"It's the only city building that's got continuous walls that aren't broken up by windows," Sue Malick, board president of Piedmont Center for the Arts, told the East Bay Times in June. "It's very hard in any other city-owned building to do much of an art show. This is the only place."
The building at the corner of Bonita and Magnolia avenues went up in the 1930s as a private home and later became a Christian Science church. The City of Piedmont bought it in 2003. It sat vacant for years until a group of residents proposed turning it into a community arts center, and Piedmont Center for the Arts opened in August 2011. This fall is the start of its sixteenth year. The schedule you see on its website comes from a deal with the City that most people walking by have never heard of.
A Weekday Room for the City
The arts center's lease was replaced in 2022 by a facility use agreement. Under it, the building is split between the center's programs and City recreation needs, and the City handles maintenance. Malick told the East Bay Times that the main room is now also used for children's camps, yoga, Piedmont Fire Department CPR classes and Piedmont Police Department meetings.
You can see the sharing on this fall's calendar. Piedmont Recreation Department's own Drag Queen Bingo takes place at 801 Magnolia Avenue on Friday, November 13, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and you have to register in advance. That's a City event in the same room the arts center uses for its concerts.
The City's March 2022 staff report laid out how the split was meant to work. It proposed giving the arts center weekday afternoons, two weekday evenings a week and up to 36 weekends a year. The City would keep weekday mornings, two evenings a week and 16 weekends. The same report put the Main Hall's capacity at 80 to 100 people. Those numbers were proposals when they were written. Still, the basic pattern of City use on weekdays and arts programming built around the weekend matches how the center runs today.
Why Weekends Carry the Load
A hall shared with camps and yoga classes can't keep a stage set up for long. The East Bay Times noted that shows needing several days of stage setup, plays especially, are the hardest to fit in. The center's 10-member volunteer board books concerts, talks and exhibitions instead, and hangs a new show every four to six weeks so there's art on the walls all year.
So the calendar bunches up. "Sometimes we'll have an empty weekend, and other times we'll have four or five events a day over a three-day weekend," Malick told the paper. She added that events are often well attended, and open dates on the calendar fill quickly. Gallery hours follow the same pattern: Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., free.
Nearly everything happens Saturday and Sunday, and a single weekend can hold several events.
The October and November Calendar
The center lists these events for the weeks after this post goes up.
| Date | Event | Presented by | Admission |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekends through Nov 1, except Oct 17, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. | "Hopes and Dreams" exhibition | Oakland Art Association | Free |
| Sun, Oct 25, 4 p.m. | Salon Series: "Mad Scenes" | Festival Opera Association | Ticketed |
| Fri, Nov 6, 5:30 p.m. | Opening reception, "Falling for the Rising Sun" | Michael Stehr | Free |
| Sat & Sun, Nov 7–29, except Nov 28, 11 a.m.–2 p.m. | "Falling for the Rising Sun" exhibition | Michael Stehr | Free |
| Sat, Nov 7, 3:30 p.m. | Stravinsky & Rachmaninoff: Piano Solos and Duets | 16 Bay Area and Toronto pianists | Ticketed |
| Sun, Nov 8, 4 p.m. | "Portraits and Poetry": Musical Gems for Winds and Strings | Piedmont Chamber Orchestra | Free, reserve ahead |
Most of the groups on this list come from outside Piedmont. That's how the center has always worked: it hosts the wider East Bay arts community in a Piedmont building. Oakland Art Association is a nonprofit of artists, photographers and art supporters from Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and it stages about 10 juried shows a year. Festival Opera gives a Walnut Creek mailing address on its home page. Its season page places its Salon Series at the center, and its October 25 "Mad Scenes" program features sopranos Lila Khazoum and Aura Veruni with pianist Daniel Lockert.
November's painter is a local. The Piedmont Exedra has profiled Michael Stehr as a Piedmont High School graduate, fine-art painter, art historian and decorative artist. His show is described as paintings inspired by Thanksgiving in Japan. It runs through the weekend of the American holiday and closes only on Saturday, November 28.
The Room Musicians Ask For
Two things about the hall explain why its calendar fills even with the City taking part of the week. The East Bay Times reported that musicians know the main room for its acoustics. Performers have recorded there, including the Berkeley Symphony's chamber series, "Berkeley Symphony and Friends." Then there's the piano. "We have a very, very valuable piano," Malick told the paper, calling it "a real selling point to performers who have used it and friends of theirs who've heard about it."
The November 7 program shows off both. Sixteen pianists from the Bay Area and Toronto will play Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff solos and duets. The sponsoring artist is Gwendolyn Mok, a pianist, recording artist and San José State University music faculty member. The next afternoon the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra plays in the same room. The City's 2022 report listed the orchestra's rehearsals and performances among the center's longtime programming relationships. Its "Portraits and Poetry" concert is free, but you need to reserve a ticket.
Two Weekends, Planned Around the Room
The calendar is packed into weekends, and the hall holds about 100 people at most, so it helps to pick dates ahead of time. Two weekends this fall have the most going on.
- October 24–25. Visit "Hopes and Dreams" during gallery hours on Saturday or Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Come back Sunday at 4 p.m. for Festival Opera's "Mad Scenes" salon; tickets are on Zeffy. If you have young children, Piedmont Recreation Department's Floating Pumpkin Patch is the same Saturday at 358 Hillside Avenue. It has three sessions between 1 and 5 p.m., and the fee is $12 per participant. The Oakland Art Association show closes the next weekend, November 1.
- November 6–8. On Friday, the Stehr opening reception starts at 5:30 p.m. On Saturday, his show opens for gallery hours, and the piano program starts at 3:30 p.m.; tickets are on TicketSignup. On Sunday at 4 p.m., the Piedmont Chamber Orchestra plays, with free tickets on Eventbrite.
The building has no kitchen or catering space, according to the center's rental page. Plan to eat before or after you go.
January's Bigger Show
This fall's calendar also leads into something larger. In June, the East Bay Times reported that the California Watercolor Association had booked a summer "Wonder of Watercolor" show at the center to promote its 57th International Exhibition, which the paper said was planned for the center "next January." Carol Husslein of the association's international exhibition committee described the main room as "an elegant space with high ceilings, beautifully colored walls, good lighting and a hanging system." Before the bigger exhibition can go up, it has to be fit into the same shared week as the yoga classes, CPR training and camps. That's why the center's calendar is worth checking at piedmontcenterforthearts.org before any weekend you'd like to keep open.
We're a fifth-generation Piedmont family, so we've seen 801 Magnolia as a church, as an empty building and as the arts center it is now. Long-time residents are often surprised to learn how it works today. If you'd like to talk about the rooms and places around town that shape daily life in Piedmont, Anian Tunney and Adrienne Krumins would be glad to hear from you. Contact Us.