See Nick Ward’s Art at the Distillery Gallery

In order for artists to thrive in any particular place, they need three elements. They need to be near institutions on higher learning and culture – museums, universities, theaters – places where they can develop a foundation of history, expand their knowledge, and enjoy the great work that already exists. They need people interested in supporting the arts – collectors, patrons and others that can support the work financially, but also an audience. Finally, they need space to live and do their work. This includes work spaces, but also space to support the sales, performances, and community engagement that is crucial to creation. Small galleries, Artist run collectives, project spaces, performance halls – places that can support and nurture entire networks of artists.

At this point, my city is clearly lacking one of these elements, and it was uplifting to see the Boston City Council stepping up and calling a hearing to discuss affordable housing and work spaces for artists.

You can watch the hearing on YouTube here:

Like a lot of people, I was unable to make it to the hearing but, for reasons that I will assume are obvious, I care about this stuff. Since I couldn’t stand up and speak in the room, I wanted to write my thoughts about these issues here, in hopes that it would encourage some more of you to do the same.

In order for a city to thrive, everyone needs to have an affordable place to live, and the city leadership should really be doing everything they can to make that happen. That means building more houses, as well as developing programs that ensure current residents are able to remain in the places they call home. This city really needs to find ways to encourage both of those things to happen so that everyone that wants to call this city home – including artists – has a place to live. However, allowing private developers to chose to dedicate subsidized housing units to artists, while excluding other people who would otherwise be qualified, creates a system that is ripe for abuse. All that is to say, I am going to focus this on advocating for the other spaces that artists need. While it is not as fundamental as having a place to live, it is the area of this issue that is more intertwined with supporting the arts.

Based on the testimonies at the hearing, it would appear that this issue was brought to the attention of the city council by the artists that have recently received eviction notices from the Boston Center for the Arts. Before I go any further, I think its important to say that my initial reaction was to side with the BCA here. We know that there is a very limited number studio spaces available in this city. At the BCA there is apparently a group of established artists that have testified that they have the resources to pay market rate for work space, and they have instead stayed in highly subsidized spaces for decades. In my view, the BCA’s decision to restructure their studio program to force higher turnover in highly subsidized work spaces is fair in that situation. However, the real issue here is that we should not have to chose between supporting established artists in a way that helps sustain their work, or supporting less established artists in a way that helps them get their career started. There should be opportunities within this city for both to thrive.

There are more galleries in Boston now, than there have been at any other time in the last decade – but fewer project spaces, artist run galleries, spaces dedicated to experimental or difficult to sell work.

This is not a uniquely Boston problem, as cities have boomed, real estate prices have gone up, traditional galleries have struggled. They are able to take less risks, the work they support has become more conservative and easier to sell. We have seen most of the traditional galleries that attempted to support younger and more innovative artists – Samson Projects, Anthony Greaney Gallery, Carroll & Sons – dramatically downsize their efforts, or give up their spaces all together. At the same time, the artist run efforts that support those working even further out on the fringes have all but disappeared (for now, we know that artists always find a way).

I don’t have the solution to this problem, but I do know that without this support network, artists will leave.

I personally do not want to live in a city where there is no space for experimental and innovative art. I want to see new media installations that take on the internet. I want to stumble into performances that make me uncomfortable. I want to listen to local musicians without risking life and limb in some sketchy Allston basement. Obviously, I also want to have space to find some interesting paintings (and maybe even show my own). In short, I want this city to start supporting the sort of artistic conversations that lead to work that will one day find its way into museums, even if it is not quite ready yet. Right now, the kinds of spaces that support this kind of work, and give community to these artists, can not sustain themselves in this city.

Quite frankly, the current plan of giving some zoning relief to developers willing to maybe include some space dedicated for cultural use (that can also be rented by a tech startup) is just not going to cut it.

I am tempted to dig deeper into this but, ultimately I think the best approach is to encourage everyone to weigh in on this and speak up for the kind of art you make and the kinds of spaces you need. There was not a very wide demographic of artists represented at the hearing (and honestly nobody seemed to be pushing for the kind of work that I will miss seeing in this city) so, hopefully I can convince a few more people to join the conversation. Artists need space to work. We need space to come together and see what our peers are working on. We need places to get our work out for larger audiences to see. How to we make sure that Boston has a network of those spaces?