On a late spring afternoon, the Piedmont Center for the Arts sits beneath a picturesque sky at the city\u2019s corner of Bancroft and Magnolia avenues. Inside, board president Sue Malick walks through the main gallery, where works from the current \u201cIn Bloom: Spring Exhibition\u201d line the walls.<\/p>\n
Within days, the artwork will come down and another exhibition will take its place \u2014 part of the steady cycle of art shows, concerts and lectures that has defined the center in Piedmont since its 2011 opening. Maintaining that momentum has required resourcefulness in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese last four years, we\u2019ve been trying to find a balance between the city and the Center for the Arts,\u201d Malick said.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, the Piedmont Center for the Arts (PCA) has shared the building with city recreation programs and for other municipal uses, requiring carefully coordinated schedules. The arrangement, however, has not changed the organization\u2019s mission. The current exhibition, presented by the Center for Slavic Arts & Culture, reflects the type of diverse programming the PCA aims to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all Slavic artists, so think of the whole Slavic world diaspora that has settled in the Bay Area. If they\u2019re artists, they belong to this organization. You\u2019ve got things of varying qualities from various home countries, including Russia \u2014 and so that\u2019s really fun for us,\u201d Malick said.<\/p>\n
The building at 801 Magnolia Ave. has undergone several transformations over the decades. Built in the 1930s as a private home, it later became a Christian Science church. The city of Piedmont bought the property in 2003, and after years of sitting vacant, a group of residents proposed converting it into a community arts center. The city approved the plan, and the PCA opened in August 2011.<\/p>\n
In 2022, the center\u2019s lease arrangement changed to a facility use agreement that divides the building\u2019s use between PCA programming and city recreation needs, with the city responsible for maintenance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has made us have to be a little more creative in how we schedule things,\u201d Malick says, explaining that the main room is now used as a space for children\u2019s camps, yoga sessions, Piedmont Fire Department CPR classes, and Piedmont Police Department meetings.<\/p>\n
The shared-use arrangement can create challenges, particularly for PCA productions like plays that require multiday stage setups. Despite those constraints, the nonprofit\u2019s 10-member volunteer board has continued to maintain a busy schedule of musical performances, educational programs and visual arts exhibitions. The latter typically remain on display for four to six weeks, with the goal of keeping artwork on the walls year-round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the only city building that\u2019s got continuous walls that aren\u2019t broken up by windows, so it\u2019s very hard in any other city-owned building to do much of an art show \u2014 this is the only place,\u201d Malick said.<\/p>\n
The PCA\u2019s main room, known among musicians for its acoustics, regularly hosts concerts and recitals. Performers have even used the space for recordings, including the Berkeley Symphony\u2019s chamber series, \u201cBerkeley Symphony and Friends.\u201d Another draw sits near the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very, very valuable piano,\u201d Malick said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a real selling point to performers who have used it and friends of theirs who\u2019ve heard about it, who are also musicians, who end up coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent performers have included groups such as the George Cole Quartet and the Kombos Collective, as well as concert pianists Yun Janice Lu, Rami Bar-Niv and Jason B. Sia. Malick says interest in performing at the PCA remains strong. Events are often well attended \u2014 some even packed shoulder to shoulder \u2014 and openings on the center\u2019s calendar can fill quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we\u2019ll have an empty weekend, and other times we\u2019ll have four or five events a day over a three-day weekend,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The next exhibition to fill the gallery walls will be the California Watercolor Association\u2019s \u201cWonder of Watercolor,\u201d running this Saturday through June 28. The free exhibition will be open Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will feature works by signature and master signature members of the association. Carol Husslein, a member of the association\u2019s international exhibition committee, says the PCA offers an ideal setting for the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main room is an elegant space with high ceilings, beautifully colored walls, good lighting and a hanging system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The exhibition also serves as a lead-up to another major California Watercolor Association show planned for the center. The association\u2019s 57th \u201cInternational Exhibition\u201d is scheduled to take place at the PCA next January.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made arrangements with PCA for this promotional show to get the community fired up about [it],\u201d Husslein said.<\/p>\n
Visitors can expect a wide range of artistic styles and subjects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese paintings are phenomenal,\u201d Husslein said. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to become a signature member, let alone a master signature member, and you have paintings that are coming in from all around the world for a show like this, so it\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
As summer approaches, the watercolor exhibition is only one of several events on the PCA\u2019s calendar. Upcoming programs include an illustrated lecture by art historian Michael Stehr, chamber and jazz performances and a concert featuring cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak and the IPC All-Star Chamber Orchestra. For Malick, the variety reflects what the organization has worked to preserve since opening nearly 15 years ago: a place where artists can exhibit, perform and connect with audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we try to do is promote the arts \u2014 make the arts accessible to not only the citizens of Piedmont but the surrounding greater community \u2014 and also make it possible for artists to perform here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
JL Odom is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco who can be reached at\u00a0jlodomphd@gmail.com<\/a>. When they\u2019re not covering the Bay Area, they\u2019re usually training for their next marathon.<\/p>\n FYI<\/p>\n The Piedmont Center for the Arts is at 801 Magnolia Ave. in Piedmont. For more information about upcoming Piedmont Center for the Arts events, visit piedmontcenterforthearts.org<\/a> online. To see the artwork that will be featured in the California Watercolor Association\u2019s (CWA) \u201cWonder of Watercolor\u201d exhibition, go online to bit.ly\/437hyjQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n Catalogs of past CWA exhibitions, most available for $8 each, can be found online at bit.ly\/4e4xsk3<\/a>. Details about the PCA facility use agreement are available at bit.ly\/4o5NP4u<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a late spring afternoon, the Piedmont Center for the Arts sits beneath a picturesque sky at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5445,389,5282,184,7,332,181,23,13744,143,145,1904,144,13745],"class_list":["post-343532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda","tag-alameda-county","tag-arts","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-montclair","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-hills","tag-oakland-news","tag-piedmont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}