Page One

Despite the city’s bohemian reputation, artists don’t have an easy time in Berkeley—especially when it comes to finding spaces to create, perform and display their works—and many fear the city may be losing its one sure creative haven. 

“Most of our artists are located in West Berkeley, because we’re protected by the West Berkeley Plan,” said Sharon Siskind, a visual artist who belongs to the 28-year-old Nexus collective based in the 2700 block of Eighth Street. 

What worries artists like Siskind is Councilmember Margaret Breland’s ouster of Planning Commissioner John Curl—a West Berkeley woodworker—by Tim Perry, who they regard as pro-developer. 

“We’re protected by the West Berkeley Plan, which requires developers to provide alternative space if they build on sites now occupied by artists,” Siskind said.  

“During 10 years under the plan, West Berkeley has only lost two light manufacturing jobs, which is what artists are considered. In the 10 years before that, over 2,000 jobs were lost, many of them artists. 

“But the plan is coming up for review next year and developers are lobbying the city to get rid of it. And with John Curl off the planning commission and a majority of the commission seen as pro-developer, we’re getting worried.” 

Nexus currently leases its space from the city Humane Society, which is struggling for funds. In a recent meeting with Mayor Tom Bates, Siskind said the mayor informed them that the cash-strapped society was thinking of selling their building. 

Curl, a custom woodworker, plies his craft in the landmarked Kawneer Building—aka the Sawtooth Building—on Eighth Street between Dwight Way and Parker Street, home to countless craftspeople, artists and performers. 

“The people of Berkeley organized and fought to get the West Berkeley Plan passed,” Curl said, “and the developers have never given up. They lobbied hard, so a lot of things called for in the plan never got implemented, or they were implemented in a faulty way, while we had just assumed they’d be implemented as spelled out in the plan.” 

Besty Strange, a West Berkeley painter who lives with her daughter in a live/work space in the Durkee Building, 2900 Fifth St. at Heinz Avenue, praised Curl for his help in organizing the Art Nouveau structure’s tenants to battle for cheap rents and guaranteed tenure after the building was sold in the mid-1980s. 

“The new owners tried to evict us, and the struggle lasted four years. But now the old tenants are covered by rent control and the newer ones are protected by the use permit, which insures modest rents,” she said. Another powerful support after the structure was landmarked. 

“It’s a great place,” Strange said, “and I’ve lived here since I graduated from Cal in 1978.” 

One thing promised in the West Berkeley plan but never delivered was a city-conducted inventory of art and industrial spaces in the area.  

“There’s no real inventory of arts space in Berkeley,” said Bonnie Hughes, a members of the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission. “There are a lot of spaces that are not very well known.” 

Part of the problem, she says is the city’s distinction between “people for whom art is a way of life and not a business and those for whom it’s a business. The ones for whom it’s a business get all the attention from the city, while it should be the role of the city to help everyone in the arts.” 

One of the city’s greatest needs is for venues for musical performance, especially one with a grand piano. “A lot of times people have to go to private homes. People use the house of one patron and another site. But they can’t be advertised. Jazz groups and pianists have to debut their works in houses here, while they’d be welcomed into public facilities in other cities. The Berkeley Arts festival had a space on Shattuck between Piedmont and Durant. We had some incredible performances. But we were using a borrowed piano, and when it was taken away, we had to close down.” 

The city’s largest new performance venue will be opened when the controversial nine-story Seagate building planned for the 2000 block of Center Street. 

While city zoning places a five-story limit on new downtown construction, exceptions are awarded for developers who provide dedicated apartments for low-income tenants and build dedicated public arts space. Two of the Seagate building’s extra floors were awarded for the inclusion of 11,000 square feet of arts space. 

While 2,000 feet were designated for a corridor with art displays on the walls, the other 9,000 consist of two theatrical spaces leased and controlled by the well-funded and politically connected Berkeley Rep theatrical company. Neither venue has acoustics suitable for music. 

Rob Woodworth, a drummer who serves as executive director of the Jazz House, a nonprofit learning and performance venue at 3192 Adeline St., said the difficulty of finding performance space has long been an issue in Berkeley. 

“I work a lot with kids, and it’s hard to find places for them to perform, either because the venues serve alcohol, or because they don’t want kids to perform. In general, there’s not only a shortage of performance space but of funding as well,” he said. 

Widely acclaimed in regional news media, Woodworth’s facility gives young musicians the chance to provide the opening acts for adult artists who perform there to help raise funds to keep the Jazz House afloat. 

“I wouldn’t say we’re successful, but we’ve managed to stay open for a year. But we still have a long way to go,” he said. 

Changing cultural conditions also shape the artist’s environment, particularly for musicians. 

“In some respects, the Beatles changed everything. Forty years ago, music was something of a rarified guild, but then the Beatles came along, and every teenager wanted to become a guitarist or a drummer,” said John Schott, a guitarist and the leader of John Schott’s Typical Orchestra. 

While once the Bay Area offered decent paying jobs to professional musicians, today most club performers earn no more than a single patron pays in cover charges, between $6 and $30, he said. 

“There are a lot of musicians in the Bay Area now, and most of them are willing to work for free,” he said. 

The days when the region formed one of the hotbeds of standup comedy are long gone, something Schott attributes to the dominant role of television. 

The bandleader singled out Bonnie Hughes for praise. “She’s been marvelous by finding all these vacant spaces downtown and turning them into performance spaces in between tenants. We’re been blessed by her create what amounts to guerilla performance spaces. People like here are very important to the cultural life of the city.”  

Gemma Whelan, Co-Founder and Director of “Wilde Irish Productions” which made a significant splash in Berkeley’s last theater season with their presentation of Beckett’s famous “Endgame” says the company will stage their next production in San Francisco. Whelan said she made the decision, in part, because the Berkeley City Club is so heavily booked by other companies that they “were able to get only one slot” for the entire year. 

LaVal’s Pizza Parlor’s tiny black basement on Euclid Avenue is continually booked by younger, experimental companies—but the size and the stairwell that audiences have to go down to the theater impose some obvious limitations. And other kinds of productions compete for space at the 8th Street Theatre. 

The City Club has served as a venue for numerous small theater companies. Central Works is in their 13th year at the club and others grab at it when they can.