2012 - Page 3 of 3 - The Crucible

Like a Ropes Course with Fire and Molten Metal

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

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

Hot Couture Artist and Designer Application

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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

Celebrating 50 Years of Studio Glass

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

A California Glass Exchange at the Crucible Nov. 10 and 11, 2012
Two Days of Demos, Lectures, and Two Day Glass Art Exhibition

It’s easy for visitors walking into The Crucible’s main studio space to see how much glass means to our programs. From our furnace of molten glass kept orange-hot 24 hours a day, to the glass monsters and beads in our flameworking lab, glass is one of the most extensively used materials in our studio. It’s hot, glossy, temperamental and very sexy.

“From the first moment I started working with glass, “said Keir Lugo, glass studio instructor, “I was hooked. It’s just unlike anything else.”

As a material, though, hot glass hasn’t always been accessible: through the 1950s glass used almost exclusively by industry. In 1962 artist Harvey Littleton gathered a group of artists, craftspeople, scientists and scholars at the Toledo Museum of Art for a series of workshops, demonstrating ways that glass could be manipulated outside of an industrial setting and beginning the Studio Glass Movement.

While the movement officially began in Ohio, more glass arts programs developed in California in the late 1960s and 1970s than in any other state. By 1975 vibrant glass programs had been established in higher educational institutions across the state, and many distinquished glass artists had begun to form their careers.

In the mid 1980s San Jose State University glass program founder Dr. Robert Fritz and his student George Jercich hosted the first California Glass Exchange (CGE). The CGE was formed with as a regional, bi-annual conference with the goal of gathering the California glass community together to share skills and techniques. This fall The Crucible hosts a CGE Symposium, showcasing California glass artists and the history surrounding the art, with two days of glass demos, lectures and exhibition.

The CGE Symposium is a volunteer driven community effort, organized by the Crucible Glass Faculty, with support from The Crucible, The Clay and Glass Arts Foundation, the Glass Art Society, The Glass Alliance for Contemporary Glass, The Glass Alliance of Northern California and Denny Abrams.

The event will showcase a spectacular set of glass art with over 60 presenters from around California. If you’re intrigued by the history and process of studio glass, this is definitely an event you will not want to miss.

Additional resources:

Celebrating 50 Years of Studio Glass2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

2012 Youth Summer Camp Update

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Summertime at The Crucible brings one of our most popular youth programs, the Youth Summer Camps. Aaron Mason sat down with Carla Hall, The Crucible’s Youth Program Director, to talk about the program in process. Photos by Troy Mickins and Aaron Mason.

AM: Let’s start with a little background first.

CH: Sure! My name is Carla Hall, and I’m the Youth Program Director, amongst other things (laughing) here at The Crucible.

AM: And right now our big youth project is the Youth Summer Camps?

CH: That’s correct. Right now we’re in our fourth week of our Youth Summer Camp program, which I like to call “an industrial arts day camp.”

AM: How long do the camps run, and what do they provide?

CH: It’s five weeks of week-long day camps that give students a hands-on learning experience in industrial arts. They’re either full or half-day camps, depending on what the students have signed up for, but in either case young people get the chance to participate in huge range of classes including welding, blacksmithing, glass blowing and glass flameworking. This week alone we’re running 22 different classes.

AM: How many young people are we expecting to have through the program?

CH: We have a little over 600 students coming in over the five-week span. Traditionally the camp would span four weeks, but this is the first year we’ve had this level of interest and expanded into a fifth week of our most popular classes.

AM: Which parts of the program have been expanded?

CH: Glass blowing is the program that’s had by far the most growth. Last summer we ran a pilot program for just one week; this summer we’ve done glass blowing in four expanded weeks, and all of those classes have filled. The art bike program has continued to be popular as a day-long program as well. This is the first year we’ve also had the immersion program, which is a day-long experience with beginning and continuing skill level classes in arc welding, glassblowing, glass flameworking and blacksmithing. Those programs also filled pretty early in the registration process, and have seen increased popularity compared to last year

AM: And all of these are programs are for young students? They sound very adult.

CH: Yes! Once a student turns twelve they can come in and get hands on experience with flame or fire arts classes. The eight to eleven year olds participate in programs like clay, kinetics, wood carving, which are generally more age-appropriate.

AM: What do you tell people who are concerned about youth in this environment?

CH: We spend a lot of time transforming the shop into a youth-friendly, youth-safe space, including hiring a program staff who deal with supporting student needs, supporting instructors, providing a central meeting space, a break area, recess space and snack time. They’re doing a fantastic job providing the infrastructure that makes the camp so successful.

We also work to promote maturity and responsibility

2012 Youth Summer Camp Update2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Faculty Focus – Ruben Guzman

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

by Thea Daniels

Rubén Guzmán had had it made. He had established, after college, a small lucrative graphic design firm that had been wildly successful, even challenging the big Mexico City firms. Then the industry started to change, becoming ever more computer-driven and Mexico’s economy started to change and Rubén began to change. What had been a hobby, the traditional art form of cartoneria, became a passion. This pursuit led him to submit pieces to the Oakland Museum for an exhibition. Which is how he found himself without U.S. currency, personal contacts, or a place to stay in the middle of the night in 1997 at Oakland International Airport. From that lonely curb he was led by a sympathetic Latino taxi driver to a squalid Fruitvale room for what was to be a very short stay during the weeks of the exhibition, Some Well Behaved Bones. But as Rubén’s serendipitous life would have it, the press glowed which helped land him a temporary teaching job at UC and he has never looked back, still Oakland based fourteen years later making art and teaching. Whether it is a comfort in risk-taking, living life fully or an utter faith in process, Rubén believes all will unfold as it should as long as he works with his hands.

When the knock at the door in 1998 came from two men in suits and ties, he thought perhaps it was immigration. Instead it was Disney knocking. They wanted fourteen foot dragons for their new Cal Adventures theme park and had heard Rubén Guzmán was the man to craft them. Although he had never fashioned large dragons before, he was utterly confident that he could and equally sure it was an offer one didn’t decline. Sponchi was crafted and remains at the theme park as evidence of something Rubén often tells his students. “You can create ANYTHING with cartoneria… You come with all of your self-doubt and fear and face a pile of recycled newspapers and glue. You insert your magic and now we (the world) have a thing of beauty.”

Rubén loves working with students who feel they are inartistic and unable to even draw a straight line let alone fashion wondrous objects. He observes that children are fearless in their use of materials. In utter surety they use their hands to make art. Most when young will jump in and be proud of doing so. By the time children are adults there is often enormous anxiety about creating and people’s hands seem frozen in place, retracted and hesitant to engage. He takes enormous satisfaction in the teaching process; helping students enjoy the moment and seize the joy of the process rather than be obsessed with the finished product. “People don’t come to my classes for technique. They come for the human tradition of passing skills down through generations, from father to child. My goal is not their finished piece. I want them to fall in love with cartoneria and for

Faculty Focus – Ruben Guzman2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

Executive Director Perspective: May 2012

2017-02-17T14:14:19-08:00

West Oakland Industrial Arts Corridor

by Steven Young

I recently participated on a panel discussion at SPUR in San Francisco about the West Oakland Industrial Arts Corridor. My fellow Panelists were; Leslie Pritchett, Public art consultant and Crucible Board member; Sean Orlando, Lead artist and co-founder of the Five Ton Crane Arts Group and Karen Cusolito, founder of American Steel Studios. We were invited to speak about the growing arts community in West Oakland and why it is important.

We presented a number of slides to illustrate the scope and scale of what is being done in and made in Oakland, specifically along the Mandella Parkway corridor. We highlighted a number of art spaces such as Bruce Beasley’s art park, Lost and Foundry, The Crucible, Kinetic Steam Works, St Louise Studios and American Steel Studios. It was immediately apparent that West Oakland hosts an amazing variety of art spaces, a rich mix of artists and craftspeople and as a community, we create some of the most impressive collaborative and large scale work being made.

One of the goals of our presentation was to shine a spotlight on this creative and productive community and to reach some of the decision makers who actively work to shape our cities. SPUR, or San Francisco Urban Planning + Research Association, is dedicated to good planning and good government in the San Francisco Bay Area and plans to open a SPUR office in Oakland. Their lunchtime forum is regularly attended by Architects, Planners and people who are interested in making our cities better places to live.

My portion of the talk was dedicated to the idea that access to art and artful experiences is vital to our ability to have a healthy community and that Oakland should embrace what is happening now, here in Oakland as part of their planning process.

Why is access to the creative process transformative for the artists and for the greater community?

Artful experiences and making foster personal growth, create a sense of confidence and inspires creativity. Participating in the creative process also helps to create connections to others.

There is a great deal of interest in the national conversation about this notion. The James Irvine Foundation has re-tooled their art funding strategy.

Their new strategy focuses on expanding opportunities for the people of California to participate in a vibrant, successful and inclusive society. Part of that inclusiveness is access to artful experiences, especially, experiences that involve participation in the creative process. Their new goal is to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians, the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts, and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment.

The Irvine Foundation seeks to increase arts engagement in three ways:

By concentrating on undeserved communities
By encouraging work at non traditional venues for arts experiences
And by supporting programs that offer interactivity or participation

They believe that in order to meet the needs of the future we have to prepare people now. Two reports on the role of Career

Executive Director Perspective: May 20122017-02-17T14:14:19-08:00