Artspace in San Diego?
An artist asks questions at the Artspace forum
The call went out: A local out-of-town nonprofit real-estate developer for the arts was coming to WorldBeat Center Wednesday, Dec. 10, to discuss options for building permanent affordable live/work art spaces in San Diego.
Plenty of people responded: Jose Jimenez representing the newly reformed Voz Alta collective, Stephanie de la Torre with El Centro Cultural de la Raza, Luis Ituarte with La Casa del Tunel Art Center, a number of artists young and old, including Mario Torero — clad in his signature sunglasses and fedora hat wrapped with a colorful scarf — David White, Iain Gunn, Richard Gleaves, Eric Wixon, Lea Caughlin and about a 75 other folks involved in the arts.
The spokespeople for Artspace USA, whose mission is to “create, foster and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations,” took center stage and gave a very good, clean and convincing presentation that left most of the crowd feeling positive, excited even, about the prospect of scoring some actual affordable space to make or perform art.
They were looking at sites in North Park and Barrio Logan, the Artspace people said, and it looked like San Diego was the perfect place for them to start their next project. The whole process could start as soon as they find funding and end within the next five years, they said.
I’m excited about Artspace building actual art space in San Diego, too, (they’ve done some pretty amazing projects in other cities), but my issue is this: What is affordable? What does that mean? Does that mean me and all of my broke-ass artist and writer friends can finally have a room of their own for less than $500 a month? How about $200 a month (which is truly about what I can afford without eating nothing but rice and beans)?
That remains to be seen. There are surveys to do, funding to find, a community of artists to unite and the City of San Diego, which will play an integral part in seeing the project through. In the meantime, excuse my pessimism and doubt, but I wrote-off San Diego as out-of-my-affordability league a long, long time ago. It seems the only way for artists to truly find affordable space is to do it creatively and organically (move into empty warehouses or big houses and pack as many people in, live communally, or, for San Diegans, move south to Tijuana or as far east as you can).
- At the Artspace forum at Worldbeat Center this past Wednesday, the woman pictured here slipped me a note after the presentation. See, I had asked if the nonprofit development company could promise me a live/work loft for $200 a month, so on the note, the woman had written, “I rent outvery nice apartments in Las Playas de Tijuana for $250 a month.” And while the woman said she had a few spots available for $250 a month, the spokeswoman for Artspace said she couldn’t promise quite promise the $200 a month and, based on the pricing of their other projects, the outlook didn’t look good. I’m almost positive $200 a month anywhere in SD is out of the question, which leads me to think that if artists want truly affordable space, they pretty much have to do as I and countless others have done: Move to Tijuana.
Artspace seems focused on providing working space for artists, which is somewhat different than affordable housing. Their vision of providing art space for 600-800 per month for 1000+ square feet of live/work space designed to allow for construction, exhibition, cleanup of art projects, located in a community, with infrastructure, is far more than $200 will get you, even in Tijuana. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as amenities, it would be difficult to compare living in Downtown SD with TJ, at those prices.
There should be more affordable housing in this city for all persons, including artists and writers, but the scope of the Artspace project seems, by necessity, more specific.