Clear Heart Gallery Seeking New Home

In the six short months it has been open, Con Petaluma Boulevard North has managed to become cultural hub for the community.

It has hosted numerous singer/songwriter events, a theatrical retelling of local history called Petaluma the Musical, plays featuring teen actors and a pub crawl. More recently, the art gallery has provided a winter meeting space for Occupy Petaluma and the Petaluma Philosophical Society.

Now Clear Heart is looking for a new home, forced to relocated to make room for a new apartment complex and assisted living facility that will be built at the location. Demolition is scheduled for this spring.

“We always knew that we’d eventually have to move, but we thought that we had a few years, especially when you look at how long it takes Petaluma to move projects,” said Leslie Scatchard, who owns Clear Heart with partner John Ton. “We’re really surprised it’s happening so quickly.”

Scatchard, an elementary school teacher and actress, and Ton, a visual artist, founded the gallery with the idea of providing an affordable space for Petaluma artists. Rent was cheap because it was month to month, allowing the owners to charge artists just 20 percent of ticket sales for use of the space. In December, teens put on Murder’s in the Heir play and numerous visual artists have exhibited their works on its walls.

“I want this to be a place where people can do shows and give them the opportunity to strut their stuff,” Scatchard said.

The last show for the gallery will be Rebel Voices!, production based on Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” put on by Petaluma Readers’ Theater January 20-28. Click here to watch a preview of a staging of Rebel Voices!

Colette McMullen is a Petaluma actress who produced Petaluma the Musical at Clear Heart last summer, an event that sold out.

“I gravitated to Clear Heart because I believe we need a place where we can do art, music and where people can get together,” McMullen said, adding that there are few venues in town for artists on a shoestring budget.

After considerable searching, McMullen selected the on B Street for her next show, titled “Petaluma the Musical: Steam Punk.” “I will have to pay to use the venue for rehearsals as well as buy insurance, which means that tickets prices will have to be raised. But where else is there?"

Know of a potential space where Clear Heart can relocate to? Contact Leslie Scatchard at 707-971-0677 or John Ton at 707-322-0009.