The Center for ArtEsteem opens a new space, returns home
The decades old West Oakland based nonprofit has found long term stability by securing space in the neighborhood where it started.
After moving into different rental units for about the last seven years, The Center for ArtEsteem, a Black-led West Oakland based nonprofit, has bought and renovated a permanent space at 3111 West Street.
On Saturday, June 22, about 100 people celebrated the space in an open house event. The nonprofit will complete its move-in process to the two-story 1,500 square foot space by July 1.
ArtEsteem’s Executive Director Amana Harris likened the move to “coming home.” Founded in 1989, ArtEsteem, which used to be named Attitudinal Healing Connection, opened its first brick-and-mortar space in 1992. It was located in the bottom unit of a duplex belonging to the nonprofit’s founders, Aeesha and Kokomon Clottey, who are Harris’s mother and step-father. The space sat at the corner of 33rd and West Streets, just a few blocks away from ArtEsteem’s brand new facility.
“We know this community,” said Harris. “We have kids that have grown up in this neighborhood. After moving around, now we see the greater value of returning here and being more accessible to the community and the kids that are right next door.”
Kamilah Crawford, who is an alumni of ArtEsteem and a former employee, said she’s happy the nonprofit is returning to the neighborhood where it began and credits it with helping her find her path in life.
“ArtEsteem not only provided me with art classes and employment after graduating from University of California, Davis, but it provided me with a sense of community, social justice and being a change agent in my life,” she said. “Deep down I believe what I learned played a role in me becoming a physician assistant and inspired my desire to give back to my community.”
Since its founding, the nonprofit’s mission has been to “address social ills by providing opportunities for creative expression and healing to children, families, and individuals.” ArtEsteem has grown over the years — causing it to move out of the duplex 2017 — and it’s focused increasingly on young people and visual arts.
ArtEsteem has done arts programing at over 75 schools in West Oakland and the Bay Area. Currently it serves about 2,500 young people a year in 25 different schools and has a staff of about 20 people, including teaching artists. Each year the nonprofit works especially closely with about 15 to 20 West and East Oakland high school and middle school students through its Oakland Legacy Project. During a 30 week program each school year, ArtEsteem buses these students to its center two days a week after school to feed and educate them about art and environmental awareness and to build self esteem. Occasionally the students go on field trips on weekends and the summer.
“We don’t just do art for arts sake,” said Harris. “We use art so young people can have a better understanding of themselves and the world.”
The nonprofit’s previous spaces posed challenges for offering long term stability and accomplishing all that ArtEsteem does. In 2021, a Portland based real estate developer abruptly ended a license agreement with the nonprofit, forcing ArtEsteem to leave its then home, a warehouse space it was renting in American Steel Studios. ArtEsteem then moved again, finding a home subleasing a space from Civicorps, another West Oakland based nonprofit that works with youth, through 2023. But that space was not large enough to continue to allow ArtEsteem to expand.
Harris said that owning, rather than renting, is key to sustaining the nonprofit. ArtEsteem has been fund raising since 2022 to secure its current home. It’s raised one and a half million dollars to move into and renovate its new space.
“Renting made it so that we were really unstable,” Harris said. “We’re not talking about equity if we’re not looking at real estate and land and how the community can help with that for Black and brown people.”
ArtEsteem got a lot of help to secure its new home. Walter & Elise Haas Fund, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and an anonymous donor from the San Francisco Foundation provided the largest financial donations. About 100 individuals donated $200 or more.
Artists and individuals have also helped to beautify the space and the nearby area. Students from McClymonds High School, Westlake Middle School, and Hoover Elementary School have collaborated with teams of a dozen or more artists to created four murals in the neighborhood through the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project, which was originated by Harris, directed by David Burke, and funded by San Francisco Foundation’s Bay Area Creative Core. A new mural, designed by former Oakland Legacy Project students is in the works. The project also recently got help from Ken Houston and Beautification Council who cleaned up a mural that had been covered with graffiti.
In the building itself, one can see art wherever one looks. Artwork from ArtEsteem and Attitudinal Healing Connection students from over the last 20 years hangs on the walls. The room is filled with vibrant colors: purples, yellows, orange, reds and greens. Chicago artist, Kailani Rhyss, donated six sculptures to the space — including a blue octopus that sits on a counter. Railings and metal silhouettes attached to windows show native plants and birds, and images of native California poppy flowers cover the stairway to the building’s entrance. A mosaic in the bathroom illustrates the stages of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.
“We want young people and their parents to feel uplifted by the beauty of the space when they come in,” said Harris. “We want to foster healing and resiliency and we believe the spaces we created can be essential in that.”
ArtEsteem is not done expanding its space. It is still fundraising and plans to build a new two story building next-door to its current space, set to open in 2027, which will be twice as big and contain art and movement studios and gallery space.
“Now the we own our space we can dig our roots deeper because we won’t be uprooted,” said Harris.
A slightly different version of this story is scheduled to be published soon by the Post News Group.