Happy Studio Birthday to MEEEEE!
On August 9th I’ll celebrate my fourth anniversary with Studio Two Three! Four big, wild, unpredictable, at times terrifying and wonderful years.
Four years is even more significant when you measure it alongside the span of your child’s life. Mine is five now–– light years beyond the delightfully chubby little human learning to walk when I began. This month he heads to kindergarten.
My introduction to the studio was a strategic planning process conducted by The Spark Mill. My first hours with the organization were around a big table, reading feedback from member artists and over 500 community members–– a vulnerable and beautiful way to get to know my new work place from the inside out. The feedback was genuinely touching. People felt safe, seen and trusted. Sometimes they felt like it was a clique, but people found a way to build their own niche groups within the greater structure of the studio community. They could make it what they needed just by shifting the time of day (or night) they showed up. That’s the magic of 24/7 spaces.
The result of that strategic planning was a new mission, vision and five year plan. Come hell or high water, our facilitator (the wonderful Sarah Milston) assured us that this plan should serve as a guide-star for all organizational decision making. She was right. Within a few short months our work together was put to the test. Not a multiple-choice test, but one of those horrible long-form answer ones where you have to make it up as you go.
That test was the onset of COVID. We were immediately exposed (around a cheese plate, which makes a lot of sense if you know us) and were forced to lock the doors to the studio for the first time in the organization’s history.
Without sitting in the stew of that moment in time, I can say that it was a deeply challenging and scary moment. We went from weekly staff meetings around a big table to zoom calls from our respective homes. And as our earned income rapidly dwindled from 70% of our operating budget to almost 0%, we had to collectively envision a future where Ashley kept the ship afloat as a the only unpaid staff person. We were forced to stop paying rent on our building and forgave membership rates for artists who were just as strapped and scared as we were.
Ashley took to building big fires alone in her backyard and staring grief-strickenly into the flames and we both got covid chickens.
After a month of adjustment, we returned to the studio determined to make use of what tools we had. We made 10,000 masks for essential workers with an incredible group of rotating volunteers from across our artist community, wrote a call to action and launched the Southern Arts and Culture Coalition with a group of peers, launched a safely-distanced residency program in partnership with the Institute for Contemporary Art and started hosting outdoor community print days in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and to support of the organizing happening on the ground in Richmond. We held fundraisers for local orgs and initiatives, donating $60,000 to mission-aligned peers and causes. We gave up weekly meetings and started acting on our feet, daily.
Outside of the studio, our lives were also changing in big ways. KB got married and bought a house, Ashley and I shifted from our marriages into co-parenting, I lost my father and my son was diagnosed with a neurological speech condition called Apraxia. Throughout it all, the studio was bedrock. They supported me with the raise I needed to pay my mortgage solo, gave me time off to be by my dad’s side during the last month of his life and worked with my schedule so I could take August to daily speech therapy. Real tangible love and support.
And on the other side of all of this (and with the acknowledgement that COVID is very real and here to stay), we are still together and are just as committed to this dream as we were four (or in Ashley’s case 12) years ago. We recently joked that we need new headshots on our website so people can really see what we look like after these four years. I think we’re stronger, less afraid, more intuitive and more committed.
Our 2023 staff photo
Ashley, KB & Kate
Looking forward to what’s ahead, I’M STOKED to be on this team and for the next four years. We bought our very own building and are preparing for the big move in October. We have an incredible artist and peer community and are excited for the big exciting changes to come. Imagine: a 3,000 square foot event space that’s open for film screenings with a cinema grade projector (thanks to my buddy & local filmmaker Jeff Roll). Farmers markets, artist vendor markets and a convening space for the Manchester community. Three separate print shops, each dedicated to a specific practice (screen printing, traditional printmaking and risography & bookmaking). A relaunched residency program with a dedicated residency suite and some beautiful outdoor space for spray painting, co-working and paper making. It’s the stuff of dreams (well, at least our nerdy print dreams).
And in my personal world with my son, things are really sweet and special. After 8 months of intensive speech therapy, August’s Apraxia has gone from moderate to mild and we expect that with half a year more therapy it will move to the “resolved” stage. He’s a sweet, gentle and creative big kid and makes some of my favorite art at Studio Two Three.
Please join me in celebrating my fourth year by donating to my personal little campaign for the studio. We’re kicking off the last phase of our capital campaign and it would mean a whole lot if you gave any amount in celebration of all of these years and the years ahead.
We’ve got to raise $400,000 by October to finalize all of the awesome (and necessary) renovations–– help me kick off this final effort and the next chapter of our work together. <—— click there to check out my lil fundrasier and THANK YOU!!