WALNUT CREEK, CA — There’s a room downtown right now where more than seventy artists are all trying to answer the same question, and not a single one of them agrees with the next.
“CALeidoscope: Evolving Reflections of California” is the Bedford Gallery’s annual juried show, and it’s been hanging inside the Lesher Center for the Arts since July 11. It closes September 13. The premise is simple: ask a bunch of people what California is, and see what comes back.
What comes back is a lot. Redwood light and desert heat. Coastlines and strip malls. The layered histories nobody taught in school and the reinvention that keeps this state from ever sitting still. One piece, “Angel Island Detention” by Catherine McMahon, is built from handmade natural pigments on Dongba paper and linen — a hard chapter of California history framed in softer, earthier things.
The curator, Emilee Enders, put the whole thing plainly in the show notes.
“Rather than seeking a single definition of the Golden State, the selected works explore our state’s diversity from breathtaking landscapes and layered histories to its enduring role as a home for creativity and reinvention.”
— Emilee Enders, Bedford Gallery curator
That’s the through-line. There is no single California. There’s the one on the postcard and the one on the lease, the one in the wildfire smoke and the one in the tide pools. The show refuses to pick a winner.
Here’s the thing about a juried exhibit. The gallery puts out a call, artists from all over answer, and a jury picks what makes the cut. That’s why the range runs so wide — landscape painters next to people working pigment and paper next to somebody who probably made art out of something they found in the garage. It’s the opposite of a monochrome showroom, and it’s better for it.
The space does half the work. The Bedford is the quieter sibling inside the Lesher Center — the kind of room where you can stand in front of a piece for a full minute without a crowd shouldering past. On a weekday afternoon the light comes in soft, and the place feels like a secret most of the county keeps forgetting about.
⭐ If You Go
- Where: Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek
- When: Through September 13; open noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday
- Cost: Pay-what-you-can general admission
- Family Tour: Saturday, August 15, a hands-on art session for families
- Info: bedfordgallery.org
The practical part is easy. Admission is pay-what-you-can, which means you can see seventy artists’ worth of California for whatever’s in your pocket. Not that Walnut Creek needed another reason to feel good about the Lesher Center, but here we are.
And if you’ve got kids and a Saturday to burn, tomorrow — August 15 — the gallery is running a Family Tour, a hands-on thing where families make art as much as they look at it. Bring the crew and let them argue about what California means while they glue things together.
So go before September 13. The show has been quietly doing its thing all summer while everyone was at the pool. If you liked the new murals downtown, this is the indoor version of the same impulse. For more on what’s happening around town, check the summer arts guide.
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