For Kern Magazine’s inaugural immersive storytelling event, Art Meets Storytelling the historic Fairfax Grange became more than the backdrop. Its president, John Harrer, opened nearly a century of local history as artists, musicians, dancers, and community members helped bring its story to life.
By Kathleen Hokit, Published on August 26, 2026.
What if you could sit in a local historical spot, hear about its history from a caretaker, watch artists interpret it, and dance to live music on a floor that has welcomed generations?
That was the idea behind Kern Magazine’s inaugural Art Meets Storytelling, a free immersive community event held at the historic Fairfax Grange on on June 1, 2026.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
And for our first storyteller, we didn’t have to look far.
We turned to the man helping preserve the very building surrounding us.
Meet John Harrer
Fairfax Grange President John Harrer is a photographer, podcaster, writer, drone pilot, and storyteller who spent 30 years running a Bakersfield health food store before turning more of his attention toward creative work.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling. Kathleen Hokit and John Harrer. Credit: Made You Look Studio
Harrer’s photography and filmmaking are informed in part by another longtime passion: horsemanship.
Harrer didn’t begin working with horses until age 51, and the experience taught him to slow down, observe more closely, and trust his instincts. Those lessons now influence the way he approaches everything from documentary-style photography to quiet moments captured from horseback or above with a drone.
That introduction to horses also inspired The Whoa Podcast About Horses and Horsemanship, which Harrer produced from 2012 to 2023. Across more than 200 episodes, the Bakersfield-based podcast reached listeners in more than 80 countries and gave Harrer the opportunity to interview prominent voices from the horse world.
Harrer continues exploring that journey through his memoir, The Education of a Horseman: How I Learned Horsemanship One Mistake at a Time.
Along the way, Harrer taught himself photography, video production, and audio editing, building a creative résumé that includes commercial billboard photography, campaigns supporting a local animal shelter, contributions to national publications, and post-production work for other creators.
In 2025, his photograph Reflection on Lake Ming was selected for the Monterey Museum of Art’s first Biennial.
For someone who has built a creative life around noticing the stories others might overlook, it seems fitting that one of the stories to capture his attention was hiding inside a place he’d visited for years: Fairfax Grange.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Two-Steppin’ in History
What makes Harrer’s relationship with the hall particularly interesting is that he didn’t begin as its historian.
He began as a dancer.
“I didn’t know what a Grange was,” Harrer told the Art Meets Storytelling audience.
For 10 to 12 years, he came to the building for Tuesday night dance lessons.
To him, it was simply a wonderful old hall where people gathered.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Then he volunteered.
One of his first jobs sent him into a storage area beneath the stage, where years of roof leaks had damaged boxes of old records.
Among them were handwritten meeting minutes dating back decades.
“It changed everything,” Harrer says. “It showed me what these people went through to get this hall built. It showed me how they had to keep it alive during very tough times.”
That discovery turned an old building into something else.
It became a story Harrer felt responsible for helping preserve.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
The Story Beneath Our Feet
As Harrer spoke during Art Meets Storytelling, the history surrounding the audience began to take shape.
Fairfax Grange traces its local story to Aug. 31, 1934, when area farmers gathered at Fairfax School during the Great Depression and decided they wanted a community hall of their own.
Getting one took years.
Members cooked, sewed, and raised money however they could. During meetings, they held what Harrer described as a “penny march,” dropping spare change into a collection.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
“Whatever change was in your pocket, you dropped in this hole. So one night you’d get $1.42, this is 1935, and another night it might get $1.27,” Harrer says. “It was really kind of hard to build that fund.”
By the late 1930s, members were questioning whether the dream was still possible.
Then Alfred Harrell, publisher of The Bakersfield Californian, attended one of their meetings.
According to Harrer, Harrell encouraged them: “You guys are doing something really special out here on this side of town.”
He contributed $50 toward the building fund.
The group pushed forward.
Land was purchased. The basement was dug. The hall went up. On Oct. 24, 1940, members finally held a meeting inside, despite not yet having electricity.
But one of Harrer’s favorite stories came shortly after the hall opened.
Following a storm that displaced approximately 150 homes, Grange members found mattresses, gathered donated food, and opened their brand-new community hall to displaced neighbors.
For roughly two weeks, people stayed upstairs and downstairs while families worked to recover.
“Their mission was to serve the community,” Harrer says.
Then he added something that seemed to capture why we were all sitting together inside Fairfax Grange decades later.
“This, to me, is the essence of why this Grange and this community hall is just so very important.”
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Art Meets Storytelling in the Making
While Harrer told the Grange’s story, special guest artists Charlotte White and Kristen Freeborn were creating.
That was intentional.
Art Meets Storytelling was designed around the idea that the same story changes depending on who experiences it.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling. Kathleen Hokit and John Harrer. Credit: Made You Look Studio
A journalist gathers quotes.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling. Artist Charlotte White. Credit: Made You Look Studio
An artist notices a gesture.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
A photographer catches an expression.
Made You Look Studio, the event’s photography sponsor, documented the evening as another interpretation unfolded through the camera. Behind the lenses were Crissy and Alie, catching the expressions and small gestures the rest of us might have missed.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Fairfax Grange, meanwhile, wasn’t simply our venue or location sponsor.
It was part of the story.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
The audience heard about its history while sitting inside the historic hall the community built, learning about generations of dances with the same hardwood beneath their feet.
They heard about how neighbors once gathered there to help one another while participating in another free community gathering decades later.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
That spirit was alive that night, too. Before the first story was told, the Miss Kern County Pageant queens came out to help set up the free snack bar—neighbors showing up for neighbors, exactly the way this hall was built to work.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Once Harrer’s interview ended, the Bakersfield Sound Guard—Ernie Lewis, Rick “Reno” Stevens, Norm Hamlet, and Zack Arnold—began to play.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling. Left to right: Norm Hamlet, Ernie Lewis, Zack Arnold, Rick “Reno” Stevens.
Credit: Made You Look Studio
The live music brought another Kern County story into the room, celebrating the country music heritage known as the Bakersfield Sound.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling, Norm Hamlet. Credit: Made You Look Studio
And then it was time to use that floor.
What the Floor Was Made For
Jesus Rojas and Symone Gilmore of Bakersfield Country Dance Co., our dance sponsor, stepped onto the hardwood.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling, Jesus and Symone. Credit: Made You Look Studio
The pair shares a love of country dancing and the fellowship it inspires—a tradition that has brought people together at Fairfax Grange for generations.
They danced.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Then everyone was invited to join them.
Chairs moved. People stood. And for those who felt like dancing did just that. In many ways, the audience became participants.
The evening ended on an especially fitting note when the band closed with Ernie Lewis’ song “Kern County, California” celebrating the beautiful place we call home.
In many ways, the evening had circled right back to the reason Fairfax Grange was created in the first place.
Community.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
That word also came up when we asked Harrer one of Kern Magazine’s signature questions: What do you love about your Kern County community?
“Every time I ask for help, every time I had to go out in the community and either ask for money or advice, no one turned me down,” he said.
The answer might not always be yes, but someone inevitably points him toward another person who can help.
“And everyone said, ‘Keep going. Keep doing it.’”
That support has helped volunteers repair the roof, upgrade electrical systems, address plumbing problems and continue restoring the hall.
More than 90 years after a group of farmers decided Kern County needed a place to gather, people came through the doors again.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
A storyteller spoke.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Artists created.
Left to right, Symone, Alie, Crissy, Jesus with partner
Photographers documented.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Musicians played.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
Dancers danced.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
And neighbors joined them.
Fairfax Grange didn’t simply host Kern Magazine’s first Art Meets Storytelling.
It helped us understand what Art Meets Storytelling could be.
Because the best community stories aren’t only about what happened before us.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
They connect the people who came before with the community sharing the space today.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling
Credit: Made You Look Studio
And if Fairfax Grange has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes the best way to honor a story is to keep gathering and give the next generation somewhere to write its own.
Kern Magazine’s Art Meets Storytelling, Credit: Made You Look Studio
Fairfax Grange 570, located at 4 Fairfax Rd, Bakersfield, CA 93307, has dance instructors on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, along with social dance on Friday Night from 7-9pm. You can learn more by visiting their website or socials below. You can contact Fairfax Grange 661-731-3671.
Special thanks to special guest artists Charlotte White, Kristen Freeborn, photography sponsors Made You Look Studio, storyteller John Harrer, dance sponsors Symone and Jesus, and The Bakersfield Sound Guard.
Kern Magazine’s Signature Questions with John Harrer
Q: What do you love about your Kern County community?
A: I love how people here show up for one another. They take pride in Bakersfield and Kern County, and they have truly embraced our efforts to restore and revitalize the 86-year-old Fairfax Grange building. That support reminds me how much people value their community and its history.
Q: When you eat local, where do you like to go?
A: Ranae and I enjoy trying different locally owned restaurants and supporting as many as we can. A few favorites are New Vintage Grill, Rice Bowl, and JeJe & Mejana on Ming Avenue. JeJe & Mejana always stands out for its wonderful Mediterranean food and genuinely friendly service.
Q: When you want to get out of town, where’s your spot?
A: We keep coming back to Ventura and Ojai. Both offer just what we need to recharge: beautiful scenery, good food, and plenty of ways to enjoy the outdoors.
