When I moved back to Boston from New York in 1998 the art scene was bleak. Galleries were few and conservative, two shining exceptions being Bernie Toale on the then-corner of Thayer and Harrison, and the then-home of Boston Sculptors in a suburban Newton church. A few artists buildings in Allston, Fort Point, and Waltham were a haven for working artists in need of cheap rent and a space to work in, and they opened their buildings once or twice a year to show new stuff. It was a scene, but not one that was overly curated, and artists seemed to be of all ages.
Boston real estate has become obscenely expensive in the last 20+ years. Rents in artists studio buildings have risen accordingly. The gray hairs of the artists and visitors have increased in number. Renting a studio in formerly scrappy, DIY buildings seems now to be an achievement for the retired rather than an affordable space for young people to develop their style. On open studios weekends, greeters hand out printed brochures of work by the graying studio tenants, and the graying visitors (of which I am one) prowl hallways to maybe buy something for over the couch.
Real artists will always make work, since they are driven by inner necessity. They will make art wherever there is a sliver of space—on a kitchen table or in a bedroom corner—and whenever there is a scrap of time: after work, when the kids are asleep, on the bus ride home. New artists also need the benefit of room to experiment and a sympathetic community. Can current artists buildings carve out community spaces for local artists that are truly affordable, or even free, as the BCA has done? The immediate benefit would be breathing new life and new ideas into packed studio buildings, where visitors shuffle down hallways seeing much the same thing, year after year.
A working sculptor 