Building a New Art Center That Serves the Future — Not the Past
We appreciate the ambition behind raising funds for a new art center. Investing in arts infrastructure is essential, and it is not an opportunity communities receive often.
I want to be clear that I fully support the creation of a new art center. This investment is timely, necessary, and deeply valuable to our community. My concern is not with the vision itself, but with the scope of the current plans. What is built today will shape our creative ecosystem for decades, and I believe the proposed model needs to be expanded to meet that responsibility—largely because it does not yet reflect how difficult it is for working art studios to survive in our community, or the urgency of designing for future generations rather than an aging population.
Limited Studio Space Is a Structural Problem
Rented artist studio space in our community is almost non-existent.
A look at our local Open Studio Tour makes this clear. There are very few actual, working studios—not because artists don’t exist, but because there is nowhere affordable or appropriate for them to work. As the founder of our annual Open Studio Tour, I can say that what exists today is not what I originally envisioned or set out to build. The tour was meant to highlight active studios, artists at work, and a thriving creative ecosystem. Instead, it now reflects the growing scarcity of sustainable studio space in our community.
Without dedicated studios for clay, fiber, metal, and other material-based practices, a new art center cannot function as a true creative hub. Flexible rooms alone are not enough.
These disciplines require:
Permanent equipment
Secure, on-site storage
Work-in-progress space
Ventilation, power, sinks, and safety infrastructure
Without dedicated space, there is no place to store essential tools, no ability to leave work set up, and no way to hold meaningful open studio time.
Studios are not a luxury.
They are the engine.
Teaching Without Infrastructure Does Not Work
Teaching hands-on skills requires more than tables and good intentions.
When studios are not permanent, instructors are forced to cart in and out large quantities of equipment simply to teach a basic class. This is inefficient, physically demanding, and unsustainable. Over time, experienced instructors disengage, and programming becomes limited and diluted.
Proper instruction depends on:
Equipment that stays in place ( Stoves, Large tables, machinery, kilns……)
Materials that can be safely stored
Space that supports multiple skill levels simultaneously
Without this infrastructure, education becomes fragmented and short-lived.
Retail and the Traditional Gallery Model Are No Longer Viable
Retail space in our area is expensive, and our economy is highly seasonal. For nearly six months of the year, foot traffic drops dramatically. Expecting artists to sustain themselves through storefront galleries or long-term retail leases is no longer realistic.
The traditional gallery model—quiet, static, limited hours—also fails to reflect how people engage with art today. When work is created, there are few places to show it and even fewer opportunities for meaningful interaction.
Artists need places to make work and places to show work, often at the same time.
Studios embedded in an art center that hosts open studio nights, rotating exhibitions, live music, and food trucks allow the public to experience art as a living process rather than a finished product behind closed doors.
A Center Designed for How Families Actually Live
If we want younger families involved, the building must support real life.
Offering simultaneous programming across disciplines makes participation possible:
Visual arts
Dance and movement classes
Life drawing sessions
Music lessons and practice spaces
Digital art and technology instruction
When children can attend different classes at the same time—and a parent can also take a class—participation becomes realistic rather than aspirational.
This is how lifelong engagement begins.
Experience Matters as Much as Education
We now have two generations who lack hands-on skills once passed down through parents, grandparents, and schools.
Art centers can help rebuild that knowledge—but only if people can practice regularly, return to the same space, and build on work over time. Experience requires continuity. Without permanent studios and accessible open time, learning remains shallow and disconnected.
Community Grows Where People Want to Stay
Younger audiences do not simply attend events. They gather.
A relevant art center needs:
A coffee shop or brewery as a social anchor
Outdoor space for food trucks
A dedicated area for live music and performance
Open studios where the public is welcome
Retail space for art supplies, artwork
These elements transform an art center into a destination rather than a single-use facility. They encourage repeat visits, longer stays, and cross-disciplinary exchange.
Office Space Should Not Outweigh Creative Space
Supporting nonprofits matters. But when office space outweighs studios, classrooms, and gathering areas, the center loses its cultural core.
A building full of desks does not create culture.
A building full of working artists does.
A Centralized Creative Economy, Not Just a Building
By bringing studios, teaching spaces, performance areas, exhibitions, food, and social gathering into one central location, we are not just building an art center—we are creating a local creative economy.
When artists can work, teach, show their work, perform, and connect with the public in the same place, the system becomes self-sustaining. This model keeps artists working locally, creates year-round foot traffic, supports creative small businesses, and makes arts participation practical for families.
What Happens When Proven Creative Anchors Cannot Stay
I currently operate a dedicated fiber studio in this community that draws students from across the United States. People travel here intentionally to learn, make work, and spend time here.
However, in its present form—rented retail space, limited parking, high overhead, and a highly seasonal economy—under current conditions, this model is not sustainable long-term in this community.
I also know that by the time this center is built, my studio will likely no longer exist in its current form, and this community will lose important skill-based teaching as a result. At present, it is the only dedicated fiber studio in the state of Florida that is open to the public. We are respected across the US and our own community hardly acknowledges us! That loss would not simply affect one program; it would remove a pathway for future generations to learn traditional skills that are already disappearing from homes, schools, and communities.
I am actively exploring ways to ensure this work does not end. My hope is to transition the studio to another nonprofit organization that can carry the mission forward, expand access, and embed this programming within a year-round arts hub where it can be sustained, shared, and grown for the long term. This is about stewardship, not exit.
This Is a Systemic Issue, Not an Isolated One
This challenge does not affect only one studio.
Multiple long-standing art studios in this community—including dedicated spaces for clay, drawing and painting, and fiber—already have established followings, invested equipment, and proven economic and cultural impact. Yet they face the same structural challenges: high commercial rental costs, seasonal access, limited infrastructure, and no clear pathway for long-term sustainability.
Many of the studio owners who built this local arts ecosystem are aging out. These are not startups. They are cultural assets. Without affordable, permanent space and nonprofit transition pathways, there is no mechanism for the next generation to inherit, sustain, and grow what already exists.
If these studios are lost, the knowledge base, equipment, audiences, and creative tourism they generate will not be easily rebuilt.
A Vision Worth Building
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
The question is not Can we build a new art center?
It is Will we build one that actually works?
A future-facing art center prioritizes:
Making over meetings
Artists over administration
Experience over formality
Community over hierarchy
We urge the Arts Council to expand the current plans, listen to working artists and educators, and ensure this center is built not only to open—but to endure.
A new building should not replicate an outdated model.
It should lead.
