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Gakunju Kaigwa took up sculpture in his native Kenya in 1983. Since then he has turned dozens of pieces of wood into detailed figures of people, faces and animals. 

Along with 20 or so other industrial arts’ teachers, Kaigwa demonstrated his skills and artwork Saturday evening at the second annual Fire Arts Festival. The event was sponsored by The Crucible, a nonprofit industrial arts training center, located on Murray Street in Southwest Berkeley.  

The teachers began the event at 6 p.m. with 15 demonstrations of classes taught at The Crucible, including cement work, blacksmithing, flame-worked glass and woodcarving. 

A growing audience wandered throughout the recently expanded 22,000 square-foot warehouse, talking to the artists about their displayed pieces and getting tips about how to make their own artwork out of metal, wood or stone. 

On display in a room towards the back of the warehouse was an exhibit of sculptures for sale that were executed by Crucible artists. 

“The Fire Arts Festival is one of demonstration,” studio manager and instructor Orion Fredericks explained. 

The purpose of the Fire Arts Festival is to promote The Crucible’s programs and for its artists to display their work. Last year’s festival attracted 1,500 to 2,000 people, and faculty estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 people showed up for Saturday’s festival. 

At Fire Feast in January, a celebration of The Crucible’s first birthday, 3,000 people came and donated nearly $20,000 to the organization. 

This year’s Fire Arts Festival emphasized The Crucible’s growth to offer a larger variety of classes. 

“As we’re growing, we’re adding more and more,” executive director Michael Sturtz said. We’re going to have a whole glass facility for the next six months. We’ve just added things like wood carving, cement sculpture and jewelry.” 

“The Crucible is expanding a little bit from just metal,” said Berkeley artist Stan Huncilman, who is preparing to teach The Crucible’s first cement sculpture class. “I’m doing cement and you have Gakunju doing woodcarving, so the scope of work is getting larger. This class is going to be a fun challenge, people just have to be interested enough to take it.” 

Besides being just an open house for the public to learn about The Crucible’s programs and classes, the event was also stacked with entertainment. Performances – some musical, others involving The Crucible’s theme of fire – lasted until after 3 a.m. 

“So many people are interested in this idea, we are trying to bring them together and have a meeting place for that,” Sturtz said. “We are trying to bring the community together with all these events.”  

The Crucible’s next event is an outdoor film series titled Obsessive Creators on Sunday, July 15, put on in collaboration with Cricket Moon Cinema.