Miniature Works L to R: Dan Miller, Maureen Clay and Dan Miller

Miniature works by Maureen Clay and Dan Miller will be on view at the Art & Lit Gallery and Little Free Library in Berkeley in anticipation of this year’s Bay Area Book Festival

Creative Growth is proud to announce a partnership with the 2025 Bay Area Book Festival, taking place May 31–June 1 in Downtown Berkeley. This collaboration brings the work of two acclaimed studio artists—Dan Miller and Maureen Clay—into a unique and intimate setting: the Bay View Art & Lit Gallery and Little Free Library.

Nestled above a Little Free Library on Bay View Place, just steps from the Berkeley Rose Garden and Codornices Park, Bay View Art & Lit is one of the Bay Area’s smallest but most beloved galleries. The space may be tiny, but its presence is anything but. With rotating shows every three weeks, the gallery offers a continuous glimpse into the creative lives of artists working across mediums.

As part of this year’s festival, Dan Miller and Maureen Clay were commissioned to create original miniature works to be displayed in the gallery’s ever-changing exhibition space. Known for his intricate text-based drawings, Dan’s work explores language and repetition in powerful ways, even at small scale.

Maureen Clay paints with thickly brushed impasto, layering colors repeatedly until the entire composition has been covered several times. She has an intricate sense of color and design, and while her work appears abstract, Clay describes her images as distorted versions of fish, birds, and food. Her pieces hold multitudes—evoking everything from a deep seascape to a starry night sky or a microscopic view of life. 

All artwork created for this special installation is available for purchase, with proceeds directly supporting Creative Growth’s mission to advance the inclusion of artists with developmental disabilities in contemporary art and culture.

Lit at night and on view two hours past dusk, Bay View Art & Lit provides a rare opportunity to engage with art outside of traditional museum or gallery hours. It’s a quiet but steady invitation to pause, reflect, and take in creativity on a human scale. This collaboration offers a thoughtful intersection of literature, art, and accessibility—values that are at the heart of both Creative Growth and the Bay Area Book Festival.

Visit Bay View Art & Lit on Bay View Place, Berkeley, CA – above the Free Little Library near the Berkeley Rose Garden. On view from April 5th through April 25th, 2025. Learn more about Bay View Art & Lit here: https://www.bayviewartandlit.com/

Learn more about this year’s Bay Area Book Festival taking place from May 31 to June 1st in Downtown Berkeley here. https://www.baybookfest.org/.