The Gallery Sessions: A Sensory Smorgasbord

The Art Center, Ramona.

Have you ever noticed that we refer to musicians as “artists”? As in, “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” or “the artist performing for you tonight”? To be honest, this always struck my Midwestern brain as a little elitist—why is Wynton Marsalis an “artist” but the kid playing trumpet in his high school marching band isn’t? Just keep it simple. Music is the thing you hear, and art is the thing you see, right?

But what if the lines between art and music and dance and painting and poetry are artificially imposed or at least blurred? After all, dance rarely happens without music and music usually incorporates poetry and poetry creates a visual, et cetera. So, what if you take it one step further and declare, as Helen Wilson of the Art Center in Ramona recently told me, that the lines between these creative disciplines aren’t even blurred—they just don’t exist at all?

Welcome to the Gallery Sessions.

Helen Wilson, Art Center director. Photo by Cathryn Beeks.

Cathryn Beeks, curator of the Gallery Sessions.

It’s no surprise that the Gallery Sessions—a new series of intimate, immersive concerts—was cooked up by Helen and Cathryn Beeks, two creative powerhouses in the thriving Ramona arts scene. Helen is an artist and a professor at Palomar College who also runs the Art Center, located in the 2Create Gallery. Cathryn is a local singer-songwriter, producer, photographer, artist, clothing designer, and purveyor of all things unique and imaginative. So, it was only a matter of time before these formidable women teamed up to host a quarterly concert celebrating the intersection of music, art, food, and wine.

Here’s what happens. Around 5:30 on a Sunday evening, you go to 2Create Gallery (sponsor of the event) on the east end of Main Street in Ramona. You walk into a large room that’s adorned floor to ceiling with the work of over a hundred San Diego County artists. Two cool-ass young adults named Mia and Human decked out in snazzy black-and-white outfits present you trays of sweet and savory appetizers (what Helen describes as “little tiny cups of flavor”). You collect your complimentary glass of wine, courtesy of co-sponsor Mermaid Valley Vineyards. You have to drive, so you pace yourself with a donation from Hague Quality Water, located right next door. Then you spend a few minutes drifting around the gallery, admiring the diverse local talent (my favorite is Caylor Nuth’s “Meat Your Friends,” a series featuring the giant impassive faces of cows and pigs). As Helen explains, this gives the audience “a moment of wandering around, settling in, opening up their senses” before the show begins.

Around 6pm, you and 30ish other audience members are nudged toward the back room. Much of the art is mounted on movable partitions, shifted to make space for three or four rows of padded folding chairs in front of a makeshift stage with a small sound system, all made available by a grant from the Prebys Foundation. Jon Edwards, the comically overqualified sound tech drafted for this production (maybe because he’s Cathryn’s husband), fiddles with the levels while Cathryn introduces the first performer.

Bug Guts at the first Gallery Session. Photo by Cathryn Beeks.

Then the lights dim to a soft amber glow. A live musician launches into an original song less than ten feet away from you. You sip your wine. It feels like someone is pulling a velvety auditory blanket over you. You let your eyes wander to pieces on the wall behind the musician and realize the serendipitous connection between the lyrics you’re hearing and the visual creations in front of you. Your brain is simultaneously relaxed and alert, listening and thinking and seeing and soaking in this atmosphere. You wonder why you ever thought screens could take the place of this. You vow to do this more often.

Guess what? You can. The Gallery Sessions is not the only offering from the Art Center, nor is it even the sole collaboration between Helen and Cathryn. A year ago, the two launched Spoken Word, a monthly open mic where writers gather at the gallery to share poems, stories, and excerpts from their books. And the Art Center offers a ridiculous number of other opportunities for the community to flex their creative muscles—free summer art camps for kids; classes at the senior center; workshops on jewelry, mosaics, weaving, ceramics, and puppet-making, to name only a few. The goal is for people of all ages to come in, appreciate the art, and find “an opening of their own creative spirit within themselves,” Helen explains.

How did all this come about? Well, after living here for decades, Helen knew there were professional artists in the area who weren’t connected and “always thought they were the only artist in Ramona.” And she had long dreamed of a space that “recognized the arts in the back country”—a space where “all these people could be in contact with each other and not feel alone.” So, a little over a decade ago, Helen teamed up with Molly Begent’s 2Create Gallery to use it as a home base for the Art Center’s mission. As Cathryn describes, “Molly and Helen both want people to use the space, know about the space, and come in and enjoy the art and get involved.”

Incorporating music into this creative smorgasbord was the natural next step. Helen had hosted a few concerts in the gallery but reached out to Cathryn to make it a more established part of the Art Center’s programming. Cathryn curates the program and invites two artists (see, I’m getting used to it) to perform a 45-minute set. She’s focusing on acoustic and original music and opening it up to songwriters outside Ramona who spring from “all walks of life and have a unique point of view.” At the first concert, much of the audience came from San Diego, Los Angeles, and Borrego Springs (or “down the hill,” as Ramonans might say), which means “we’re bringing new people up to Ramona and new people into the gallery.”

Upcoming in April.

Each Gallery Sessions concert will also be its own unique experience—not just because it’ll feature different musicians, but because it takes place in the rear section of the gallery that displays next exhibits. Also, Cathryn promises that there’s “a little space off to the side where people can get up and dance” (because Lord knows these women won’t omit any creative disciplines).

And that’s the whole point, Helen explains. “When you connect all these arts, it becomes a whole-body sensation. And it takes you to places you wouldn’t have gone otherwise. Because you know how songs can put you someplace and take you places and connect you? I think art does the same thing. And if you’re in a creative space while you’re listening to the music, you’re being connected to your own creative spirit.”

Ultimately, Helen says, events like the Gallery Sessions “challenge who we are” while still “giving us the feeling of a safe space.” And that, she concludes with a smile, is “the only way to change the world.”

The next Gallery Session is April 19 at 5:30 p.m., featuring Heatherlyn and Blue Healers. Tickets are $30 and available at listenlocalradio.com.