Beginning in 2017, the Creative Arts League (CALS) board has voted to grant Mustard Seed with an annual grant for art supplies, field trips to the Crocker Art Museum, and art workshops. In addition, we have provided funding for artist Shonna McDaniels to paint colorful murals on the outside of the classroom buildings.

With the onslaught of Covid, Mustard Seed staff were still able to provide art supplies and workshops. Part of our last grant was used for art supplies for the new outside playground and surrounding classrooms.

Due to safety concerns, CALS has put future grants on hold until the surrounding area can be better secured.

Mustard Seed is an emergency school providing a Montessori style quality education for children ages 3-15 in a safe, structured, and nurturing environment, while their families seek stable and permanent living situations. Students receive healthy weekday meals, backpacks filled with school supplies, clothes, survival supplies, counseling, health screenings, and access to routine and/or urgent health care.

Mustard Seed School is located within Loaves & Fishes at 1321 North C Street, Sacramento.

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We began supporting the Sojourner Truth African American Museum (SoJo) in September 2000 by funding some of their weekly Youth Pop-Up Events.

We are pleased to announce that CALS Board has approved to sponsor SoJo’s annual visual art engagement program during 2024 with a grant of $7,200. Each week the museum staff puts together 300 themed art bags, each with different projects, along with a hot meal. The program consists of the Brown Paper Bag after school art programs on Friday evening, pop-ups during the week, and Second Saturday art programs. If students can’t make it to SoJo, parents are able to pick up the art materials, free of charge, and the students can connect with art instructors online.

The Sojourner Truth African American Museum celebrates, through art and historical documentation, both Black struggle and achievement throughout history in Sacramento, the U.S. and around the world. Artist Shonna McDaniels developed the museum with grants and donations over many years. The museum was designed to use art, much of it created locally, to educate the community and to revel in the rich contributions of Black entrepreneurs, architects, educators, artists, entertainers, sports figures, racial justice fighters and political leaders.

In addition to the murals and exhibits the museum offers tours, workshops and art experiences for student groups, as well as frequent events, including monthly Youth Pop-Up events, Second Sunday Family Days and Second Saturday with music, art tables, food and films.

SoJo is located inside the Florin Business Arts Complex – 2251 Florin Rd, Sacramento.

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CALS has sponsored and organized seventeen craft exhibitions at the Crocker Art Museum over the last sixty years. The scope of each exhibition has been carefully considered and a variety of shows have been presented.

Nine juried shows have provided a showcase for aspiring young artists; five exhibitions have honored established artists with invitational one-person retrospectives. All exhibitions have been limited to artists living in California with the exception of California Crafts VI in 1969 when the area was widened to include artists working in the Pacific States of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. Jurors for the competitive shows have included some of the finest craft artists and craft authorities in the country.

In 1993 CALS established the Creative Arts League Endowment Fund with the Crocker Foundation. Distributions from that fund are restricted to acquisitions, exhibitions and education in the field of crafts. The Hubert A. Arnold Collection was shown for the California Crafts XVI Exhibition which ultimately resulted in Arnold donating his entire collection of 1,500 vessels to the Crocker. CALS was also instrumental in the exhibition of The Sydney Swidler Collection and subsequent donations. These major donations along with our CALS Endowment set the stage for a major curatorial area for study and research and a new ceramics wing at the Crocker.

CALS established a second endowment fund with the Crocker Foundation honoring Lois and David Warren for the significant contributions they have made to CALS over the span of 40 years.

The Creative Arts League collaborates annually with the Crocker Art Museum by hosting a three-day Crocker Holiday Artisan Market at Sacramento’s Scottish Rite Center delighting art lovers of all ages. Artisan booths are filled with juried works in glass, textiles, wood, ceramics, paper, photography, art jewelry, paintings and sculptures and families enjoy photos with Santa. Proceeds from the event support participating artists, Crocker Art Museum’s exhibitions and educational programs, and Creative Arts League of Sacramento’s arts outreach programs, low-cost art tours, and other important community programs.

In August 2023, the Creative Arts League (CALS) board voted to award an arts grant to facilitate the work of Women’s Wisdom Art to improve the well being of women.  

Women’s Wisdom Art has been in existence for over 30 years. The nonprofit is currently located in a Sacramento Promise Zone, (a historically disinvested community in urgent need of resources) at 1029 Del Paso Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95815.

Women’s Wisdom Art offers a wide array of free creative art, writing, and wellness workshops and events with programs planned in conversational ESL, basic computer literacy, and job search skills scheduled in 2024.  Free food, toiletries, and PPE supplies are available at the center, and free food, care kits and art kits are regularly distributed to passersby and at outreach events.

A message from their founder, Laura Ann Walton:

Why The Arts?  Art demands the involvement of the whole person: body, mind, emotions, imagination, spirit and, it requires unrelenting self-reflection and self-discipline.  No matter what her condition in life, level of education, degree of physical, emotional or mental health, any woman can participate in art, can assume the identity of “ARTIST.”  Engaging in art is the primary survival skill of the human spirit.

For further info, please….