Artfully Sustained
Creative solutions drive this innovation center
INSIDE SACRAMENTO
By Jessica Laskey
Next time you’re strolling Front Street in Old Sacramento, stop at the Art Café at Atrium 916. You won’t be served food. You’ll be served art—a ball of clay or a canvas and paints to bring out your inner artist.
“I wanted there to be a place where people can come and just hang out and make art and connect with others,” says Shira Lane, the Israel-born, Australia-raised founder of Atrium 916. “Art can be isolating and intimidating, so the Atrium is designed to be zero-barrier and as accessible as possible. Just walk in and ask a question. We’re like the atrium of the heart: As you go through us, you get more oxygen.”
Lane didn’t intend to open a full-service creative, innovation center for sustainability, but that’s what she built. The documentary filmmaker worked in Los Angeles and San Francisco before arriving in Sacramento in 2016. She saw the local talent and was inspired to create Upcycle Pop, an artistically oriented recycle market.
Atrium 916 moved to Old Sacramento at the height of the pandemic when the Folsom Boulevard building was sold and in-person marketplaces were shut down. It’s one-tenth the size of the previous building, which means the studio spaces are full, but Lane says there are expansion plans afoot and that Sacramento.Shop is still a great way to support creatives. Atrium’s staff provides mentorship.
Atrium is home to a gallery of rotating exhibits, plus open mic nights, jam sessions, workshops and business roundtables. During the pandemic, Atrium was the lead advocacy group on securing CARES and ARPA funds for local artists. They hosted creative economy meetings for the city “to make sure they could actually hear the creatives.”