Built from art and soul

A quiet movement was born in 1952 when 10 women – artists and art patrons – banded together to form the Creative Arts League of Sacramento.

There were no private galleries in town, so the women raised money to rent show space at the downtown YWCA, a south-area shopping center and the city's new garden and arts center in McKinley Park.

Now, 55 years later, the league's founders are gone, but a new generation of women carries on with the same passion, supporting artists in the field of fine crafts such as ceramics, enamel, textiles, glass, jewelry, metal, plastic and wood.

And in its biggest gesture ever, the Creative Arts League is donating $150,000 to the Crocker Art Museum's building fund.

Construction is under way on an expansion project, due for completion in 2010, that will triple the museum's size and make way for a gallery in the contemporary craft wing that will be named for the Creative Arts League.

"That puts us into the history of the museum itself," says jewelry maker Lois Warren, a league member since 1972.

The $150,000 contribution comes from an endowment built up over the years from donations, league-sponsored bus trips to major art exhibitions, and events such as this weekend's Holiday Art & Craft Festival at the Scottish Rite Center, which features 80 top craft artists.

The group's gift might seem small in light of the project's $85 million budget. But "every gift is significant," says museum director Lial Jones.

It was during the Truman administration that the league got its start, and even now, it is not widely known outside local arts circles. Over the years, though, the women – and the membership remains exclusively female, with around 40 active members today – have with little fanfare helped to shape Sacramento's art scene.

"We're pretty low-key," says Susan Willoughby, an art consultant and league member since 1969. "We've always been oriented toward a task, and that's the satisfaction we get. We work quietly. We all have a real interest in the visual arts, so this is a good way for us to make a contribution, and one that is personally satisfying."

Among the league's accomplishments was presenting the first major retrospective at the Crocker in 1971, featuring the work of ceramicist Ruth Rippon, a league member. The league also organized the first retrospective of Bay Area ceramicist Viola Frey's work in 1981.

In 1985, the league petitioned the state Assembly to name 19 Californians as "Living Treasures," honoring their achievement in bridging the gap between art and craft. That accomplished, the league staged "California Crafts XIV: Living Treasures of California" at the Crocker, honoring Robert Arneson, Peter Voulkos, Freda Koblick, Allan Wilbur Adler, Marvin Lipfsky and Lillian Elliott, among others.

In 1987, the league organized a retrospective of the work of Sacramento enamelist Fred Uhl Ball, who had died two years earlier from injuries suffered in an attack outside his studio. After Ball's mother died in 2000, the league organized a sale of the artwork in his estate. The proceeds, about $50,000, went into the league's endowment at the Crocker.

And if anyone doubts the formidable influence of the league, know that it was able to shepherd a college professor's private ceramics collection right out of his house and into the Crocker's permanent collection.

Hubert A. Arnold, who taught mathematics at the University of California, Davis (and died in 1994), had collected works by ceramic artists around the world.

"He just bought them and stuck them in his closet," says Willoughby, "so the people from the Creative Arts League inventoried the collection and had a major exhibition at the Crocker (in 1989). As a result, he gave the whole collection to the museum. It was really thanks to the work of the Creative Arts League in organizing that show, and now it's a major part of the museum's ceramic collection."

The Arnold Collection numbers more than 100 pieces, including the work of Gertrude and Otto Natzler, and Lucie Rie.

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