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.

Divine Inspiration Painting is akin to prayer for Elk Grove priest By Jessica Laskey January 2024 Painting is not just painting for the Rev. Sylvester Kwiatkowski. As a priest at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in Elk Grove, Kwiatkowski sees painting...

For The Love Of Art Artist manipulates materials to make something new By Jessica Laskey January 2024 Shirley Hazlett’s excitement is palpable. As she leads me around her studio in a building off Sutterville Road, she explains her artmaking process....

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.

If you’re tempted to lick one of Kevin Wilhite’s paintings, don’t.

Though the delectable treats he portrays in oil paint as thick as frosting look sweet enough to eat, they’re still paint.

“I get hungry every time I paint ice cream,” Wilhite says.

His latest series features every flavor of Gunther’s ice cream. He explains, “I started learning to use the palette knife to incorporate more shape into my pieces, which lends a more chunky, textural style.”

A vintage ad for a cyclery inquiring “Why are the Tallest People the Laziest?” snuggles next to a poster for a Frank Sinatra concert, which sits above a front page from the defunct Sacramento Union. This is perched above personals ads from the 1940s. Those are next to an old Sports Illustrated cover featuring Kings stars Vlade Divac, Jason Williams, Peja Stojaković and Doug Christie.

What does this amalgam of historical documents have in common?

The answer is archival producer, researcher and artist Chris Lango. He’s been a resident at the Warehouse Artist Lofts on R Street since 2015.

“My whole journey (working as) an archival researcher has allowed me to be in situations—and meet people—that are totally interesting because of what has been saved,” Lango says. “In real time, those people might be viewed as strange, but in time, what they’ve done is so valuable you can’t put a price on it.”