‘Between the Cracks’ : Alhambra’s Main Street Gallery Is a Bright Spot in an Unlikely Setting

The new show at the Main Street Gallery in Alhambra is called “Between the Cracks.” That might also be an apt title for this small city, whose efforts to enhance the arts have gone largely unnoticed in the shadows of its bigger neighbors.

“I would have thought that a gallery like this would be in (Pasadena’s) Old Town or on the Westside,” said Pasadena resident Marilyn Hughes, as she visited the gallery, a freshly painted and brightly lit edifice at 337 E. Main St. that sits amid vacant and boarded buildings. “There’s really nothing like this around here. I was surprised to see it.”

Inside the city-owned-and-operated gallery on a recent evening, artists nibbled on crab mousse and mixed with a small crowd who came to see the modern paintings and sculptures that adorn the room. The event, a reception for the six Los Angeles County artists whose work is on display until Sunday, is part of the city’s latest bid to bring culture to this community of 74,000 residents.

“A lot of people don’t even know Alhambra exists,” said Cynthia Jarvis, cultural arts coordinator for the city’s 4-year-old arts program. “People are used to going downtown or in the other direction (to the San Fernando Valley) for arts or theater. And yet Alhambra is this wonderful city that is right near the downtown. We have a lot to offer, but it just hasn’t been tapped yet.”

Jarvis, whose position is funded through Alhambra’s Human Services Department, is working to reverse that trend.

The Main Street Gallery opened in September in conjunction with the Los Angeles Festival, and “Between the Cracks” is its second show. “I am thrilled to be a part of it,” said artist Kaoru Mansour, who lives in Alhambra and has a studio in downtown Los Angeles. “The fact that it is not a private gallery meant that I had more freedom to install my work however I wanted to. That’s very unusual.”

So is the arrangement city officials have worked out with the artists: Alhambra takes only a 10% commission on anything that sells.

“I’m used to paying 40% and 50% commissions to private galleries,” said Richard Klix, a Santa Monica painter. “Showing at a municipal gallery where profit is not the main goal is kind of refreshing.”

The artworks are selling from between $90 for paintings of Los Angeles-area neighborhoods by Jacinto Guevara to as much as $3,000 for works by a sculptor who goes by the name Dodd.

“The point is to make art available in the community,” Jarvis said.

She noted that the space for the gallery has been temporarily donated by the city’s Redevelopment Agency. The agency owns, or is in the process of buying, five properties on Main Street between Chapel Avenue and Almansor Street.

Plans are to demolish the buildings in August to make way for a shopping mall. Ultimately, if the gallery continues to operate, it will have to find a new home. City officials have not decided whether to hold a third show.

The gallery is just one of the programs Jarvis has brought to the city since becoming its cultural arts coordinator two years ago. Another is the Festival of Neighbors. The two-day event held at Alhambra Park offers music, dance, food, and arts and crafts from different ethnic groups and cultures.

During summer months, the city holds concerts at the Alhambra Park Band Shell on Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings. Last year it also started a lunchtime concert series downtown. “Our main venue for the past four years has been the band shell,” Jarvis said. “But we wanted to expand that, so we brought music to the people working downtown.”

Also during the summer, the city sponsors outdoor movies at the band shell, which seats about 1,000 people. “It’s like going to the drive-in,” Jarvis said. “Only without a car.”

The most popular summer event is the Fourth of July program, which attracts about 10,000 people for entertainment, food and fireworks, Jarvis said.

But perhaps her biggest coup in terms of bringing arts and entertainment to Alhambra was getting the Los Angeles Festival to schedule some of its programs in Alhambra last fall.

The festival was a 17-day, multidisciplinary event that included theater, music, visual arts, dance, poetry readings and films scheduled at 40 locations throughout Los Angeles County. Alhambra hosted the Balinese Shadow Play Theater, The Uenuda Kagura Troupe (Japanese Dance Theater) and Likay (Thai improvisational Folk Opera).

“We really had to court the L.A. Festival,” Jarvis said. “It wasn’t easy getting them to come here. We told them about the band shell and asked them to come and see it.

“When they finally did,” she said, “I think they wondered why it took them so long to come here in the first place.”