To celebrate the history of the old lumber mill site before it’s demolished, a traveling gallery project, Roving Venue, is teaming with Mill District developer Replay Destinations.
Founders of the gallery, artists Patrick Rhodes and Jessica Martin, are presenting their first event, The Mill, from 2 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 2. Roving Venue is focused on one-day art events in varied locations around Sonoma County.
The event will feature site-specific art installations and performances throughout the day with live music on two stages.
Jim Hall, the director of development, offered up space for Roving Venue to do an event, and just like that, their gallery shows became closer to a festival.
“It was important to them and us to bring in the community, let them see the space and get information about their vision for the neighborhood,” Martin said.
Hall said the event is on a 10-acre site that’s been vacant for years.
“We’re really excited to be able to offer it up. It’s not open to the public normally, but for a private event like this, it really would work out well,” Hall said.
Martin said Replay developers thought it would help to have a community event to bring in positive energy before getting started on the project.
“The actual construction will not start until probably a year from now,” Hall said.
The event will allow people to learn about and meet the developers, while also looking at the history of the lumber mill and what it represents to Healdsburg.
Both Martin and Rhodes are painters who will have some of their work featured at The Mill, along with nine other artists.
“A lot of them are friends and others we’ve admired for a long time. We asked them to do site-specific installations within different structures,” Martin said.
Victoria Wagner will paint a mural, with film screenings from Martin, Alison Kendall Swearingen, Flora Skivington, Alex Ketley and Aline Wachsmuth.
There will also be a time-lapse of a large painting from artist Jake Messing.
“We’ll screen a short documentary the Mill District put on about the history of the mill. I think one of the mill workers has worked there all his life,” Martin said.
Other work will include paintings from Marie Van Elder and Julia Schwadron, with installations by Dundee Butcher/Russian River Flowers and Julian Billotte.
Alice Sutro will be doing live portrait drawings, and all paintings and sculpture on display will be for sale, along with works in the Roving Venue trailer.
Dance performances by Ketley, Wachsmuth, Upside Dance and Sara Maria Flamenco will also be at The Mill, with music from seven different bands.
Sonoma County’s Spike Sikes Band is at 2 p.m. on stage one, with guitar and cajón from Flamenco at 3 p.m. on stage two. The Bay Area’s jazz/Latin group, Lulu and the Rent Party will perform at 3:30 p.m. on stage one.
Healdsburg native Emmett Kai, who makes music in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, will have a DJ set at 4:30 p.m. on stage two. New Mexico’s Stephanie Hatfield will perform at 5 p.m. on stage one, and later at 7 p.m. at the Elephant in the Room.
Gabby La La will perform ukulele, sitar and Omnichord at 6 p.m. on stage two.
Tickets for The Mill are $20, $21.99 if purchased online and free for age 18 and under. All the drink sales will go toward Felta Education Foundation, to help provide the arts, gardening, music and Spanish programs to West Side School.
For more information about Roving Venue or The Mill event, visit rovingvenue.com.