The Mills Station Arts & Culture Center is a hidden gem in Rancho Cordova. Cheryl Gleason is determined to change that.
As the center’s art director and curator since 2018, Gleason plans everything that happens at Mills Station. It’s also her job to make sure people see the exhibits, workshops, history displays, cultural demonstrations and more at the center each month.
Last time I spoke to the painter Patris, it was May 2020, a few months into lockdown.
Her Oak Park studio was quiet. In-person classes were canceled and moved online. Patris used the downtime to return to basics and work on her already extensive drawing skills.
“In a way, it was a reset,” says Patris, born Patti Miller. “At that time, I was thinking about going into this next decade and asking myself, what do I really love and want to focus on?
“I tried my best to come in every day as if nothing had changed. I decided I wasn’t going to miss a beat, no pulling back and getting lazy. I had to fight for my vision, the dream I have for this studio and being an artist. I had to get back in the saddle.”
You’re working at Sacramento Theatre Company during tough times. Live theater audiences are declining. Budgets are tight. You wonder what the future holds.
The phone rings. It’s Stephanie J. Block, Tony Award-winning star of Broadway hits “Wicked,” “9 to 5,” “The Cher Show,” “Falsettos” and “Into the Woods.”
She wants to help.
When Marjorie Methven landed in town to earn a teaching credential and master’s degree at Sacramento State, she had no idea she was returning to her roots.
“While doing research for my master’s thesis on visual self-narrative, I started to look into my own genealogical history,” Methven says. “It turns out that my great-great grandfather settled in Antioch and my great uncles worked for the railyard (in Sacramento) in different capacities at the turn of the 20th century. I didn’t know that before I moved here. It was quite serendipitous.”
Before the research, Sacramento was just a place on the map to Methven, who grew up in Minnesota and went to college in Wisconsin.
