Erector Sq. Readies For City-Wide Open Studios

In artist Oi Fortin’s studio in Erector Square, seven artists were taking old signs for City-Wide Open Studios, salvaged from Artspace’s basement before it closed, and rearranging and redecorating them for a new purpose: the return of City-Wide Open Studios to the Fair Haven arts complex on the weekend of Oct. 21 and 22.

This new version of City-Wide Open Studios is supported by a Citywide Arts & Culture Events and Pop-up Markets grant from the City of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism.

“We want it to say Erector Square, Open Studio, the date, the time, and then the website,” said artist Martha Lewis on Wednesday evening, as she and the others got to work. The creation of the signs was an encapsulation of the larger project of bringing the event itself back this fall, as it reclaims familiar ground from the past and at the same time feels new.

“Erector Square’s 11-building campus will open its doors to over 85 exhibiting artists featuring a wide variety of art media and practices, including: photography, installation art, realist painting, abstract painting, fiber arts, textiles, sculpture, printmaking and dance. Visitors can meet artists in their studios, see works in progress, and purchase artwork,” wrote artist Eric March in a press release. ​“Other special events include: community art-making, a Halloween-themed Japanese craft festival, live music, a live radio broadcast by WPKN and a food truck.”

“It’s the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Erector Square complex. It’s also an important year for the art community of New Haven to show that it is still vibrant, active and working together from the ground up, and to make New Haven a cultural destination for artists and art-lovers alike,” March continued. The event coincides with similar events at Marlin Works in East Rock on the same weekend, West River Arts on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29 — part of Westville fall ArtWalk — and the Amplify the Arts Festival in the Eli Whitney Barn on the preceding weekend, Oct. 14 and Oct. 15. In short, for eventgoers, October will look a lot like City-Wide Open Studios weekends of the past. 

The big difference: the event used to be overseen by Artspace. It’s now being organized by the artists themselves.

Preparations among Erector Square artists to mount City-Wide Open Studios themselves began in the spring, as soon as word got around that Artspace (which had not yet officially closed) was stepping back from the event. Artists set up the first of what turned out to be monthly meetings, which Lewis said took on a determined tone. ​“If you want something done, you’re doing it,” Lewis said. ​“Mom’s not here anymore.” But ​“everyone really did step up to the plate.”

The grant from the city is arriving in time to reimburse the artists, who have so far been covering ongoing expenses themselves (and saving their receipts). The Arts Council of Greater New Haven is covering insurance. The artists themselves have gone through the process of getting the necessary permits from the city.

“It’s all on us,” Lewis said. ​“We think of that as its strength. It’s artist-run. It’s artists doing it.” The loss of leadership from arts organizations may have required some adjustment. But as the details of the event fall into place, the artists have learned of those absent leaders that, in the most basic sense, maybe ​“we don’t need them.”

In place of a centralized organization is a network of New Haven-based artists, from March, Lewis, Fortin, and others in Erector Square to Mistina Hanscomb at Lotta Studios to Max Schmidt (who is organizing volunteers) to Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez of Fair-Side. Eric March has helped organize the participating artists through the Erector Square website, on which each artist gets a page that remains up for a year for $25. The help from the city is the final piece of the puzzle; Adriane Jefferson, the city’s director of arts, culture, and tourism, ​“has been very supportive,” Lewis said.

Taking a longer view, Lewis sees the reorganization of City-Wide Open Studios as a definitive step in recovering from the pandemic and from the shakeup in the visual arts community that followed. During it, psychologically at least, ​“artists fared better than other people because we’re solitary loners,” she joked. But ​“income dried up,” and artists have looked to events like Open Studios to help. In the past, ​“a lot of people sold work or got exhibition opportunities,” Lewis said. 

At present in New Haven, ​“there’s not a lot for visual artists,” Lewis said. Funding and commissions are tight and there are few places to show work. ​“It feels really good to do something” to change that, Lewis said. ​“Putting things in our own hands feels really good.”

Learn more about Erector Square and the artists in it on Erector Square’s website.