Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com) | |
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2017 09:13:18 -0700 (PDT) |
> On Mar 12, 2017, at 4:00 AM, Raines Cohen <rc3-coho-L [at] raines.com> wrote: > > The state provided more than $15 > million in affordable-housing finance, including infrastructure loans that > took much longer than planned to pay back because of slow sales of the > market-rate lots. Expecting to find very many artists who can afford market rate homes anywhere is overly optimistic. And then finding those who want to take on a community responsibility aside from their work cuts that percentage down by maybe 90%. It’s a lonely hill. I had artist friends in NYC who bought buildings together in Soho when it was still abandoned factories in the 1960s. While there are many success stories—getting rich and moving—there were also many failures. I suspect the successes were the result of spouses who were not artists and had income from law and finance. One of my friends bought a 4 story building with each artist having a floor. The furnace was coal burning — in the 1980s. She said she would never live with artists again. They would rather sleep or work than go to the basement and shovel coal, even when having a coal furnace allowed them to paint even if they sold nothing. They worked wrapped in a blanket like a Greek sculpture before they would go to the basement to produce heat. I’m not being negative or hyper-critical. I know artists. They more than most people have priorities. It sounds good on paper to live in an arts-rich community but the infra-structure will suffer if it depends on artists to organize and maintain it. We had a woman who withdrew before move-in because we didn’t have two car garages, or even one car garages. A true suburbanite dependent on car culture? No, an artist who made larger than life puppets. She knew her priorities. Probably better to think in terms of the communities where there are affordable units subsidized with market rate homes. An “arts" focused community rather than an “artist” focused community. The one Raines described sounds wonderful but I suspect you have to define the definition of “artist” fairly liberally to make it work. Another characteristic of artists is illustrated in a story about Jewish synagogues. In upstate NY and MA there is a whole area that a Jewish man bought to sell to Jews who wanted to be farmers. Owning land was forbidden to Jews in many places so there were obviously few Jewish farmers. Driving through this area I came upon one of those rural intersections that are actually town center. The only building is the one that is a gas station, grocery store, and post office. If there is a lake around, it sells fishing bait. But this one also had two synagogues. Two. Probably the only two in the whole area and they were across the street from each other in different directions from the store. They were very small stone buildings that would never fall down but they would hardly have fit even a minyan of 10. Why not one so at least a small congregation would be possible. I told this story to a Jewish friend who was a European immigrant in his eighties. The scene was perfectly predictable to him. He said, “Every town has two synagogues. They come in pairs. The one you go to and the one you wouldn’t be caught dead in. Artists are often the same way about art. Sharon ---- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org
- Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN, (continued)
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Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Emilie Parker, March 11 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Richart Keller, March 11 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Ann Zabaldo, March 11 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Raines Cohen, March 12 2017
- Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Sharon Villines, March 12 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Emilie Parker, March 12 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Sharon Villines, March 15 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Vicki Rittner, March 15 2017
- Re: Cohousing for Artists [was Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Emilie Parker, March 15 2017
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Re: Cohousing for Senior Artists - Request from CNN Emilie Parker, March 11 2017
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