Keeping artists around
The ‘204 building’ has made that a Harwich priority
When the “204 building” in Harwich opens on May 4, 10 am to 4 pm, with welcome to all from more than 30 artists in their studios plus activities and vendors around and about, a cultural achievement will be on display as much as an eclectic group of creative people.
Sure, Taylor Fox’s humorous vision of Noah’s Ark on Nauset Beach is worth a visit in its own right.
So are Heather Pilchard’s colorful scapes, Carolyn Dunford’s luminous encaustics, Nate Nickerson’s intimate shellwork, Anne Flash’s swerving abstractions – the list goes on.
But 204 Sisson Street takes center stage, transformed from a middle school to a “cultural arts municipal building,” the only place on Cape Cod where a town has created dozens of studios for working artists in a public building.
This realized vision is its own multi-faceted sculpture.
Director Kara Mewhinney believes the building is becoming a refuge, a town focus, you might say a beating heart. She knows buildings can transform this way from her previous years managing Memorial Hall in Plymouth, more a performance center but still a magnetic community persona.
204’s path traces back almost 10 years, as the Monomoy School District of Harwich and Chatham came together. Harwich’s middle school (once its high school) became superfluous, so a non-binding question asked townspeople what they would like to see happen there.
First choice; affordable housing. Second choice; a cultural arts center.
“The physical problem was that our building and the elementary school next door (still functioning) share a septic system,” explains Mewhinney. “So there were real structural, expensive issues for housing. Plus having apartments this close to school children was problematic.”
Plan B took shape: Transform classrooms and smaller offices into studios. Qualifying artists need to be living on Cape Cod full-time (not necessarily Harwich, though preference given) and make sure their spaces don’t lie dormant for more than four weeks at a stretch. Rooms were leased “as is,” saving renovation costs; vintage school lockers still line the halls. Rents are low; $150 to $550 a month for workspace ranging from 70 to more than 1000 square feet, utilities included.
COVID knocked down the program for awhile. Then the town bounced back in early 2023 and offered artists a shot at three-year leases; more than 50 applied for 30-plus spaces. Longer term security means the world to artists often facing month-to-month uncertainty; people settled in, lugging work and materials, some offering courses. Lease revenue takes care of ongoing expenses like utilities and custodial; Mewhinney is the only person on salary.
“I feel really fortunate,” says Taylor Fox, ensconced at 204 for five years, who shows at Orleans Modern Art gallery. “It’s my happy place, and I’m allowed to invite other people in to make art too, so it provides a bridge for a solitary artist to move in the community.”
“I would not be able to produce the work I do without a studio,” says Heather Pilchard, who shows at the AMZehnder Gallery in Wellfleet and lives in Eastham. “I have never wanted to live in a space where I create because one of my main mediums is oil paint (getting away from fumes now and then is a good idea). I think having a studio makes me feel more like a professional ... I like to work on a lot of pieces at once so a larger space is ideal for me.”
“Going to the studio is intentional, I go there to paint,” reports Carolyn Dunford from Harwich, whose work has appeared in many Cape venues including a solo show at Cape Cod Hospital. “My current space allows me to have all my work in the same room and see the throughlines. I am so grateful for this.
“And I have felt a growing sense of community at 204, especially after we were offered three-year leases. There was a sense of relief at first, and then people began to invest more of themselves in the building. This stability has allowed me to think about and work on long-term projects that had been tabled.”
The town is investing in 204’s success, upgrading a dormant auditorium and cafeteria, plans for a performance space (with 200-plus seats) as well as a café or restaurant. The Commonwealth has recognized the building’s gravitational pull, authorizing two cultural districts in Harwich linked to 204’s presence.
Artists always are celebrated, but usually in the abstract. And whenever intrepid, vanguard souls find empty, neglected or decrepit buildings to inhabit and turn into working art spaces, often in dangerous parts of a city, the funky communities they create inevitably become hot neighborhoods that upscale, sending the pioneers packing to find the next fringe location.
To see that pattern reversed even once, a town willing to support and protect local artists within repurposed brick and mortar, is a cultural success that deepens the meaning of community.
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So encouraging! And btw, as you certainly know, affordable housing and the arts are closely related. Over the decades I've watched the Vineyard's grassroots theater scene dwindle and come a hair's breadth of dying because the coming-and-going of actors and techies was stymied by rents, including off-season rents, and lack of available, affordable rehearsal and performance space. Grassroots music has also taken a big hit, but not quite so devastating because musicians can usually show up, set up, perform, and take down in hours rather than days and weeks. We're having a bit of a revival now, thanks to human initiative and the support of big, space-owning nonprofits, but the connection between housing, arts, and the availability of space remains clear.
Well done Harwich! What a shame the Outer Cape had the opportunity to save a portion of it's historic artist community by repurposing the Highlands center for art work/live space. I don't think the Park Service will be happy till every human is forced out of the Outer Cape.