Imagination The Bay Area’s preeminent industrial arts organization BY Mark Fernquest
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PHOTOS BY MARK FERNQUEST
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lifetime ago, when I was young and living in downtown Berkeley, I became aware of an interesting new metal-arts school in the warehouse district on the west end of town. I checked it out on several occasions, attending an open house and some wildly creative parties replete with fire dancers, metal pours, live music, sculpture gardens, artists and crowds of cool people. That new establishment called itself the Crucible, and it was a bright light in the local art scene. It comes as no surprise to me that during the 20-plus years since it opened, it has established itself as a nationally recognized, preeminent Bay Area arts institution. Now long-located in a massive, 56,000-square-foot warehouse in West Oakland, just a block from the West Oakland BART station, the
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Crucible is, according to its website, “a nonprofit organization and art school dedicated to making the fine and industrial arts accessible for all ages, backgrounds and abilities.” With an award-winning faculty, over 19 different art departments—including welding, woodworking, jewelry-making
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and blacksmithing—and an average student-to-teacher ratio of 6:1, it annually offers over 900 beginner, intermediate and advanced classes to thousands of aspiring artists of all types. The community ethos of the Crucible cannot be overstated. Arguably, it exists only in relation to the greater East Bay as a whole. Its events and performances, ranging from the Burning Man-influenced parties I attended in the early 2000s to Fire Arts festivals, operas and ballets in more recent years, make for wildly creative and festive weekend nights. But the Crucible also serves its surrounding West Oakland neighborhood, Oakland and the greater community in much more visceral and enduring ways—through its scholarships programs, youth camps and paid leadership opportunities, as well as the employment it offers
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