Roland Cosby at work in his third-floor studio. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
The bella busta of Western Avenue Studios makes her way through the warren of artists’ spaces in the converted industrial building in Lowell.
“I think it’s Yiddish for ‘nosey old broad,’” Maxine Farkas chuckles. Farkas is the liaison between the 117 resident artists and the landlords, contractors, and anyone else who has, or wants, business at the Western Avenue Studios, known simply as WAS. It is the largest collection of artists’ studios in one place in the Merrimack Valley according to decorative painter Carol McGrath, a fifth-floor original tenant like Farkas.
WAS opened its doors in September of 2005 on the fifth floor at 122 Western Avenue. There were thirty-one studios then; today there are ninety-one, encompassing three floors. It’s like going to the British Museum—you have to keep going back and back and back to take it all in properly. Unlike the British Museum, the public only gets to enter the studios the first Saturday of every month (although some studios, such as Friends Fabric Art, have regular business hours).
Vespera Investments LLC owns 122 Western Avenue; developers Karl Frey and Justin Mandelbaum are the principals at the Connecticut-based company. Frey explains that the group bought the building because of the quality of redevelopment going on in Lowell over the last twenty years. They were hoping to lease the entire building to one company—a company that promptly filed for bankruptcy and left them with an empty building. They went to the city and got a lead on some tenants, including a few artists who were looking for affordable studio space. They emptied out the fifth floor, even before the bankrupt company took off, painted the walls white, and the first artists moved in.
“Our goal is to continue to expand the process,” Frey continues. “Economically it hasn’t been that good, but emotionally it’s great.”
Frey says Vespera Investments hopes to expand the spaces available to artists, and to eventually do what they originally planned—sell the building. Only their target buyers are the artists themselves. If all goes as planned, Frey says they hope to sell the building to the artists at a cost to each equal to what he or she pays in rent. There are four other tenants in the building.
It may be tucked out of the way along a canal, and it may seem that there aren’t many people roaming the halls on a first Saturday, but a glance at the full parking lot belies that notion.
Figurative artist Deborah Dixon shows off her popular design. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
“You can lose 500 people in here with no problem,” Farkas says.
From Farkas, one of the first artists on the scene, to photographer Andrew MacBrien, who is the newest as of this writing, everyone is anxious to display the fruits of their labors. They fret when it’s slow, they exalt when it’s busy. It can be frustrating—some capricious customer will pick up an armload of art from a bin in a studio, raising the heart rate of the artist, only to put them all back and exit without buying a thing.
Fickle or not, visitors linger and talk, munch on cookies and drink a variety of liquids, and hopefully purchase something that catches their fancy. There’s a lot to fancy here.
The working artists include painters, sculptors, jewelers, photographers, and the building also offers rehearsal space for the company of Image Theater. There’s even a prosecuting attorney, Joe Quinlan, in his role as a photographer. Artists such as illustrator Gary Destramp pay homage to Lowell, Roland Cosby paints lush flowers (among other things) in pastel, and Deborah Dixon celebrates the human form with her nudes, as does John Greenwald. Cosby will provide a musical interlude from time to time in studio 307. His band gives “a little artistic entertainment,” as he puts it, in the form of jazz, blues, R&B, and oldies.
Some artists have a studio to themselves; others share with up to seven others. Not all the studios are open on a given Saturday, so there’s always something new to look forward to on a second visit.
The artists also give advice on pieces and support one another. Abstract impressionist David Leblanc stops in at studio 321 on his way out and offers some advice to Farkas about the piece on which she is working.
Abstract impressionist David Leblanc stands next to one of his paintings. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
“We’ve made a community here,” says artist and writer John Greenwald, “if you can call it a community—it’s like herding cats!”
Farkas notes that Greenwald is probably the most prolific artist at WAS, and he is also a fifth floor original. “I put my name in when there was only a .pdf plan of the space,” he says.
The fourth floor of studios opened just over a year ago, and the third floor opened in August. Farkas and her studio mate, collage artist Gay Tracy, recently moved from the fifth to the third floor.
“We oozed down, like a disease,” Farkas says. She was so fresh from moving that her name was still on the door of Lowell Fiber Studio up on five. She recently switched from fiber artist to mixed media. “I have a serious addiction to this place,” Farkas says, “I can’t remember what it was like before.”
The Western Avenue Studios Artist Association represents many of the artists at WAS. The organization provides outreach and develops partnerships with other cultural institutions in the city, such as the Lowell Cultural Council. The Council has made a grant to painter Rebekah Wetmore for a series of double and group portraits of people in Lowell. The paintings are a celebration of Lowell as a multi-ethnic city, Wetmore says. The portraits will hang at the Pollard Memorial Library in November and at the Whistler House Museum gallery in 2008. The public can get a sneak peak of the paintings in studio 502.
Wetmore is looking for models, so Lowell residents who want to be immortalized can contact her at rebekah@wetmore.com. The artists themselves are regularly immortalized not only by their work, but by photographer Meghan Moore, who snaps off-the-cuff shots, and by Lisa Anderson-Bisson, who is working on a “face book” of WAS artists.
The arrangement at Western Avenue seems to work for everyone. Nobody has to pay a gallery commission on sales, nobody has to breathe fumes in their home, the rent is reasonable, and they might own the whole kit and caboodle one day through the munificence of their landlords. Who could ask for anything more?
Western Avenue Artists Studios at 122 Western Avenue opens the doors to the public from 12 to 5 p.m. the first Saturday of every month. www.westernavenuestudios.com.
__________________________________________________________________________________ WAS Artist Ashlee Welz Smith Reminisces
Kissing Hazel, oil on wood, 17”x17”, Ashlee Welz Smith.
I originally moved into Western Avenue in November 2005 because it allowed me to create a mess without having to worry about cleaning it up. And it was cheap! But over the past year, I’ve come to recognize how important it is to be in a community like this, mostly because it forces me to carry on a conversation about my work.
College was great for that—creating a dialog about art. But I hadn’t developed a sense of self, and didn’t know where painting would ultimately fit into my life. Interacting with visitors and the other artists in the building motivates me to keep working so I’ll have more to add to the conversation.
Hopefully the impact of Western Ave will extend beyond me and the other 100+ artists. When we open our doors and invite others in, we build relationships and start an exchange of ideas. We have a talented collection of people who come up with creative ways to solve problems, and I believe that Western Ave can become a vital part of Lowell’s renaissance.
Spotlight on the Arts – Western Avenue Studios – Spring 2007
Roland Cosby at work in his third-floor studio. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
The bella busta of Western Avenue Studios makes her way through the warren of artists’ spaces in the converted industrial building in Lowell.
“I think it’s Yiddish for ‘nosey old broad,’” Maxine Farkas chuckles. Farkas is the liaison between the 117 resident artists and the landlords, contractors, and anyone else who has, or wants, business at the Western Avenue Studios, known simply as WAS. It is the largest collection of artists’ studios in one place in the Merrimack Valley according to decorative painter Carol McGrath, a fifth-floor original tenant like Farkas.
WAS opened its doors in September of 2005 on the fifth floor at 122 Western Avenue. There were thirty-one studios then; today there are ninety-one, encompassing three floors. It’s like going to the British Museum—you have to keep going back and back and back to take it all in properly. Unlike the British Museum, the public only gets to enter the studios the first Saturday of every month (although some studios, such as Friends Fabric Art, have regular business hours).
Vespera Investments LLC owns 122 Western Avenue; developers Karl Frey and Justin Mandelbaum are the principals at the Connecticut-based company. Frey explains that the group bought the building because of the quality of redevelopment going on in Lowell over the last twenty years. They were hoping to lease the entire building to one company—a company that promptly filed for bankruptcy and left them with an empty building. They went to the city and got a lead on some tenants, including a few artists who were looking for affordable studio space. They emptied out the fifth floor, even before the bankrupt company took off, painted the walls white, and the first artists moved in.
“Our goal is to continue to expand the process,” Frey continues. “Economically it hasn’t been that good, but emotionally it’s great.”
Frey says Vespera Investments hopes to expand the spaces available to artists, and to eventually do what they originally planned—sell the building. Only their target buyers are the artists themselves. If all goes as planned, Frey says they hope to sell the building to the artists at a cost to each equal to what he or she pays in rent. There are four other tenants in the building.
It may be tucked out of the way along a canal, and it may seem that there aren’t many people roaming the halls on a first Saturday, but a glance at the full parking lot belies that notion.
Figurative artist Deborah Dixon shows off her popular design. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
“You can lose 500 people in here with no problem,” Farkas says.
From Farkas, one of the first artists on the scene, to photographer Andrew MacBrien, who is the newest as of this writing, everyone is anxious to display the fruits of their labors. They fret when it’s slow, they exalt when it’s busy. It can be frustrating—some capricious customer will pick up an armload of art from a bin in a studio, raising the heart rate of the artist, only to put them all back and exit without buying a thing.
Fickle or not, visitors linger and talk, munch on cookies and drink a variety of liquids, and hopefully purchase something that catches their fancy. There’s a lot to fancy here.
The working artists include painters, sculptors, jewelers, photographers, and the building also offers rehearsal space for the company of Image Theater. There’s even a prosecuting attorney, Joe Quinlan, in his role as a photographer. Artists such as illustrator Gary Destramp pay homage to Lowell, Roland Cosby paints lush flowers (among other things) in pastel, and Deborah Dixon celebrates the human form with her nudes, as does John Greenwald. Cosby will provide a musical interlude from time to time in studio 307. His band gives “a little artistic entertainment,” as he puts it, in the form of jazz, blues, R&B, and oldies.
Some artists have a studio to themselves; others share with up to seven others. Not all the studios are open on a given Saturday, so there’s always something new to look forward to on a second visit.
The artists also give advice on pieces and support one another. Abstract impressionist David Leblanc stops in at studio 321 on his way out and offers some advice to Farkas about the piece on which she is working.
Abstract impressionist David Leblanc stands next to one of his paintings. Photo by Gilian R. Swart.
“We’ve made a community here,” says artist and writer John Greenwald, “if you can call it a community—it’s like herding cats!”
Farkas notes that Greenwald is probably the most prolific artist at WAS, and he is also a fifth floor original. “I put my name in when there was only a .pdf plan of the space,” he says.
The fourth floor of studios opened just over a year ago, and the third floor opened in August. Farkas and her studio mate, collage artist Gay Tracy, recently moved from the fifth to the third floor.
“We oozed down, like a disease,” Farkas says. She was so fresh from moving that her name was still on the door of Lowell Fiber Studio up on five. She recently switched from fiber artist to mixed media. “I have a serious addiction to this place,” Farkas says, “I can’t remember what it was like before.”
The Western Avenue Studios Artist Association represents many of the artists at WAS. The organization provides outreach and develops partnerships with other cultural institutions in the city, such as the Lowell Cultural Council. The Council has made a grant to painter Rebekah Wetmore for a series of double and group portraits of people in Lowell. The paintings are a celebration of Lowell as a multi-ethnic city, Wetmore says. The portraits will hang at the Pollard Memorial Library in November and at the Whistler House Museum gallery in 2008. The public can get a sneak peak of the paintings in studio 502.
Wetmore is looking for models, so Lowell residents who want to be immortalized can contact her at rebekah@wetmore.com. The artists themselves are regularly immortalized not only by their work, but by photographer Meghan Moore, who snaps off-the-cuff shots, and by Lisa Anderson-Bisson, who is working on a “face book” of WAS artists.
The arrangement at Western Avenue seems to work for everyone. Nobody has to pay a gallery commission on sales, nobody has to breathe fumes in their home, the rent is reasonable, and they might own the whole kit and caboodle one day through the munificence of their landlords. Who could ask for anything more?
Western Avenue Artists Studios at 122 Western Avenue opens the doors to the public from 12 to 5 p.m. the first Saturday of every month.
www.westernavenuestudios.com.
__________________________________________________________________________________
WAS Artist Ashlee Welz Smith Reminisces
Kissing Hazel, oil on wood, 17”x17”, Ashlee Welz Smith.
I originally moved into Western Avenue in November 2005 because it allowed me to create a mess without having to worry about cleaning it up. And it was cheap! But over the past year, I’ve come to recognize how important it is to be in a community like this, mostly because it forces me to carry on a conversation about my work.
College was great for that—creating a dialog about art. But I hadn’t developed a sense of self, and didn’t know where painting would ultimately fit into my life. Interacting with visitors and the other artists in the building motivates me to keep working so I’ll have more to add to the conversation.
Hopefully the impact of Western Ave will extend beyond me and the other 100+ artists. When we open our doors and invite others in, we build relationships and start an exchange of ideas. We have a talented collection of people who come up with creative ways to solve problems, and I believe that Western Ave can become a vital part of Lowell’s renaissance.
You can see Welz Smith’s work at www.welzsmith.com.