The artists at Creativity Explored create work that regularly hangs in museums, galleries, and art fairs, and pieces decorate housing developments, office buildings, and hotels. Companies like CB2 and Dropbox license the artwork for products or digital experiences. All told, Creativity Explored artists have collectively earned over $2 million.
The epicenter of Creativity Explored is the main studio and gallery in San Francisco. In the studio, the artists work side by side with their teachers and mentors. The gallery hosts about 10,000 visitors annually—except for last year, when the pandemic put in-person classes on hold and shuttered the space.
With its facilities closed, Creativity Explored needed a new way to work together. So it used technology to fill in the gaps. Now it offers 24 virtual classes a week over Zoom. Plus it provides internet access and iPads to those who need them.
The pivot to online instruction has been a success. Some artists are thriving in the new virtual environment, and others didn’t always have reliable transportation to and from the studio. Creativity Explored can now expand its mission by offering a hybrid service model that meets artist’s needs with both in-person and online opportunities.
Unfortunately, the pandemic presented another problem: The gallery sat empty for over a year because it couldn’t host exhibitions and visitors. So how do you sell art during a shutdown? Creativity Explored embraced technology once again.