Make some space

So, you’re a savvy businessman who owns a two-story building that eats up an entire city block. You envision it as a destination—a Midtown art, retail, restaurant scene, or MARRS, if you will. That’s the plan from Heller Pacific Inc.’s Michael Heller Jr., and while he brings it to fruition, transforming the former state offices downstairs, there’s a space the size of a football field upstairs, vacant and ready to exhibit some art.

When UC Davis art student Kyle Hittmeier was offered that space rent-free, he tapped his girlfriend, Sacramento City College (SCC) art student Jessica Weddle, and together they founded the 1050 Loft, a nonprofit gallery featuring mostly student art. Their first show opened last October, with SCC art instructor Chris Daubert’s illuminated red text running about waist high throughout the pitch-black, cavernous gallery. It was an entrancing show, one to jumble the senses, and something you’d expect to find in a far bigger metropolis. But there you were on the second floor at 1050 20th Street in Midtown Sacramento.

Through the 28th, the 1050 Loft features a bevy of large works by Daubert and eight student artists. Irina Beffa’s mixed media on wood, “Pompeii,” offers a colorful vision of busting out of conformity’s grid. Helen DiCarlo’s “Once More Through,” an oil-on-canvas abstract, has a futuristic feel of dynamic activity in outer space, seemingly lit from within and sans the cold, hard edges. Sahar Alsawaf’s charcoal-on-paper works reveal her take on the circus and carnie life—with shades of the Blue Meanies in the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine flick. Check out Alsawaf’s illustrated woman in the “World’s Fattest 4-Fingered Tattooed Lady.” For more information, call (916) 730-6667.