Out For Blood
Is city driving away arts and garden clubs?
By David Johnson
Photography By Linda Smolek
June 2025
Civic pride starts with self-respect. That was understood in 1958 when the city designed and built Shepard Garden & Arts Center at McKinley Park. The center is a place where people engage their imaginations and creative spirits.
Shepard was constructed for local garden and arts clubs. The flagstone facade and fireplace, upswept roofline and expansive windows reflect midcentury optimism.
These days, 26 clubs meet at Shepard. But the relationship between the city, its building and audience is threatened.
Most of the 26 clubs are looking for new homes. Porcelain Artists is considering a room in a Raley’s. The Rose Society is looking at Gibbons Hall in Carmichael Park.
The reason is the city’s budget deficit. City Hall is thirsty for money. But to club members who use and enjoy Shepard, it feels like the city is out for our blood.
From the center’s earliest days, clubs paid user fees for upkeep and maintenance. Now the city’s parks department wants a 300% increase.
Local arts, crafts and garden clubs can’t afford this.
For many residents who enjoy Shepard, the fee hikes feel like betrayal. The relationship between the city and Shepard’s nonprofit arts and garden groups has always run deeper than a standard tenant-landlord arrangement.
It’s been a partnership for nearly 70 years. Yes, the city owns the building. But the kitchen equipment? Purchased by the clubs. Same with the furnishings.
When the parks department told clubs they would now have to pay $100 to use the kitchen for potluck meals, club members reminded the city about the partnership.
The park department’s response? Remove your furnishings.
As one arts club member says, “It feels like it’s not just about money. They want us gone.”
The parks department has been lax and non-responsive in negotiations, playing a waiting game. The City Council will decide Shepard’s fate in budget discussions, scheduled for final vote June 10.
Meantime, clubs continue to meet and hope for a positive outcome. One club is Camellia City Porcelain Artists, founded in 1974.
One recent day, a member named Eugenia, age 91, sat quietly and enjoyed a potluck. Her porcelain specialty involves painting depictions of wine country grapes. Kiln firing melds the paint into the original glaze.
Porcelain painting isn’t easy. Skills come gradually. The creative process attracts people of a certain character, a feature common to other garden and arts groups at Shepard.
Here are some of the clubs that make Shepard a busy, lively community gathering place: Art by Fire, Sacramento Collective for the Textile Arts, Weavers & Spinners Guild, Begonia Society, Rose Society, African Violet Society, Bonsai Club, Floral Design Guild.
Clubs are varied in scope with members eager to share interests with the community and enhance the city’s culture.
Recently, I heard someone define culture as the integration of the divine in everyday life. I reflected on that at Shepard’s annual open house.
There was a spiritual component to the civil, creative gathering. People found joy in their neighbor’s success. They proudly shared their own work.
As with all Shepard events, doors were open to the public. Clubs sold wares donated by members. The money went to gifts for the community.
The Perennial Plant Society offers an annual scholarship to high school students. Porcelain Artists gave cash to a school serving developmentally delayed adults.
Each Shepard club serves the community. It’s been this way since the start, when the Rose Society met in the toolshed of the McKinley Rose Garden.
Today, the pride Shepard club members find in themselves and their work—expressions of civic pride—is threatened by a city short of money.
It’s inconceivable to me that our city can’t continue the promise of partnership made to civic arts and garden groups 67 years ago when Shepard Garden & Arts Center opened.
David Johnson, a former teacher, is a member of Camellia City Porcelain Artists and the Shepard center board. He can be reached at dahwej@gmail.com.
