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Event
Porchlight: A Storytelling Series
Don't Call Me Retard: Creativity Explored Night at Porchlight
Hosts Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick turn the mic over to five Creativity Explored studio artists and staff members at Porchlight, San Francisco's premier storytelling venue. Each guest will tell an engaging ten-minute true story. Stories will be interspersed with short animated video works by Creativity Explored artists. Selected Creativity Explored products will be on sale.
When: Monday, November 15, 8 pm. Doors open at 7 pm.
Where: Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco
Admission: $20 at the door. Proceeds benefit Creativity Explored, an art center that serves artists with developmental disabilities.
Information: 415-863-2108, www.creativityexplored.org or www.porchlightsf.com
STORYTELLERS:
Paul Moshammer was born in Norway and grew up in Vienna, Austria. He studied art at the Wiener Kunstschule from 1984 to 1988. It was at this time that he learned about "the art of the mentally insane" and it became one of his strongest passions. In 1989, he moved to San Francisco where he encountered Creativity Explored. He joined the teaching staff in 1991 and became studio manager in 2002. Like all the teaching staff at Creativity Explored, Paul is a professional artist whose work has been shown in the Bay Area and in Europe.
Born in San Francisco in 1990, Whitman Donaldson became an enthusiastic member of Creativity Explored's studio in 2008. Donaldson uses a variety of media. His work ranges from spare, elegant graphite drawings, to densely collaged mixed media pieces, and vibrant homages to his heroes from the music and film world. Donaldson's illustrated autobiographical book about living and coping with Prader-Willi syndrome was featured in a recent Creativity Explored exhibition and will be available for sale at the Porchlight event.
Thomas Pringle says he was born in 1941 "between Oakland and another town." He is an enigma because, according to him, his mother abandoned him at Sonoma State Hospital when he was an infant and made no contact with him after that. Notable accomplishments include becoming, at age two, the youngest professional baseball player in the history of the sport and hooking a great white shark in the bay before throwing it back. His artistic career began at age five when a woman commissioned him to draw a "dream cabin," and paid him $5 for his efforts. He currently lives in San Francisco and paints 5 days a week at Creativity Explored.
In the early 90s, Francis Kohler would walk by the Creativity Explored storefront in the evenings wondering what mysterious things were going on inside. One day, he was in the area in the daytime and went inside. He was flat-out moved and wowed by the lack of pretense and the profusion of talent. He started volunteering there in 1994 and by 1996 was working fulltime as an instructor. He is currently the studio manager at Creativity Explored's second studio. Together with former CE teacher Todd Herman, Kohler has made two documentaries about CE artists focused on their lives outside of the studio.
Katie Gorman's tiny apartment probably has more Creativity Explored artwork per square foot than any place outside of the studios themselves, thanks to nearly a decade of collecting. Since March of 2009, volunteering at Creativity Explored has made her look forward to Wednesdays, something she never before thought possible. Katie hails from Salinas, CA, the Lettuce Capital of the World, and holds a BA in English from Santa Clara University. A long-standing member of The Devil-Ettes, San Francisco's synchronized 1960s-style go-go dance troupe, Katie also has a band, The Specs, and periodically performs as an ever-changing one-woman tribute band.
Will Skinker was born in Virginia and then moved west in 1998. His small book of poems, "Mascara," was published by Auguste Press in 2008. He began working at Creativity Explored that same year, after a decade of manual labor. He was married to Yolanda Anyon in 2009. Lately, Skinker has been trying, unsuccessfully, to climb mountains.
General Admission Tickets $20
Tickets may also be available at the door.
DOORS OPEN AT 7PM
SHOW BEGINS AT 8
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LocationVerdi Club
2424 Mariposa St.
San Francisco, CA 94703
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 21 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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