What Is the OCC?
A member of Oakland Art Murmur, Oakopolis Creativity Center (OCC, a.k.a. Oakopolis Gallery) is an artist run, not-for-profit organization. Through exhibitions and workshops the OCC promotes, honors, and enhances the use of the creative spirit to encourage positive growth and creative intermingling on a personal, community, and global level.
COUNCIL OF SEVEN “CREEDS”
No separation between art and living
Live to make art responsibly
Model responsibility in your art practice
Evoke better communication
Embrace sincerity
Invite and collaborate
WORDS TO EMBODY
Sincerity
Freedom
Sacred
Spirituality
Imagination
Problem Solving
Communication
Responsibility
Organic Growth
Authenticity
NetworkingThe OCC is a living breathing thing which will change
and grow with the energy that we all put into its life.
HISTORY
Oakopolis Creativity Center, grew out of the Big City art installation by Joell Jones. In the Big City, twenty-six assemblage sculpture towers evisioned a utopian city that contained its own Creativity Center. The values of the art installation were made manifest in the Fort Creativity Center established by Jeanne Jabbour and Joell Jones in 2004.
It was Joell's vision to bring the future into the now by establishing a creativity center with Jeanne, and they invited Jan Camp to join them, creating the triangular power source that continues to form the base of the organization. Following Jan's suggestion, other creatives working with Joell were invited to form an OCC Council.
In the Spring of 2007, the center was relocated and renamed by the OCC Council to embrace the greater Oakland area of the San Francisco East Bay, and to become a memeber of Oakland's Art Murmur. In October 2007, the Oakopolis Gallery opened its first exhibition to the public.
The work of a creative artist is not a luxury but a necessity to society. Art is an instrument of communication and serves as a method for recording history. It has the energy to move people emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Throughout the history of the human race it is a society's art that has provided us with clues to its deepest thought and expression. Art reveals the essence of nature, time, and place