What do you do when you’re out of art school and no longer have VCU’s state of the art equipment at your hands? Ashley Hawkins, the director of Studio Two Three, is a prime example of someone who graduated from art school and took action to solve this very conundrum. Studio Two Three, a non-profit printmaking studio located at 1617 W. Main St in the Fan, is truly an artistic collective for the city of Richmond. In addition to functioning as a workspace for artists and as a gallery, I was surprised to learn about the number of charitable programs Two Three offers, along with the opportunity for people to print at an affordable rate. Studio Two Three is a one of a kind organization.
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What do you do when you’re out of art school and no longer have VCU’s state of the art equipment at your hands? Ashley Hawkins, the director of Studio Two Three, is a prime example of someone who graduated from art school and took action to solve this very conundrum. Studio Two Three, a non-profit printmaking studio located at 1617 W. Main St in the Fan, is truly an artistic collective for the city of Richmond. In addition to functioning as a workspace for artists and as a gallery, I was surprised to learn about the number of charitable programs Two Three offers, along with the opportunity for people to print at an affordable rate. Studio Two Three is a one of a kind organization.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RVA MAGAZINE!
Ashley is incredibly impressive, as she runs the Studio, works a part time job, and currently attends graduate school at VCU, where she’s working towards her masters in non-profit management. Her ability to keep track of Studio Two Three’s myriad of special programs, gallery events, and roster of working artists can only be the product of an authentic belief in printmaking and Richmond’s artistic community. This organization runs on soul, and is catalyzed by Ashley’s artistic approach to problem solving–something she is firmly convinced that art school fosters. Formed by Ashley and fellow VCU art grads who recognized a niche that needed to be filled, Studio Two Three works to provide a democratic environment for anyone who wants to make or patronize art in Richmond.
How long has Studio Two Three been open and running?
At this location since September 2010, but we formed in 08 as an organization at Plant Zero in Manchester. We got this building thanks to Joe Cypel, dean of VCU School Of Arts.
And you’re the founder?
Yes, executive director, only staff person. There were four founders in 08. We started as printmakers getting out of VCU lacking all of the equipment and resources. The driving force was to start a communal studio, and there was a lot of interest. We saw that other organizations weren’t offering printmaking classes and expos, so we applied for non profit status.
So tell me more about the programs you offer. I know you offer a lot of awesome workshops.
Essentially, the lifeblood of what we do is our artist’s residence program. So artists come in, they have 24 hour access to the space and all of the equipment. That starts, for a 6 month contract, at $90 a month. That works well for artists who have other jobs and commitments and are doing 15,000 other things at once, and it’s a flexible schedule for them. They can come and print according to what works for them.
It does seem that a lot of people in Richmond are in that situation–freelancing on a bunch of different projects, and maybe balancing other jobs in the mix. Very few creative people are doing one thing and making a living off of it.
It’s hard–definitely a challenge. I looked and saw that VCU graduates about 3,000 artists per semester and about ⅓ of them stay here, but very few artists cite that as their occupation, so there are very few people who are working full time as artists.
I often wonder how many people are out there trying to make a living off of art, despite the fact that money is almost always an issue. Given that artists and arts organizations often struggle monetarily, why did you decide to make Studio Two Three a non-profit?
For a few reasons. First off, we do consider our artist residency program a charity program because we offer it at a really low rate, lower than it would cost anywhere else. We’re really the only place that has 24 hour access and is printmaker specific. Coming out of school, you have this great community of support, you’re talking about artwork, you’re immersed in that–then you’re out on your own and out of that world. So we wanted to recreate that environment for people that are working and still making art.
Secondarily, for non profit status, we offer charitable education programs and partner with other nonprofits in the city. We work with Art 180, the Visual Arts Center. Church Hill Academy is one of our major partners. So we try to offer really low cost or free educational workshops for them. The same thing goes with our classes.
Your classes are REALLY affordable!
Yeah, they’re super cheap. We really all came to it with the perspective of artists. Knowing that your financial resources are limited, using your other resources creatively becomes really important. That’s why we like to keep the classes cheap, so people can afford to come in here and learn about these techniques that we love. It’s easy for arts organization to set the financial bar too high, so you’re just getting people dabbling and doing things recreationally versus getting people who are actually trying to be real working artists.
Thirdly, with non profit status we do a lot of grant funding.
Do you write the grants?
I do. I’m actually at VCU getting a masters in public administration and nonprofit management. There’s another great resource called the Nonprofit Learning Point that does classes on specific things. We have a ten-person board right now, and a lot of them have arts backgrounds. Coming from an arts background, you really learn to be creative in all pursuits, something that people in the business world don’t always think about. It’s really resource management and creativity. Also with grant writing, there’s a lot of reporting and tracking.
Has everyone on the board been with you from the beginning?
Everyone is a volunteer. So there’s me for the staff, handling the administrative stuff, paying the bills, keeping the lights on. One person on the board has been with us from the beginning. A lot of people we’ve added over time, but many have still been with us for years.
So you’re getting a masters, working here… do you have another job too?
I bartend at Starlite, also. What’s nice about here is that it’s is such a great community of people. Coming in to do work doesn’t feel like “work.”
That’s awesome. Talking with friends who went to art school, I can only imagine how tough it is to go from having access to all of these mentors and materials, then you’re thrown to the wolves. You get all this training and then what do you do with it?
And a lot of it relates to access, too. You’re on somebody’s else’s schedule. Here, [we have] the 24 hour access, and access to such expensive equipment. Artists get a key. We’re always looking for more people, too. We have an attitude of the more the merrier. We want to keep building a community and reaching more people!
I wanted to ask you more about the building and equipment. Was it all acquired by donation?
We pay rent [and] have a lease. A lot of the equipment we’ve purchased–stuff like lockers and ladders came from warehouses that were shutting down. We’d go help clean them out. Basically anything we can get at low cost.
So it all has to be really thought out.
Definitely. The expense for the big press is 15 to 20 thousand dollars. It’s crazy, it’s like buying a car.
Taking that into consideration, would you say that compared to other mediums, screenprinting is a more expensive route to go as an artist?
No, not necessarily. Screenprinting is kind of the cheapest of the processes that we do in here.
Tell me what processes you do here.
We have screen printing; the vacuum exposure unit for that, which lets people expose their image to the screen. We have the wash-out booth. We have etching–we use copper plates for that. Plate litho. The appeal of printmaking to a lot of people is that it’s democratic and accessible. You’re not making one precious masterwork of art; you can make 500 and the value doesn’t decrease because it’s in multiple editions. Everything we have is very hands on. We have a photo litho process too. Plates are very light sensitive–you can just take a photo and expose it to your plate. We do relief printing too, woodcuts and linocuts. [We] have a tiny letterpress proofing press and some graphic type too.
Awesome. I like that this is really a collective, a truly democratic space.
One thing that appeals to people about printmaking [is] saying its democratic. It is traditional, and there are digital innovations and new technological innovations that really keep it in contemporary discourse as an art practice. It’s become, I think, more relevant with digital techniques coming onto the scene. So many things we interact with on a daily basis are printed. Our shirts, our thank you bags we get to-go food in… there’s this really subversive ability to bring printed artwork into the public realm in a way that makes people interact with it and exposes people to the possibility of the technique, AND is also actually in the world and not just confined to the gallery or the artists’ realm. Obviously we love the artists’ realm…
But that intimidates a lot of people, too.
It does. A lot of people are put off by it. That’s the thing–printmaking is a craft and an art. So there’s something empowering for people to learn the technical craft side of it, before even having to conceptualize an art piece. It gives them an arsenal of tools and techniques to use to then conceptually drive their work. So you feel empowered as opposed to sitting down in front of a canvas without maybe ever having been taught to paint. That’s scary. I was a terrible painter and terrified myself every time I tried to start something. Prints obviously can go that way too, but it’s comforting and empowering to have the knowledge to make it and to have a process. The process can become part of the content of the work. It is really nice to bring people in and show them that they can be artists too.
You all have partnered with some other non-profits around town; tell me more about that.
One of our major ones is with the Church Hill Academy. They’re an alternative high school for at risk youth located at Pater Paul Development Center. Right now it’s a really small program and what they do is come here every Friday. This year we have five students, and they’re working on relief-printed portraits. They come in and we show them how to print, they get to see an arts organization. We offer that program at no cost to them
We’ve worked with Visual Arts Center on some collaborative printing projects. Art 180 and Peter Paul Development Center have classes in our darkroom. Also through Visarts, we work on A Space of Her Own, which is a program for girls from Gilpin Court. They’re paired with an adult mentor over the course of a school year. Every week, they sit down and have a meal and then learn some sort of creative process, so they come here to screen print.
We’re beginning a program this year with Binford Middle School, a young printmakers’ program. So we’re taking a lot of the stuff we already do and combining it with an exhibition and awards ceremony for students’ work. We’ll have a young printmaker’s store for them to sell their printed art, and that money will go back to fund the program. Then we’re doing a lecture talk series where working artists come in and actually get the [students] engaged in talking about what they were thinking about while making work, building them up to knowing how to talk about art in a way that’s not intimidating to them. Those are our main partnerships, but we’re starting to work with Maggie Walker Governor’s School, and possibly the VCU Arts Communications program.
And these are all things that are opened up to you because you’re a non-profit?
All of the programs, except from sustained uni education partnerships, are offered at no cost. We try to fund all of those through individual donations and grant funding.
So your silent auction fundraiser this fall helped raise money for what?
Some programs and also facility improvements. It helped a lot having the money in the bank to do that. It’s a big deal. We’re actually doing another fundraiser April 19th. It’s called the Cabinet of Curiosities, and it’s a Burlesque Show and Tattoo Art Raffle. It’ll be at the Studio. It’s a Friday night from 8-11. It’s going to be $10 in advance, $15 at the door. I think the Institute of Burlesque girls have signed on and are going to do a show for us. We’re working with tattoo artists in town to get work donated for a raffle. So that’s going to be really fun.
It’s cool that you’re open to doing things not specifically related to printmaking. I’m sure that opens up a lot of doors.
We keep a printed aspect to pretty much everything we do, but we also like to branch out. We have the photography workshops, one this month and probably another in two months.
I wanted to ask you a bit more about the gallery. I assume you didn’t have one at the previous location?
We didn’t. I used to run the project space gallery at Plant Zero but it wasn’t ours specifically. Moving to this space, we went from a 500 square foot to a 3400 square foot space. It gave us so much room at first we were wondering how we’d even fill the space. As you can see, we’ve ended up having no problem doing that.
The gallery is print specific. We show work of artists who are partially or primarily working in print. We don’t take any commission from the sale of the artwork.
Wow, that is awesome. I assumed, despite the fact that you’re a non-profit, that you’d have to take something from the gallery’s sales.
We do ask that the artist donate a print to us, which we can then use for fundraisers like this fall’s print auction. It works out being a really good symbiotic relationship. You spend so much money, time and effort making work, so we want them to make as much as possible off the sale of their work. People expressed interest in collecting and curating their own art collections–that was something that was an unfulfilled interest in town. I think our gallery contributes to that [by] selling prints which are inherently cheaper–depending on size or medium, they go for $100 or less. Another thing is that we focus on showing emerging artists’ work, people who are just getting started and trying to build their careers.
A lot of VCU grads?
Yes, and a lot of people who moved to town because they heard Richmond has a good art scene and wanted to get into that. In keeping the work affordable, it benefits the artists because they can sell more, and it benefits the community because they can actually afford to be art patrons. The bar is lower. There’s something youthful about print in general, no matter who’s making it and their age. The ability to interact with and to own prints. There are obviously prints out there that go for more than paintings, but I think here it opens it up. It’s great for artists to be able to sell work and have shows, get back the investment in time and energy they put in.
I think such a huge part of this space and what we’re trying to do is the idea of community art practice, and that’s something that’s really growing across the country. It’s such a great way for people to interact with the broader community, and share and use the skills that they have to make Richmond a better city. That’s sort of a big lofty goal. We all came to it as artists who were really gung-ho about being Richmond.
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Be sure to check out Studio Two Three’s monthly gallery exhibitions and second Saturday workshops. For more information on using the studio and its printing presses or community darkroom, contact ashleyhawkins@studiotwothree.org.
