclusion in our next Hot Couture performance, send your biography, contact info, and proposal to events@thecrucible.org. Larger format files can be sent via dropbox or hard copies delivered in person to The Crucible. Please include the following in your submission:

  1. Minimum 500-word biography detailing your experience or desire to create wearable art. Include any details of past experience, exposure with runway shows, relationship to The Crucible, as well as name, address, email, phone number, and links to social media and/or websites.
  2. Minimum four head-to-toe wearable looks to be created for the runway. Sketches or photographs (jpegs) are acceptable formats. Designers will be allowed to have up to 8 designs during their walk in this year’s show.
  3. All completed looks must be imaginative and well executed. Wearable is a guideline. We ask that designers incorporate some sort of fire into their runway show and/or designs. All designs should be flame resistant. Women’s and men’s fashions are accepted and encouraged. Hair, makeup, and music ideas must also be included as part of the descriptions for each look.
  4. List of team members, including hair, makeup, models, or musicians, if known. Designers are responsible for enlisting their own models, as well as hair and makeup artists. Each team will be allowed one model per outfit (4-8), up to four artists/assistants and
Hot Couture Artist and Designer Application2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Like a Ropes Course with Fire and Molten Metal

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Molten Metal and Fire Replace Trust Falls in Today’s Team Building Workshops.

If you’ve ever found yourself in even a semi-corporate environment, chances are you’ve done a few team building excercises. Ropes courses, bowling nights, company outings… Building a cohesive team is important to any manager, and innovative San Francisco Bay Area businesses are increasingly turning to the Industrial Arts for team building activities. Instead of the standard positive games and happy hours, participants in team building programs at The Crucible complete tangible projects using molten metal, open flame and orange-hot glass.

In today’s fast-paced work environment, bringing diverse teams together in ways that build trust while stimulating creativity and problem solving can be a challenge. The Crucible, a cornerstone in the West Oakland Industrial Arts Corridor, offers corporate team building experiences that defy standard practices. By providing workshops in the Industrial Arts, participants are exposed to welding, foundry, blacksmithing, glassblowing, fire eating, glass fusing, jewelry and neon, many of which are techniques typically reserved for industrial projects.

“Our team wanted a hands-on learning experience as a part of our 3 days leadership retreat to facilitate our development.” Said Brianna Larkin of the Oakland School for the Arts. “Because we are an arts school, we thought The Crucible would be a great opportunity to learn through doing art, and would give us more of a connection to our school’s mission. It was also an affordable option and the location across from BART and within a couple miles of our school worked well.”

The list of progressive companies engaging their teams using the Industrial Arts is impressive, including the likes of Salesforce, Ubisoft, Square, Jamba Juice, Kaggle, Kaiser Permanente and Cliff Bar. In most cases teams have elected to create an installation piece that they’ve taken back to their offices: the Salesforce team built a fused glass sectional table featuring their signature “no software” logo; the Ubisoft team fabricated a wrought-iron throne. Each workshop is tailored to match the interests of the team members with the goal of inspiring, encouraging teamwork, and adding a fresh approach to problem solving through creativity and design.

“We love the fact that we’re working with dangerous materials, and everyone is starting from ground zero as far as experience.” Said Kaggle’s Ramzi Ramey. “Regardless of management structure, we’re all starting from scratch. That opens the door to a kind of problem solving that you don’t get when everyone is sitting around a table.”

Corporate team building workshops are typically booked for celebrations, launch parties, product development, holiday and end of year events. The Crucible offers flexible event planning options and can fit most group sizes and budgets, with 2-hour mini workshops starting at $800. Design & Build packages, including lunch and a wine-and-cheese art reception, start at $3,500.

For more information please email us at
teambuilding@thecrucible.org , or call (510) 444-0919 x102.

Like a Ropes Course with Fire and Molten Metal2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00
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