Back in the fall of 2022, I raced over to the now closed Viking Mills Studios on a Sunday morning to witness in horror as Peter Steglia’s studio equipment was hauled out of his studio space and into a rented truck that was parked in the street. Hired eviction grunts were stealing his life’s work. Twelve-foot, live-edge hardwood boards, planers and joiners and all manner of equipment being carelessly loaded into a truck. Peter stood helplessly in the street. We all stood helplessly in the street. Commercial tenants, whether you make money from that tenancy or not, do not have the same kinds of protections that residential tenants have and almost no recourse outside of hiring a lawyer.
I myself have been forcibly displaced from studio space twice in my Philadelphia artistic career, and I feel like there are very few Philadelphia artists out there who have not been unceremoniously booted from their studio space so that it could be developed into luxury apartments for someone else. It’s a fairly well known phenomenon, that artists come together in what start out as affordable neighborhood spaces. They do their creative thing, draw other creative people in, sometimes adding in creative businesses; then comes a small coffee shop and then a record store and then the affordability goes right out the window along with the terminated lease. There are many instances of blame given to artists for causing gentrification of a neighborhood, but I promise you, none of us set out to price ourselves right out of our own neighborhoods.
The need for affordable workspace with real protections is one of the “key findings,” right at the top of the list, in a booklet provided to attendees of Councilmember Rue Landau’s presentation of survey results collected from 354 Philadelphia artists between August and October, 2024. On a rainy Friday night, I attended the panel discussion entitled “Survey Says: An Analytical Approach to Supporting Philadelphia Artists” in the Learning and Engagement Center at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When the survey first came out in August I was eager to complete it, and I shared it with all the artists I know. I just knew that data collection was the very important first step towards creating legislative protections for artists and their workspaces in Philadelphia. During the panel discussion, Councilmember Landau shared with us that her mother is an artist, a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, and in her Council position, she had gotten to know so many Philadelphia artists and could see that there is a problem here. She conceived of a survey for artists to find out more precisely what the problem(s) is (are) so that genuine efforts could be put towards trying to solve them. Instead of rehashing the slides and information from the booklet for you, I’ll let you peruse those for yourself here. Let me tell you about the panel talk.
Patricia Aden, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance gave opening remarks. She asked for a show of hands from the audience about how many attendees had taken the survey. I raised my hand, and then looked behind me at the room. About a quarter, possibly a third of the attendees raised their hands. When I had arrived at the PMA earlier that evening, I definitely had paint on my hands and was wearing the usual jeans and hoodie attire. I took note of the large number of suit jackets and very clean, shiny shoes in the room. I was less concerned about being under-dressed, but more concerned about being under-represented. This disparity was my first observation, and I scribbled a note that whether or not this would be an issue for discussion was“TBD.” Anyway, the Cultural Alliance has lots of its own fascinating findings including that even though the non-profit culture and arts sector has a 3.3 billion dollar economic impact, cultural sector work is continuously undervalued. Patty also alluded to some upcoming Cultural Alliance talks happening in February and March, so keep an eye out for those.
Arts and Culture Liaison to Rue Landau’s office, artist Lauren Rinaldi moderated the panel. Rinaldi is one of the artists that Landau had come to know during the 2023 municipal campaign cycle, and is the only artist liaison to any of the 17 councilmembers. She first asked the PMA’s Director of Public and Civic Engagement, Lauren Hunter, what large arts institutions could offer artists. The PMA isn’t offering us too much useful stuff, folks. No one is mad about the $40 artist membership, but citing the PMA as a useful public space isn’t quite what we are looking for, thanks. How can arts organizations help fill the void left by our two recently and dearly departed degree granting programs, UArts and PAFA, along Broad Street? asked Lauren. Mural Arts founder Jane Golden stated the obvious by saying that, “We have to be sure as a sector that it doesn’t keep happening.” No one disagrees.
In a way that sounds dangerously like victim blaming, InLiquid founder Rachel Zimmerman says something about a lot of existing opportunities. “It’s up to you as artists to seek out your communities. Be judicious about what you ask for.” How much is an InLiquid membership, again? So, how do you get artists to the resources? Asks Lauren. Redemption seemed at hand when Zimmerman replied, “we need more marketing, more money…”, but fell flat when she continued to talk about finding the people with the money and bringing their attention to the art. Yes, let me call all my rich friends real quick.
Along the same line of questioning, Val Gay, Chief Cultural Officer of Philadelphia emerged as a bright spot by bringing in the real goods. Many of us have probably heard of the City department called the Office of Arts and Culture. This has recently been renamed to simply “Creative Philadelphia” https://www.creativephl.org/ – and that’s where the goods seem to be stored. For example, some of you may have applied to or even received an “Illuminate the Arts” Grant. Here’s what’s super cool about it: The 1.5 million dollar pot was spread out among 730 artists and creative businesses, and was meant to serve as their first grant, and a way to prepare them to apply for more grants in the future.
Gay’s generous smile and the way she held her hands while talking, plus her apparent access to real resources and keen interest in sharing them, has got me excited. “We need to eradicate the starving artist narrative”, she said. “We have a definitional problem.” People don’t feel that arts and culture is relevant to them, and they don’t see *our* relevance. Until we are relevant, she said, we will remain in these conversations. Mind: blown.
Another survey topic introduced by Rinaldi is the lack of media coverage and reviews of artists and showings. I have something to tell them about Artblog… But really, its true, we used to have at least 3 free printed publications with art listings around town, and the Inquirer hasn’t had an arts reviewer in years. Currently there doesn’t seem to be a standard central location for listings of art happenings in Philadelphia, but we really all ought to be using Artblog Connect! Jane Golden suggested, “has anyone gathered a group of artists to ask the Inquirer…?” and almost before she finished that question, an audience member said, “Theater folks try every year, and every year they tell us to get lost.”
After Jane Golden gave a glorious rant about developers vs. murals, and how do we get developers to create artist spaces (someone might need to tell her how predatory development works…) Rinaldi asked the panelists, “What can the City actually do?” Councilmember Landau said she had been thinking a lot about vacant spaces in the City, but was still working on figuring out how to get artists into them. Gay told us how she has been talking to the folks over at Planning and Development about vacant spaces for a while now, and she feels like they are finally starting to get it. Very slowly, “Things *are* happening”, Gay said. Despite my developing affection for Gay, she is still a City bureaucrat and as usual remained vague about exciting plans for the future, but did share that Philadelphia is developing its first ever “cultural plan” for Philadelphia phila.gov/arts, to debut in the spring of 2026. She also shared that this March there will be a series of 12 community conversations or town halls produced by the Office of Arts and Culture to collect more direct feedback that will help shape this cultural plan.
Time was rapidly running out for this panel, and RIndaldi was working hard to be sure there was time for questions and museum visitation. But Patty Wilson Aden had something to say – and it was a great way to close out this talk. “We have a moment, here,” she said, and we have allies, and we have an elected official! And “It’s all about solid policies.” As an extremely jaded low-level politician (see: Civic Association, Democratic Committee Person) and exhausted protestor (see: No Arena Coalition movement) THIS is really hopeful. Having policy on our side is everything. Billionaire saviors and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps have been proven to be myths over and over and over. So, what should we do? Lets all keep our ears to the ground for more opportunities to give feedback to policy makers, and we have to demand that those same people are genuinely serving not only our best interests as artists, but the City’s interest in supporting a $3+ billion dollar economic driver that needs to be treated by everyone not as niche but as mainstream- because it really is. We just have a definitional problem.
Read more articles by Katie Dillon Low on Artblog.
