Hope Artiste Village

Hope Artiste Village is a fairly young artist community in a converted mill building on North Main st. (technically in Pawtucket). The was built between 1889 and 1913 to house Hope Webbing. In 2005, it was purchased by Urban Smart Growth (a Los Angeles based company that "takes old mills and under-performing assets and redevelops them into valuable assets for the community.") The H.A.V. now has 134 residences including artists studios, retail shops, workshop studios, and offices. It also has two restaurants, a theater and a saturday farmer's market. In addition, it donates space to local artists and art groups like the Pawtucket Artist Collaborative and the Providence Artist Collaborative. 

Interview with Mike Green

I went to the H.A.V. to interview Mike Green, a recent grad of the Furniture Design master's program, who has had a studio there for several years. I found out about his space because he held his thesis show in another space donated by H.A.V.

Mike does a lot of sculptural work, mostly in metal, in addition to furniture. When looking for a studio he needed a big space (for his tools and work, Mike works big) with high ceilings and lots of light. But, because he had had a studio by himself in the past, he was also looking for a place where he wasn't alone. Mike was the first to move into H.A.V. so he got to see the transformation of the space and community. Initially the building was completely open, factory style, and spaces were built in as they were leased. The side of the building where Mike's studio is located, was allocated as artist studio space, but slowly acquired other businesses as space was needed. There is now an electrical engineer, a kickboxing/martial arts gym, and a dance studio among the artist studios. Mike said that he actually was glad to have these people here because it changed things up a bit, and brought people in who wouldn't normally be around artists studios. This meant a more diverse environment, potential business, and a different perspective for him. Mike admitted that he was not as active as others in the H.A.V. in trying to establish an inner community or more broad community and pointed me down the hall to Keeseh studio.

Interview with Asher Dunn

Asher Dunn graduated from RISD in Industrial Design last year. He now runs Keeseh Studio in H.A.V. with two other RISD grads ( Mark Nicholson: MFA Furniture design, Shane Richards:  BFA Furniture design). Initially Asher was not in his studio because, as I later found out, he was mingling in the Winter Farmer's Market on the opposite side of the building. I also went to the farmer's market to get coffee while I looked for Asher and ran into several current RISD students. We all went back to Asher's studio to look around while I interviewed him. 

Asher described his business/studio to me by calling it a "Fitness Center. Except instead of weights, we have woodworking equipment." Asher sells memberships to and rents space in his well-maintained and organized wood-shop and also runs classes, through the Woodworker's Guild, several times a week. To become a member to the shop you must first pass a test to show that you are competent on all of the machines. If you aren't, they offer training courses. Currently, he is working on running a high school woodworking class in his shop because the school does not have a shop on campus. He called his studio the "third wheel" to AS220 and the Steelyard. "AS220 has mostly 2-D stuff, the Steelyard has metal and ceramics, here we have wood."

He told me that they chose H.A.V. for their studio because of it's diversity in the arts. There are several firms and independent artists with whom they regularly barter services. There is an industrial design firm next door who, in exchange for shop use, helps them with marketing and product development, Asher and the electrical engineer down the hall are currently collaboration on a project, and Asher is working with the H.A.V. community to get regular events and things like a drive-in movie theater in the works.

I thought that the Jacobs passage, The Generators of Diversity, was particularly pertinent to the Hope Artiste Village and what Asher is doing. Jacobs talked about a city as a sort of incubator for diversity, and I think that it what H.A.V. is starting to be. It has a framework of business, living and working space that reaches out to and attracts the local community through classes, events, shows, and businesses that brings in a diverse group of people. When parents come to pick up their kids from dance or martial arts class they can wonder into artist's studios, businesses and restaurants. Local farmers and shoppers at the farmer's market can stumble upon work being displayed or find out about classes offered. Moreover, there is not a strict requirement for what goes where (only a separation of types of spaces), so it allows for a conglomerate of very different types of businesses and people promoting unusual social interactions, partnerships, and favors and creating a way for H.A.V. to grow and be shaped organically by the community it serves.