FLOAT Floatation Center - Art Gallery in Oakland Magazine

IN THE SCENE

That Floating Feeling

“When you get here you’ll shower and shampoo; then you’ll float like a cork for an hour; then you’ll shower and shampoo again to get the salt off.” And no, I didn’t need a swimsuit. “Just bring

a brush or a comb. Everything else is here.”
Prepping me for what used to be called a sensory deprivation experience when I was a psych student in the ’70s was Allison Walton, the managing partner at Float, a “flotation center” and art gallery that she and her partner, Filomena Serpa, call an urban art spa.
The gallery showcases Oakland artists. Exhibitions change monthly, and the setting provides a relaxed, colorful, artsy atmosphere for the floatation-tank therapy sessions they offer. Research suggests that floating reduces blood pressure, relieves stress and tension, promotes circulation, stimulates creativity and a whole lot more. “It helps with jetlag and hangovers,” Walton adds, citing personal experience.
Stepping into the body-temperature water in which 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts have been dissolved—to keep one buoyant, remove toxins, facilitate relaxation and more—and wearing nothing but the yellow earplugs floaters are given to keep the ears dry, I wondered what to expect. I closed myself in, as instructed, lay down in the 10.5-

inch-deep water—and immediately popped to the surface, as Walton had said I would. She has floated for years for stress management. When traveling in London and Europe, she’d see many places to float. But in the United States, they were difficult to find. In the 18 months since they opened Float, they’ve noticed the resurgence of a trend.
And what better way to duck off and get instant relief from sensory overload? I quickly felt remarkably “held” and able to relax, alone with myself in the silence and the pitch dark, doing “the lazy person’s yoga,” as Walton called it later. When I left, my senses were alert. The traffic noises seemed magnified. Later, at the Alameda Library, the sound of a woman snoring and teenagers talking—usually distractions and annoyances—made me smile. Someone must have pulled my cork—or was I still floating? A week later my upper back tension had not returned, but I knew I would.
Float Floatation Center – Art Gallery, by appointment 10 a.m.–10 p.m. Tue.–Sat., 1091 Calcot Place, No. 116, (510) 535-1702, www.thefloatcenter.com.

—By Wanda Hennig
—Photography by Jan Stürmann