Reminder: Artisan's Asylum Anniversary/Fundraising Party, Saturday

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

WHAT: Artisan's Asylum Open-House and Fundraiser
WHEN: July 9th, 7-11PM
WHERE: 10 Tyler St, Somerville MA (part of the former Ames factory, conveniently close to the 87 bus line; parking is also available)

Artisan's Asylum is moving into a 25,000 square foot warehouse in September, where we'll offer bigger and better craft areas (which include woodworking, precision machining, welding, electronics assembly, bicycle repair and fabrication, fabric arts and computerized manufacturing facilities, to name a few), over 100 studio rental spaces for local artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs, and new amenities such as a kitchenette, a craft-focused retail storefront, a computer lab and more.

We'd love for you to join us this Saturday, July 9th, from 7-11PM, for a sneak peak at our new space with an open house and fundraiser for our move. We'll have free food and drink, circus performances, installation art and galleries from local artists and craftspeople, music, and presentations about the history of and vision for Artisan's Asylum in the near future. The suggested donation at the door is $25, with funds going towards our move and infrastructural build-out of the new space.

We'll have a ton of information available at the event about our new membership options (several of which are less expensive than our current offerings), how to rent space with us, and how to get involved as a teacher, student, member, renter, or volunteer.

Our schedule for the night includes:

* A Meet & Greet from 7-8PM, complete with complimentary food and drink and tours of the vision of the new space
* Presentations at 8PM from Gui Cavalcanti, President of Artisan’s Asylum, Inc., and Stephen Houdlette, Economic Development Specialist in Somerville’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development
* Performances throughout the night including: Intimacy (partnered acrobatics), Andrew Insect & Ace (spinning), and silks and other aerial acrobatics by Chris Linder and Esh Aerial Arts
* Music later on by DJ madDELISH

Art will include:
- Blake Courter's Zoetrope of Sphere Eversion
- Seth Seligman's Home-Made Arcade
- Frostbyte's Tensor
- Bevan Weissman's The Web
- Sage Kochavi's OddiTea
- Giles Hall's Big Dripper
- Gui Cavalcanti's Bouncy Castle (freshly cleaned from its recent Charles River adventure)

This is a short sample of over two dozen awesome pieces, many of which were recently on display at Firefly and other area art festivals and shows.

Comments

[ron_newman]

Also a reasonably short walk from the 83 and 86 bus lines, if that's helpful to anyone.

Will there be a good place to park bicycles?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

You can bring your bicycle inside; we'll have some space set aside for that.

I have vague memories of some fencing and the usual sorts of poles next to sidewalks, if you want to lock up outside, but there's no dedicated outdoor bike parking.

[ron_newman]

The city of Somerville has a program where businesses can request that the city install bike racks in front of them. I strongly recommend that Artisans' Asylum make such a request, using this form.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I really like that idea, but the sidewalk on Tyler Street is probably not wide enough for that to work out :(

It is highly likely that we will continue to have indoor bike parking, in some form, as part of our permanent interior design/layout/whatever - there's a lot of interest in that among the existing members already. Covered parking > outdoor parking.

[ron_newman]

I brought my bike inside as you suggested (and then rode out with lots of other stranger bikes ;-). Outdoor bike parking looks a lot easier at Tyler Street than it is at Joy, where I recall once having to lock my bike to a water meter.