SDAJ interviews Jon Block and Adam Rosen of Walk the Walk

Jon Block and Adam Rosen are fast becoming prominent movers and shakers in the San Diego art scene. Together, the two comprise the production company, Walk the Walk Presents – an organization that produces the monthly Sight and Sound exhibit and the annual Art Around Adams. Melissa Paniaguas of San Diego Art Journal recently sat down with the often-described “married couple” to learn more about Walk the Walk and their future in San Diego.

SDAJ: How did you become interested in art and the San Diego art scene?

Rosen: We’ve always liked music. Back in high school, we were in a band together and that developed into other musical projects that we worked on after that. We appreciate art and music and took that to the next level.

Block: I think for me, it has always been a world I have always wanted to be a part of. My first love was always writing and wanting to make movies, but he [Rosen] and I always had that connection, through music.

SDAJ: How did your mutual love of music progress into the art scene?

Rosen: We saw a disconnect [in the San Diego art scene]. There’s a lot of good different art and music here, but there’s a disconnect in different scenes. We really wanted to bridge that together and put San Diego on the map.

Block: A big eye-opener for me was going to Ray at Night in October 2007 and seeing about a thousand people come out just to go gallery-hopping. That was the ultimate socialization; that’s what they wanted to be doing. The fact that we do Sight and Sound is mixing that Ray at Night vibe with a house party. 

SDAJ: Why do you choose to host art exhibits in North Park as opposed to other areas of San Diego? What is it about North Park that really appeals to you?

Rosen: This is really the hub of the creative community. We have talked about potentially doing a Sight and Sound in North County at some point, but we really want to hone in and develop down here before we prematurely go and take over other areas.

Block: To be good at anything, you need to build on what is already there or people aren’t going to meet you half way. If we rolled down to Chula Vista or something, it would be considerably harder. To become successful, we need every advantage we can get, so we started here in North Park.

SDAJ: How would you describe Sight and Sound? How is Sight and Sound different from other art exhibits?

Block: House party on acid. [laughs]

Rosen: It’s a very open environment. At Sight and Sound, I think everyone is very open to communicating and talking. It’s a nice social vibe. We’ve got so many different mediums going on; we’ve got the art in the galleries and live art. We have acoustic acts, theater acts, bands, exhibitors. There is so much happening in a fairly condensed space.

Block: We try to bring that more mainstream level. We take certain things that we know people like: the concert element, the DJ element , the arts element and you put them all together. It’s not surprising, frankly, to see that people respond to it.

SDAJ: Why do you feel it is important to have so many different mediums in Sight and Sound?

Block: Well, it is all serving creativity. That’s the umbrella theme behind it and there are so many exciting forms it can take on. Plus, I think it is a social experience. Having as many things going on as possible is the way to go. I’ve seen other people at art shows or concerts, and the attention span is limited. After about an hour or so, you’ve done the rounds and you feel like you’ve done all there is to do. You need an energy shift; you want to do something else.  We are very responsive to that. We want people to stay there for the five hours that Sight and Sound runs, which is why we have the DJ area, the concerts, the art show aspect, the lounge area.

Rosen: Part of the fun I have at Sight and Sound is watching people’s faces and their reactions. They are surprised. They’re not expecting the next thing to come up. They see it on the player but they are not sure how it is going to evolve in the night. It is always positive too. It’s a good feeling. I’ve really seen everyone here be open and have a good spirit.

SDAJ: What’s next for Sight and Sound?

Block: Well, expansion would be the next step and there’s a couple of ways to go about that. We’ve been back and forth about how to do that, but the idea is to make this the biggest monthly event in San Diego. We are integrating other components; we have the film component to add.

Rosen: I’d also like to bring a fashion element to it. On top of adding new things and expanding, the whole process is tweaking it and the process of things.

Block: Those mediums are trickier, like film viewing, comedy, theater too. It’s no surprise that music is the dominant medium because it is the most malleable. You have more flexibility with it.

SDAJ: How do you feel hosting Sight and Sound at 4 Walls Gallery and Planet Rooth contributes to the overall vibe of the event?

Rosen: I like how it works for right now because it gives us a circular vibe. We have performances in the front, in the back. It’s a circular, oval experience as you walk from one room to the other and around.

Block: And this is why we have had some debate on how to expand because we are not going to be able to have that same oval energy. We do think about stuff like this - that oval energy. Circular energy is really ideal. If we were to expand, we would lose that. The fact that they are art galleries too creates the right vibe, one that you would not get in a bar or a parking lot.

Rosen: We’ve actually had Sight and Sound in a bar before, and it was just not enjoyable. It proved to be a decent rock show, but somehow we managed to lose all the other elements that make Sight and Sound what it is. It just wasn’t as fulfilling for us or for the crowd.

Block: I’m glad we did it because it really represented in such a perfect nutshell what we do not want to be. It was stripped of all our voice and reasons for why we do what we do. It was a rock show, that’s all it was. I think we needed that to formulate what we’re about and having all the different mediums in one place.

SDAJ: Moving on from Sight and Sound to a broader sense, how do you feel about the San Diego Art Scene?

Rosen: I think it’s growing. It’s still a little bit more underground than it needs to be, but it is definitely getting out there. There are a lot of great artists here. We just got to get everyone together and show their work more and have more people supporting artists. That’s really what’s limiting the music and art scene here is the lack of support from people who don’t do art.

Block: Promoters and people who put on these shows need to be mindful of how to reach people.  It’s a lot more complicated than getting a warehouse and putting paintings on the walls. You’re going to be reaching a very niche audience with that and it’s not a major service.  It might have worked ten years ago, twenty-five years ago; it does not work now. Figure out what does.

SDAJ: Tell me a little about Art Around Adams.

Rosen: It’s going to be San Diego’s largest music and arts festival. We’re going to have three different performance areas, two stages, various music, art installations. It’s going to be a much larger version, and lively version of Sight and Sound, if you can believe that.

Block: I refer to Coachella as being the brass ring for us [in terms of large scale event production], so this is us really trying to pull that brass ring down here into San Diego. We’re picking the best of San Diego talent in every arena. We really want to make this a beautiful coming together of all things creative. We want to make this a unique experience for people.

SDAJ: About how many acts do you have for Art Around Adams?

Block: We’ll probably have 40 acts, when all is said and done. Like Sight and Sound, the music is the dominant medium. I’d say it will be 65 percent music and the rest will be everything else. There’s a horror theater production that I am very excited about that our friend Lola Connelly is putting on. It’s a black light theater production and it’s scary as hell.  It’s a one-act, forty-minute piece and it is going to scare people, really just terrify the hell out of them.  We are also going to have the film screening of Destin Cretton (website: www.shortterm12.com). He won best short film at Sundance just a few weeks ago, so he’ll be bringing his film there and doing a Q and A with us afterwards.

Rosen: And Art Around Adams is an all-ages event. We will have alcohol for sure, but it will be for the family as well.

Block: It’s the first time we’ve had a film screening [at one of our events]. We have not brought it to Sight and Sound because in an alcohol-fueled environment, how do you integrate the film aspect?  To that, we have an all-ages aspect and we’re actually using a church in which you cannot bring alcohol. I think it’s ripe to bring in the film aspect to it. With theater, I really respond well to a 360-experience, in which the crowd is in the middle and the production is happening all around them and that’s what this is. That’s what makes this as terrifying as it is.

SDAJ: Tell me about your involvement in Art Around Adams.

Rosen: Art Around Adams has been going on for about six years and we came on last year. At that point, it was a grassroots art walk throughout Kensington and Normal Heights. We extended it and added a lot of live music, which they haven’t had previously, so it became this two-mile art and music walk with lots of live performances.

Block: We felt that the event was too spread out and fractured. We knew immediately that if we do this next year, we are going to have one location for it and the Adams Recreation Center was really the logical one. The Rec Center is in severe danger of being terminated, so this is really an effort to bring awareness to the Rec Center and shine a light on the value of this to the community. People really want to get behind it.

SDAJ: What does the future hold for Walk the Walk Presents?

Rosen: We definitely want to branch out, not only doing events, but different mediums. We want to keep what we have going on continually, but also grow beyond that into different mediums and other events.

Block: Right now, we’re an event production company but I think a more appropriate title is that we’re a production company.  What we do right now is events, but what really is the mission statement is working with San Diego creative artists, so that could take on the capacity of a TV show, or a theater production, or a maybe one day a feature film. There’s just so much to tap into. Sight and Sound I see doing indefinitely. That could be our staple that we’re known for. Art Around Adams we do want to make an annual, big thing. In terms of having another regular event, I’m not sure if that’s on the horizon.  We really want to hit a home run with Art Around Adams and expand Sight and Sound. Then we could figure out what next.

Rosen: We need to really perfect what we’re doing before we can really grow outside of those.

Block: That’s something I personally take really seriously - not bite off more than you can handle. Before you take on anything else, really get what you’re doing now. You’ve got to really establish yourself first to prepare you before you can take on something else.

Walk the Walk hosts Sight and Sound monthly at Four Walls Galleries and Planet Rooth. To learn more about Art Around Adams, visit www.artaroundadams.org.
For more information about Walk the Walk, visit their website at www.walkthewalkpresents.com.



Melissa Paniaguas - Writer