Photo courtesy of Creativity Explored.
Creativity Explored is launching a new art fair during SF Art Week—one built specifically for progressive studios and the artists they support.
Presented in partnership with Open Invitational, the fair brings 22 studios from across the country to downtown San Francisco, with a model designed around accessibility for studios, artists, and the public.
We spoke with Harriet Salmon, Art Partnerships Director at Creativity Explored, about how the fair came together, why downtown felt essential, and what it means to place progressive studio work directly into the flow of SF Art Week alongside the city’s other major fairs and programs.
Photo courtesy of Creativity Explored.
Questions are in bold. Responses are by Harriet Salmon, the Art Partnerships Director at Creativity Explored.
What was the moment this shifted from an interesting idea to a fair you knew you had to build? Was there a specific conversation, constraint, or opportunity that made it click? And what made this the right time to launch during SF Art Week?
Creativity Explored has dreamed of hosting an art fair specifically for progressive studios for a few years now. CExOI was made possible by a perfect storm of partnerships; first with Open Invitational which has been building momentum with fairs in Miami and New York, and secondly with the Svane Foundation’s Culture Forward Grant that gave us the tools to accomplish the logistical lift of a huge art fair!
It was a natural decision to have the fair during SF Art Week. It’s really important to our artists’ work to be seen shoulder to shoulder with contemporary art. Having it exhibited at the same time as FOG Design+Art, Atrium and all of the other amazing SF Art Week programming, illustrates perfectly how this work is part of the conversation and part of San Francisco’s arts community.
When you looked at the typical art fair model, what felt missing or out of reach that you wanted this fair to solve for? Was the biggest issue access, cost, visibility, context, collector pathways, or something else? What problem were you designing the fair to address in a tangible way?
Most traditional art fairs are out of reach to progressive studios based on cost alone. With booth fees, travel expenses, shipping and framing, the financial investment is beyond what organizations can access to promote their artists. We worked with a model of accessibility, for the studios, artists and the public by supplying a travel stipend for 12 of the 22 studios and having the fair be free and open to the public!
Photo courtesy of Creativity Explored.
How did the partnership with The Open Invitational come together, and what did each of you bring to the table?
I knew David Fierman, the founder of Open Invitational, from when I owned a gallery in New York’s Lower East Side. Fierman Gallery has been representing artists for over 10 years and David has for the last few years, worked more and more with the Living Museum, a progressive studio in Queens, NY. With him founding the Open Invitational in Miami in 2024 and producing fairs in New York and an upcoming one in Basel, Switzerland, he brought the experience of running an art fair and the community of collectors that have been following Open Invitational’s creation closely.
Creativity Explored has approximately 140 active artists work in our studios here in SF. We have an incredible amount of high quality artworks available along with a local following built over the last 40 years of operation. We bring this community to downtown San Francisco to share all of the studio’s work with the public and to show that art is being actively made, exhibited and enjoyed in San Francisco all the time.
How did the pop-up location at 215 Fremont come to be, and why was downtown important for the fair’s goals? How do you think that specific part of the city changes who might walk in, who might discover the fair by accident, and who feels invited?
Being a few blocks from MoAD and SFMOMA is an ideal location for our fair! Being able to link the event as part of a walk-able SF Art Week experience was very important to us. I think the neighborhood being a more corporate environment also adds an interesting opportunity for dialogue, placing art squarely into people’s work day and into active commerce.
Photo courtesy of Creativity Explored.
With progressive studios coming from across the country, how did you shape the participating lineup?
We announced the fair at a progressive studios conference held in Philadelphia in October (details here). We held an open call that studio could share examples of their artists’ work with a panel of colleges from Creativity Explored, the Open Invitational and other studios. From that open call we were able to offer 12 stipends and 10 additional fair booths to studios from across the country.
After spending time with the work at the fair, what do you hope visitors leave with?
An artwork! And an appreciation of how amazing this work is and how accessible it is to fall in love with an artwork and go home with it.
Photo courtesy of Creativity Explored.
Once the fair wraps, what do you hope happens next for the artists and studios involved? And for readers who want to stay connected, what are the best ways to get involved with Creativity Explored or support the work year-round?
People can follow Creativity Explored and all of the other studios on social media to stay connected to their artists and future events! Each studio also loves donations and volunteers to assist with their services and to help promote future opportunities for artists across the country! For San Francisco locals, people can attend openings at our Mission District Gallery and our pop up events such as West Coast Craft and our artists exhibitions at galleries and institutions in the area.
As the fair wraps, the hope is that visitors leave not only with a deeper appreciation for the work, but with pieces they’ve chosen to live with—and ongoing connections to the studios behind them.
For those looking to stay involved beyond SF Art Week, Creativity Explored maintains a year-round exhibition program in San Francisco, participates in pop-ups and fairs across the region, and welcomes continued support through attendance, collecting, volunteering, and donations.
Know before you go
Creativity Explored x Open Invitational
215 Fremont Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
Schedule
- Press Preview/Lunch: Thursday, January 22: 12PM-2PM
- VIP Preview: Thursday, January 22: 5-9PM
- Open to the Public:
- Friday, January 23: 11AM-7PM
- Saturday, January 24: 11AM-7PM
- Sunday, January 25: 11AM-5PM
Participating Organizations
Access Gallery (Denver, CO) • The Arc–Solano (Vallejo, CA) • Arts of Life (Chicago, IL) • Cedars (Ross, CA) • Center for Creative Works (Philadelphia, PA) • Claraty Arts Project (Santa Cruz, CA) • Community Access Art Collective (New York, NY) • Creative Growth (Oakland, CA) • Creativity Explored (San Francisco, CA) • ECF Art Centers (Los Angeles, CA) • Elbow Room (Portland, OR) • Fresh Eye Arts (Minneapolis, MN) • Helpers Artisan Boutique (San Francisco, CA) • Heralbony (Tokyo and Paris) • Imagine That! (Kansas City, MO) • Interact Art Center (St. Paul, MN) • The Living Museum (Queens, NY) • Make Studio (Baltimore, MD) • NIAD (Richmond, CA) • Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC) (Detroit, MI) • Project Onward (Chicago, IL) • Slingshot / Alpha Studio (Santa Barbara, CA) • Studio Route 29 (Frenchtown, NJ) • Tierra del Sol (Los Angeles, CA)
More info: creativityexplored.org