On February 8th , 2003, the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce's successful Phantom Galleries program celebrated its 10th Anniversary and a decade of urban art experimentation in Uptown!

Phantom first emerged in 1992, after then-President of the North Sacramento Chamber of Commerce, Bob Slobe, was having lunch with Bill Moskin, a noted arts consultant and the first paid director of SMAC. Bill was smitten with the look and feel of Del Paso Boulevard (and coincidentally had a particular interest in a brick building that unfortunately was not for sale). While discussing the challenges of revitalizing the Boulevard corridor Bill mentioned a program that Tucson, Arizona had initiated to enliven its Main Street downtown. Few people had been coming to Tucson's Main Street because there was little going on -- and there was little going on because no one was coming to Main Street. Vacancies had reached epidemic proportions. The program was called "Phantom Galleries." Simply put, it appealed to property owners to lend their vacant spaces to create temporary gallery and performing arts spaces. Property owners benefited by getting folks back on the street and looking at their spaces for rent or sale and the arts community benefited from a doubling of the amount of space for the arts...for free. Within two years Tucson's Main Street was "back" and healthy. The program continued for some time as new spaces became available. Even with its ultimate success, which supplanted "phantom" gallery spaces with permanent uses, the program married the arts to the area.

Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, the North Sac Chamber next turned to North Sacramento residents Michael Himovitz and Chuck Miller. Owners of The Michael Himovitz Gallery located at that time downtown, Michael and Chuck had helped start a fledgling "Second Saturday". They loved the Phantom Galleries idea. In fact, they so much supported an "arts revolution" in North Sacramento that they eventually moved to 1616 Del Paso, and purchased and rehabbed the building known to some affectionately as "The BOB" (The Building on the Boulevard). In the process, they garnered the support of artists and other full-time galleries for a Phantom Galleries program on Del Paso Boulevard. North Sac revitalization enthusiasts, including Kim Mueller, Rob and Tracy Kerth and Bill Farrell jumped on board, making displays, light bars and painting buildings for gallery space. Thus on the Second Saturday of February 1992, "Phantom Galleries" otherwise known as Second Saturday Second Shift" was born. Initial fears that no one would show up for this new kind of art party were immediately dispelled.

Several hundred people showed up on Phantom's first night, and after that the numbers swelled. Tied to the monthly Second Saturday openings of downtown and midtown galleries, Phantom Galleries operated later in the evening and with a distinctive "edge." Fire breathing performers walked the streets some months, searchlights beckoned, free jazz pioneer (and former Coltrane band member) John Tchicai wailed on the back patio of The Stoney Inn, billboards were covered with sheets and used for light shows and the number of walls for showing art in Sacramento more than doubled overnight. Ice carvers made sculptures on the street; stargazers brought out their telescopes. Studios opened up, allowing folks to watch artists at work. Tibetan Monks made huge, ephemeral mosaics of sand before our eyes. It was a wonderful time to experiment, expand and dream. And then there was the "Barbie on the Boulevard Show," a hit not just because it featured (according to some unnamed sources) a gunpowder-encrusted, life-sized Barbie exploding into flames, not something found in more staid art environments.

"Phantom has produced literally hundreds of shows and performances for new, emerging and established artists over the years." remarks Kim Mueller, a stalwart supporter of Phantom and former City Councilmember who opened her intellectual property law practice just off Del Paso Boulevard in the year 2000. "And in its early days, Phantom established a fertile environment for innovative group shows and artistic cross-fertilization, thanks to the remarkable efforts of many artists and arts supporters, including Miriam Davis, Julie Didion, and Dee Oldham to name just a few." It also appealed to a range of folks who likely had not made seeing art a part of their lives before. Its founders knew the project was finding new eyes for art - and were delighted -- when a man from Lodi called the North Sac Chamber office and asked what he and his date should wear to Phantom Galleries!

With the initial success of Phantom, the North Sac Chamber launched Uptown Arts as a separate non-profit to focus on arts programming. Perhaps most notably, a median strip art series was added to the mix. Then Councilmember Rob Kerth took personal responsibility for securing an encroachment permit to install temporary sculptures on the median, providing another venue for creative expression and new challenges to artists including Kathy Noonan, Stephanie Taylor, Derrel Fleener and the Blage Brothers as they worked to forge pieces large enough to make a statement in the space created by storefronts as the walls and the sky for a ceiling. Artist Paul DiPasqua's Samurai sculpture (welded with the assistance of Tony Natsoulas) which guarded the intersection of Dixieanne and Del Paso Boulevard was perhaps the most memorable of these median works. (It now reportedly guards the swimming pool of a North Sacramento art patron.)

Overall, Phantom Galleries has been a huge success and made a significant impact on the arts community in the region, having produced exhibits for 118 consecutive Second Saturdays by the time you are reading this, with over 540 individual exhibits featuring thousands of artists from promising high school students to accomplished masters. According to current Chamber President Franklin Burris, it continues to reach new audiences each month. Along the way, "Phantom has become part of the tapestry of Uptown, and its artistic focus has influenced our redevelopment, our visual environment, and our sense of community." The Uptown District's niche as an Arts District is confirmed by the uses it has attracted over the last 10 years: the Sacramento Musician's Hall (including a spring board floor for ballet and an acoustical room for symphony and musician practice), the Actor's Workshop Theatre (now operating at the BOB, across from the Supper Club), LIMN Furniture, 1001 Del Paso Works (providing 15 artist's studios - including the clay collective Sol Ceramica), The Edge (5 studios on Edgewater), Artisan Square (3 artist studios, and 6 low income lofts), Doiron Gallery, Austin's Uptown Studio, Woodson Photography, Beyond the Proscenium Productions (an avant garde theatre company), MatrixARTS, and the Center for Contemporary Art. Regionally important artists including Gerald Silva, Robert Charland, Jim Adan and Steve Vanoni (and his Horse Cow Gallery) have all become permanent fixtures in Uptown. Formerly emerging artists, like "shmoosh" photographer Paula Wenzl, have become established since Phantom started, at least in part through the opportunity for more exposure and to connect with an audience. As part of its embracing of the arts, the Chamber also insisted that the City's Department of Public Works hire (yes, that is pay) artist Kathy Noonan as part of the design team for the Arden-Garden Connector project. Kathy's contributions are permanent motifs stamped into the sidewalks and retaining walls along the Arden-Garden, and a custom design for the safety fence that splays delightful shadow patterns on the road itself when the sun shines. (The project completed, in 1999, was honored as Regional Project of the Year from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG).)

And the trend continues with the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission's (SMAC) location of its offices on Del Paso Boulevard just this past year. Additionally, SurrealEstates Ink (11 detached artist live/work units designed for individual ownership) is now set to break ground as an important and innovative project providing artists an equity and ownership position, so they will not be put out as rents rise but rather will benefit from the revitalization they have helped catalyze. In total, the community, the City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency have invested over $2 million in redevelopment financing for arts-related development in Uptown since Phantom's debut.

Which is not to say there isn't still a long way to go. "While there have been and will continue to be financial challenges and failures in any venture this vast, the impact on not only North Sacramento and its economy but on artists and the arts and culture of the region has been enormously positive" notes Bob Slobe. "I think most people agree that overall everyone in Uptown is better off, one way or the other, as a result of Phantom Galleries."

Phantom Galleries as part of the Uptown experiment is always looking for new artists - performing, visual, or experimental for future shows - call us 925-6773 or email us at phantom@northsacramentochamber.org to request your Artist Packet today.

What is "Second Saturday" Art shows?  Story by Ed Goldman