It gives us great pleasure to announce a new addition to the ArtYard campus. This May we closed on the beautiful and iconic building at 12 Bridge Street, once known as the Apgar House. It is our sincere hope that in this moment, our presence on Bridge Street signals our confidence in the resilience and importance of the downtown business district. Our plan is to expand our residency program (currently at 50 Trenton Avenue) and bring emerging artists from disparate communities to ArtYard to incubate new works and interact with our community.
We are currently engaged in conversations with a diverse set of arts institutions about a new model of artists residency that involves not only offering creative opportunities to emerging artists but also nurturing long term collaborative relationships with like-minded institutions. This is very much aligned with ArtYard’s mission to serve as “An incubator for creative expression and a catalyst for collaborations that reveal the transformational power of art.”
Other possible ideas under discussion include the concept of opening rehearsals to the public, offering artists talks, and creating a ground floor art and poetry reading room which could serve as the common area for visiting artists, but might also be open to the public during certain hours, offering opportunities for artists and interested members of the public to engage. It is our intention to retain some existing rental units in order to offset the costs of property taxes, maintenance and to restore this beautiful building to its former state. This is a work in progress. Like you, we continue to sort out all the variables, including what it means to create community during a pandemic. What we are sharing now is our current thinking as it evolves.
We believe that 12 Bridge Street’s central location at the foot of the bridge overlooking all that is vibrant and communal will help us to integrate our mission with the heartbeat of this wonderful town.
