Mackey Hall Presidentã¢ââ¢s Office California College of the Arts

In 1922, CCA (then the California Guild of Arts and crafts) purchased the 4-acre James Treadwell estate at Broadway and College Avenue in Oakland. Once in that location, a group of students, alumni, faculty, and staff planted the seeds of CCA as nosotros know it. More than than 100 years later, the programs in Oakland will unify onto the San Francisco campus and, thanks to some other group of students, kinesthesia, alumni, and staff, the campus civilisation consecrated by nearly a century of artmaking and cultural transformation volition abound to new heights.

Blueish Gum eucalyptus trees line the walk toward Macky Hall in 1926. Photo courtesy of CCA Libraries.

Helping in the 21st century transition is the Oakland Campus Legacy Committee (OCLC). This committee of faculty, staff, and alumni formed at the request of Provost Tammy Rae Carland and convened its showtime meeting in fall 2018. The OCLC'due south mission is "to think through what's unique about the Oakland campus, how to celebrate it, and how to bring it to San Francisco," says Deborah Valoma (MFA 1995), professor of Textiles and graduate Fine Arts and OCLC chair.

Through the work of OCLC, the college is sensitive to its ain history at this moment of transition and to the generations of individuals who have memories of the Oakland campus. The group's work includes subcommittees that focus on different aspects of the move, including recording oral histories, photographing the campus, documenting artifacts and art objects, harvesting plants and seeds located on the campus grounds, and possibly compiling visual and written projects that highlight the campus'south history. The OCLC is also helping design celebratory final events and brainstorming how to ensure Oakland'due south campus civilization—something much less tangible to send than artifacts or recorded histories—is present on the expanded campus.

"We've discussed how to laurels the legacy of freewheeling creativity and instruction that were adult on the Oakland campus," Valoma says. "Our campuses have different cultures. At that place's a kind of renegade quality to the Oakland campus that has been foundational to the higher's character and that will be a benefit to everyone—both those who work and written report in San Francisco and those who work and report in Oakland now. We desire to unify those two cultures rather than having the Oakland campus merely assimilate into the San Francisco campus."

"Our mission is to think through what'due south unique about the Oakland campus, how to celebrate it, and how to bring information technology to San Francisco."

Oakland Campus Legacy Committee Chair

Much of that cultural transition might happen organically, Valoma notes, thanks to the redesign of the San Francisco campus, which strategically places clusters of CCA's varied disciplines near 1 another. As Textiles program faculty, Valoma especially sees the value of unification and the visibility it offers. "Textiles is not fifty-fifty located on the Oakland campus. We're across the street, and there's a sense of beingness far abroad and invisible," she says. "Information technology will be a boon for us to be in the middle of the mix."

Currently, CCA has entered the Oakland campus into an option agreement with Disinterestedness Community Builders (ECB) and Emerald Fund. The agreement allows ECB and Emerald Fund to acquire the property for redevelopment contingent on certain conditions and likewise allows CCA to work closely with the developers on plans for belongings reuse throughout the entitlement procedure, which is underway. The kinds of uses the developers hope to comprise in repurposing the existing campus include publicly accessible community gathering spaces, affordable housing, role space for arts nonprofits, bike parking, and the preservation of the campus'south historic buildings and trees.

It was of import for the college to piece of work with the chosen developers to envision a future for the existing Oakland campus that benefits the surrounding community and honors CCA'south arts legacy. Ecology, social, and cultural responsibleness have always been of import to CCA, and on Oakland'southward campus, these values were firmly rooted into the college'southward identity.

The OCLC wants to ensure that Oakland'southward character has room to abound in the expanded San Francisco campus, where students studying textiles, similar Anna Nunes (BFA Textiles 2020), can piece of work more closely with students in related programs, like fashion pattern. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno/CCA.

When CCA purchased the Oakland campus in 1922, students, faculty, and founder Frederick H. Meyer participated in the landscaping and tree planting that gave Oakland its pastoral aesthetic—love and maintained past the generations that came subsequently. Alum Michael Muscardini (Printmaking 1972) worked as a groundskeeper on the Oakland campus from 1972 to 1974, an experience that he calls "very instrumental" to his arroyo toward his future business, Muscardini Cellars in Sonoma Valley.

When several Eugenia trees on campus died during his tenure, Muscardini planted what eventually grew into two giant redwood copse to recoup for the lost greenery. He accustomed an employee of the twelvemonth award from the college in 1974 thanks to his work tending the campus grounds.

Alum Michael Muscardini (Printmaking 1972) draws while sitting on the Oakland BART tracks in the early 1970s. Photograph courtesy of Michael Muscardini.

"I was standing in the dorsum of the room [at the anniversary] with a shovel in my hand, clay nether my fingernails," he recalls. "I've often used those copse as inspiration for other trees I've planted in my lifetime. I said, 'I want to establish a tree like that on something that I own so my grandchildren can appreciate information technology.'"

Thanks to the conscientious efforts past the OCLC and the redevelopers, memories like Muscardini's and Oakland'southward 1-of-a-kind legacy will live on.

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Source: https://www.cca.edu/newsroom/oakland-legacy/

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