Cover story: The art of change -- Noel Perry's art and education efforts are aimed at creating a better future Cover story: The art of change -- Noel Perry's art and education efforts are aimed at creating a better future (May 25, 2005)

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

The Day of the Dead was a Day of Awakening for Noel Perry.

Walking through the Oakland Museum of California's 2003 exhibition exploring the themes of the November 2 Mexican holiday honoring the dead, Mr. Perry, a Woodside resident, was particularly struck by an altar that paid tribute to that year's homicide victims in Oakland.

He recalls that the victims numbered over 100. "I was very moved by that, very saddened by that," he says.

The power of that exhibition awakened him to the formidable challenges that face some of the struggling, lower-income neighborhoods of Oakland, a city he knew little about before then. And it inspired him to try to do something about existing obstacles to a safe, cohesive community.

The result: the creation of an ambitious project that aims to use art to strengthen the community from within. It's called 100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change, and involves gathering together families in four Oakland neighborhoods to work together, paint together, quilt together and celebrate their common goals and aspirations.

"It's a project that creates possibilities for the family," he explains. "Possibilities happen when you get around a block of clay: People learn about themselves and others -- how to work together."

Longtime commitment

Though his involvement with the Oakland community was newly launched with the 100 Families project, Mr. Perry's commitment to art, social change and community was hardly a new-found passion.

A venture capitalist whose Menlo Park firm Baccharis Capital Inc. has funded such things as educational toy companies and organic food enterprises, he has been involved in activities ranging from helping to build water projects in rural Yemen as a Peace Corps volunteer, to spearheading an effort to raise money to plant and maintain oak trees along Canada Road in Woodside. He and his family also have donated a six-acre parcel of land to the town of Woodside to be used as a playing field.

And at about the same time he was developing the idea and structure for 100 Families, he was delving into another, seemingly unconnected enterprise: the online Next Ten project, which focuses on long-term solutions to California's daunting challenges.

An independent, nonpartisan organization based in Menlo Park, Next Ten is an attempt to address what Mr. Perry sees as a harmful, short-sighted approach to California policy-making. Its aim is to engage and educate Californians "so that, together, we can improve our future economy and quality of life," according to its literature.

Mr. Perry, who founded and funds Next Ten, lights up when he speaks of that enterprise's first endeavor: The California Budget Challenge, which appears to be catching fire among computer savvy Californians and classroom teachers.

The interactive online program allows participants to create their own budgets for the financially ailing state, and along the way gather key information and learn about a range of issues critical to the budget-making process.

Although it has nothing to do with the arts, Next Ten has more in common with Mr. Perry's 100 Families project than it may initially seem to.

"I see 100 Families and (Next Ten) as coming from the same place," says economist Stephen Levy, who was enlisted by Mr. Perry to help craft Next Ten's budget challenge.

"Both are about engaging Californians; they're about empowering them through education. And, they're trying to build a better California," Mr. Levy explains.

An artist ventures out

Noel Perry is well-known in select circles for his philanthropy and work as a venture capitalist. It was only in the last few years that he decided to "go public" with another aspect of his life: his work as an artist.

It was at the first event he hosted to show his oil paintings and drawings that he first encountered the person who would lead him to his role in the Oakland art project.

That person was a curator of the Oakland Museum of California's professional services division, who attended the art show held in Palo Alto. The curator urged him to check out the Oakland museum, and that led to the Day of the Dead exhibition visit.

After a period of sculpting with metal, Mr. Perry began pursuing a growing interest in painting about 25 years ago. Since then he has taken classes at Canada community college, UC Berkeley extension and the San Francisco Art Institute.

A number of his oil paintings and drawings now hang on the walls of his offices at Baccharis, the power of their artistic statements a fitting echo of Silicon Valley's forceful voice in the world of business and innovation.

While Mr. Perry's talent and expressive power are evident in the work, he can still recall how easily his pursuit of art could have been derailed in the beginning. That was when he enrolled in a basic drawing class about 25 years ago -- a fledgling, first feeling the urge for flight.

The teacher positioned boxes in the middle of the room, and the nervous novices were told to draw. He complied, but when the teacher approached him on her rounds to inspect the works in progress, he was apprehensive. Then she said, "That's a sensitive line," Mr. Perry now recalls.

"If she had said, 'That doesn't look like a box,' I would have been out of there," he says. "But (what she said) was reassuring, and it encouraged me to stay in class."

Perfect partner

The incident has helped Mr. Perry understand part of the challenge of gathering together dozens of families to create art. "It's kind of a scary thing to do" if one hasn't done it before and there are other people around to witness the sometimes faltering first steps.

When he first conceived of the 100 Families project, he made the commitment to fund it, but "didn't have the capacity to implement it." So he sought a partner in the project -- one that would supply the structure as well as a team of artists who would instruct and encourage participants.

He found "the perfect partner," he says, in the Center for Art and Public Life -- a project of the California College of the Arts (CCA). College President Michael Roth and center director Sonia BasSheva Manjon, who is leading the charge for 100 Families, "are committed to art and the community in Oakland," Mr. Perry says. "They want to use art to make a difference."

The 100 Families Oakland project brings together families in four neighborhoods: East Oakland, Fruitvale, Chinatown and West Oakland. Over the period of one year, beginning two months ago, professional artists and students from CCA are leading each neighborhood -- one at a time -- in 10 weeks of art-making.

The first neighborhood to participate, East Oakland, will be wrapping up its project soon, and will exhibit its many artworks in a special show on June 16, from 5 to 7 p.m., at 555 City Center in Oakland.

Each neighborhood will exhibit its works after completing the 10 weekly workshops, and when the year is over, they will all come together for a massive exhibition in June 2006.

Fully funded by Mr. Perry, the program provides a stipend, transportation and meals to participants.

Ms. Manjon, the director, says the East Oakland art sessions are going very well, with 33 families participating. Three of those families include three generations, providing an enriching intergenerational layering to the program.

Although the four groups were originally intended to be limited to 25 families each, families from other areas in Oakland who were eager to be included were also allowed to participate, she says. "If we end up with more than 100 families, that's great," she declares.

An artist and teacher, Ms. Manjon says the art projects "open up possibilities for people to see where they can make changes -- in their lives, in their families, in society." It allows many of them to experience something they've never experienced before, and articulate something they might have felt but haven't been able to articulate in the past, she adds.

As the program's director, she is in weekly contact with Mr. Perry, whom she describes as "a real advocate for families and for art."

"He's just really committed to seeing this project become successful and sustaining. I don't even see him as a funder; I see him as a collaborator."

While most project funders are content to see reports on spending and effectiveness after their projects are in place or completed, "Noel is so hands-on," sometimes attending the Saturday workshops, Ms. Manjon says. "He wants to know about the families, how the (individual) projects are going."

Catalyst for change

Mr. Perry is a strong believer in art as a catalyst for change on levels ranging from the individual to society as a whole.

"It's mind-expanding," he says, even as he acknowledges that art's powerful grip on the person who creates it is often mysterious. As the artist acts to change the piece of clay or canvas into something that comes from within, the result can be surprising, "and maybe you can see your life changing," he says.

The process of learning about oneself through art can lead to empowerment and change -- an underlying principle of 100 Families.

"When someone takes a paint brush and puts it to paper -- that's powerful."
Strong family

Mr. Perry is an intensely private person. A man who is deeply committed to a project aimed in part at strengthening families, he declines to speak about his own family, except for his parents and siblings.

The family that helped nurture in him his earliest desire to "make a difference in people's lives" includes a community-minded father who was a 40-year Rotarian, a mother who taught school for 40 years, and three sisters who took master's degrees in social work. "I had a mentorship within my family," he says.

His volunteer work in the Peace Corp, his philanthropy and his support of enterprises that educate to empower others aren't activities reserved for larger-than-life heroes in Mr. Perry's world.

"It's just who I am," he says.

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