By Cathy Chung
Artists in Ottawa find it almost impossible to find studio space to work in.
Many want to work in a studio environment with other artists.
“Because you work by yourself,” says Margaret Keay, “it’s like being a self-employed businessman. You’re on your own, so any kind of association you have with other artists is useful.”
Keay draws, and currently works out of her home studio.
When Pat Durr, a painter and printmaker, was looking for a place to work, she ended up in Stittsville. “It was extremely difficult to find anything, so I rented something short-term in Stittsville,” she says.
Durr lives in the Glebe, and sits on the city’s arts advisory committee.
“Really, I didn’t think there was anywhere I could get such a space,” says Durr.
“If you do find something it’s very small. A good practicing visual artist needs a big space. If they’re making a good body of work they need a big storage space as well,” she continues.
Many artists have very specific needs for a workspace. For example, painters have different requirements than sculptors.
“I need natural light,” says Juliana McDonald. “And I need ventilation.” McDonald is a painter at Enriched Bread Artists, an artist-run studio collective. “And because I work large, I need a fair number of large, usable walls, that I can hammer nails into, and hang my canvases up,” she adds.
Enriched Bread Artists and Artfuse Studios, in Stittsville, both have about a handful of artists each on their waiting lists. These artist-run studios are two of the major facilities for Ottawa artists.
The community arts department at the city of Ottawa often acts as a referral for artists.
“It’s harder for younger artists to find out where all these spaces are,” says Nancy Burgoyne, a cultural planner in the department. “But that’s why community arts councils exist, they can call them for advice and referral information.”
Peter Honeywell is the executive director of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa.
“All of the spaces that I’m aware of are full,” he says. “We often do get calls from people looking for studio space, and there is a shortage in the city.”
The problem is not focused on one particular segment of the art community.
“It stretches from the young artist who wants to start out into a career, who can’t afford a decent space, to the senior artist who needs a large space and can’t find such a space,” she says.
Cost is one of the biggest problems. Artists generally don’t make a lot of money form their art, and there is a shortage of affordable spaces, according to Karen Jordon, the administrator at Enriched Bread Artists.
“I think probably they’re all full,” she says of other group studios. “That seems to be the way of things. Usually if you have a vacancy it doesn’t take very long to fill it.”
Burgoyne says she sees a trend towards decentralization out of downtown , where rent is more expensive. For example, Artfuse Studios is in Stittsville.
“I would say Ottawa’s come a long way,” Burgoyne says. “Artists have gotten smart. The ones who have organized themselves have got some pretty interesting scenarios going.
“That’s what artists are all about. They’re finding these wonderful spaces and making them semi-perfect. We don’t all want to be painting in perfectly white hermetically sealed boxes with perfectly pumped air out of just-so vents.”
For Keay, the search continues. She’s been looking at warehouses and strip malls.
“At this point it’s really making a commitment or investment to yourself to have a studio,” Keay says. “And it’s a calculated cost or calculated risk of having it, and I guess I just have to be ready to bite the bullet and find a place.”