Art Space in San Diego

At 7 p.m. next Wednesday, Dec. 10, the nonprofit art-minded development group, Art Space, will be at the Worldbeat Center in Balboa Park talking about their desire to build live/work art studios in our city.  Below is a call-to-artists in the form of an e-mail from local artist Chris Warr.

Hey Everyone,

This is a call to artists of all forms; musicians, performers, visual artists, art supporters. My friend Cheryl Nickel is heading up a committee that is working to build affordable work/live art studios in San Diego. This would be a space where artists could live, create, collaborate, network, and show and do so at a significantly affordable rate. Almost all major metropolitan cities have at least one space of this nature, and its fine time we get one in San Diego. The group Art Space (google them to learn more), who has designed and built many of these facilities throughout the US and in Canada, is interested in building a space for us. They will be giving a talk and answering questions at 7pm on December 10th at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park.
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The issue at hand is that this project will not happen without the city’s cooperation. The city is in question as to whether or not there is a demand for this type of space in San Diego and it should be no surprise that they are hesitant to put funding and effort towards the arts. The significance of the arts in culture, economics, education, etc. and in other words its general necessity in society can all be argued, and backed up on paper by numerous facts derived from the extensive library of studies and research done on this topic. However our artistic community’s’ demand for opportunity and facility can only be expressed by our presence.

_Here’s where you and I come in:_
What we need is an overwhelming amount of people; artists of all forms and supporters, to show up to this meeting on December 10th. There will be a number of city council members at this meeting, they will be taking note as to how many people attend and it can quite seriously make or break this project. Is there enough artists in San Diego who would benefit from or need a space like this? I would think the response to this question would be a resounding “hell yes!” We need to flood the World Beat Center and pour out the door so that there can be no doubt that there are gobs of artists who are chomping at the bit for an affordable space/means to create their work, and that the time to meet this need is long over due. Please come, and please inform and bring as many people as possible. The success of this project is dependent on it.

Sincerely,
Chris Warr