If Santa Claus were an art curator, this would be the North Pole -- where all of the magic starts.
You never know what you will find around the next corner. Clocks made of old computer motherboards and floppy disk drives. Ten-foot-tall abstract paintings. Depictions of horses, umbrellas, flowers, the quirky, the elegant, the classical, the mysterious. A constant stream of bodies bends over workbenches and easels, creating, painting and discovering. Look, there's a door cracked open. Inside, a small group of students hovers around a painting. This is also the home of the Classical Art Academy.
From the outside, it's a nondescript office building hiding behind a brewery in east Boulder. And the history of Boulder's largest group studio space, ArtWorkSpace, is just as unsuspecting.
It started when Claire Evans' husband decided to install an air-conditioning unit in the furnace room in their basement, where she had set up her cramped art studio. The unit covered the window and blocked all light. And although Evans didn't care for north light (unlike most artists, she much preferred the south), she couldn't work like this. She decided to get a studio on Pearl Street. This was before the mall, in 1975.
The $60-a-month rent became unbearably expensive the next year when it surged to $75, Evans says, so she had to get a studio-mate to split costs. One became two. Two became more, which meant a bigger space. So in 1980, they moved above a restaurant at the corner of Spruce and Pearl.
"The smell of the French fries and the potatoes stacked up against the window was just too much, and there were cockroaches running all over the place. Nevertheless, I accumulated three more studio-mates," Evans says.
The growing crew moved above a grocery store at Pearl and Eighth (where Lolita's is today). And gained another.
An office park at 2810 Wilderness Place popped up in 1985, and the artists relocated again. They drilled holes in the floor to drain the pulp for papermaking, and tore out the garages on the north side in lieu of glass panes, and installed a giant sink (a must-have). They expanded when the suite next door became available, and three more artists came running, Evans says. Their lively, colorful space continued to bloom, and more artists lined up, culminating in a substantial waiting list. Nearly 30 years later, the artwork of 37 artists blankets nearly every inch of a wall (the most prized locations boast the most wall footage).
They added in refrigerators and microwaves for their lunches -- and a special microwave for Carol Baum, clockmaker. No food allowed in here. This is exclusively for CDs. You should see how they crack and color and melt when you heat them up. Not that you should try this at home.
Ultimately, each artist runs his or her own shop. They come and go as they please, and they don't share supplies or even styles, really; it seems each artist is vastly different from the next. But they share something else, Evans says.
"It's the stimulation," she says. "It's the energy, the sense of community."
At lunch, they gather around the "Still Life Cafe" (a dining table with mismatched chairs in the heart of one suite), the artsy equivalent of the water cooler. They eat chips and baked goods, and they talk about art shows and jurors at competitions and the bad and the good about being an artist. There's a lot to say about that. So much, in fact, that Evans had to hang a sign with "open" hours.
"Otherwise, we'd just sit and gab all afternoon," she says.
Artist Nancy Volpe likes to come in early. She's painting with acrylics (which she has somehow managed not to get all over her black cardigan -- she's not wearing an apron). She says she enjoys having an extra pair (or more) of eyes to give her feedback on her work, as well as access to expert artists who have a ton of knowledge. She motions to Evans.
Plus, Volpe says, she likes "the focus of leaving home and letting the laundry pile up."
Maybe that's why she's so careful to keep the paint off her cardigan.
Looking for a gift, or just inspiration? This giant warehouse is open "most weekdays" to the public. Watch artists work and check out this veritable shopping mall of crafts and creations. Browsing through, there are plenty of options under $20, all the way up to the grand and impressive. Some artists also do custom work.