I want to talk about this organization you run called The Art Room.

What is it?

Where did it start?

- Well, I started the Albany Art Room 17 years ago, which is kind of hard to believe.

I can only gauge the timed change from my daughter's age.

She was seven when I opened.

She's 24 now.

So it's been a long time.

(Jade laughs) I started it because I really found a missing need in Albany.

I lived in Albany and I was driving all the way to Troy to take art and I had a young child and I never wanted to do art projects with her because it was like too much trouble, too messy, you know, they're on to the next thing really quickly and then you have to clean it all up.

And I thought, oh, do you really wanna do this?

And I thought, well, if I'm not even doing art projects with my kid, other people probably are reluctant to do it also.

So I thought there should be a shared space where we can have art classes for kids, art classes for adults, and then this concept of open studio, which was a dropping in anytime we're open.

A lot of it was parents with young children coming in and exploring materials and making art.

And I knew nothing about running a business, so I had to learn how to everything about running a business and somehow it's still going.

- That's awesome.

And what kind of like services do you offer there?

- Well, it's changed a lot over the years.

When we first opened, it was just mostly 2D visual arts for people of all ages and all levels of experience.

And then a year in, I realized that the thing that everyone was asking for was pottery.

- Mm-hmm.

- So I hired someone to help me add on a pottery studio and that has since then been the dominant art form that people want.

And so it's really taken over a lot of the space, which I was kind of resistant to for a while because it's not my first love, but it's fun and people really enjoy it.

I was really lucky to have amazing young employees from the beginning and some teachers who worked with me who helped me figure out what I was doing and how to do it.

- That's awesome, with that community support, right?

- Definitely.

- That's always about community.

- Yeah.

- So speaking of community, I know you guys have a membership model, so to be involved with the art room.

So how does that model work?

So how do people get in?

- (laughs) Well, unfortunately it's a limited space and so at the moment we're at capacity with kind of a long waiting list- - Mm-hmm.

- But the model of membership is that a member pays by the month or by the year and they basically get a key to the building and they have their own shelves and most of them are potters, but I do have some painters and mixed media artists and other kinds of artists.

And so they just come and go whenever.

So I mean there have been people who are like middle of the night artists and I never even see them.

And then magically there's all this art that appears, so... (Jade laughs) - That's awesome.

So it really is like when you go there, you're like making friends- - Yeah.

- Like you like love your neighbors.

(Karen laughs) It really is a conducive space- - Yeah.

- Of like community and teamwork, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, why do you think that's important for artists?

I think especially less so for kids, but for adults, a lot of adults are really reluctant to make art.

You know, they had some art teacher when they were a kid tell them they were bad at something and they shut down and when they were afraid to try it.

So I mean, I find lot of the time I'm trying to, you know, get an adult to feel comfortable trying and having kids around who are just, you know, so free with expressing with art materials.

It's a really good example that they're setting for the adults who are watching them.

So that was great in the early years of the Albany Art Room and now, you know, with the smaller sort of calmer environment of mostly adults, it's just, you know that you know everybody and that everybody's really sort of cheering you on.

- Mm-hmm.

- So like, if you wanna try something new, we're right there with you to be like, go for it, it's okay.

And if it messes up we can just make it into something else or throw it away or start again.

You know, so there's really that kind of supportive environment.

- That's awesome and I will say, I think we've all, well hopefully not all of us, but a lot of people I do know have had that one art teacher, including myself, that kind of said something that wasn't very positive- - Yeah.

- And it really throws you off your game and- - Yeah, - You're like, well maybe I'm not gonna be this vulnerable again, whether it's poetry or drawing or any type of like art.

So it's really good that you're fostering a space for older adult artists to feel kind of safe to create in.

- Thank you.

- Let's talk about you as an artist.

- Okay.

(laughs) - Like what kind of work do you do?

- So I've done art my whole life.

Grew up doing art.

My mom was an art teacher.

We had an art studio in my backyard.

I was super lucky in that way, but I really was a dabbler.

I did all sorts of different kinds of art.

And then recently I was teaching a class, a mixed media abstract class and I was helping the students go through this process of figuring out what do you really want your art to be?

What do you want it to be about?

What do you want?

You know, how do you wanna make people feel?

Like that kind of thing.

I was getting them through this process of thinking about that.

And then afterwards a friend of mine said, "Well, have you asked yourself those questions?"

I'm like, "Not recently."

And so I did, and this was like three years ago and in the process I realized I really wanna make art that has meaning that's important to me.

And what I landed on was political work about injustices in our cities, specifically about segregation.

And the one thing I knew a lot about having studied urban planning was redlining.

And so I started to research redlining and made a series of work mixed media fiber art about redlining.

And then I expanded it because I realized, well that talks about it as if it's one isolated point in history.

And what I really wanted to talk about was how every level of government throughout our history has worked to make all of those issues even worse.

You know, that so many different legislation and laws and regulations have just made segregation even worse and have left people in our cities with, you know, not a lot of options, no opportunities to build wealth, no opportunities to own property.

And so my focus then widened and my more recent work was more inclusive of other issues and it's all communicated through maps.

And I found that fiber art, layering fabrics, stitching, different kinds of stitching, different kinds of fabric and then the opportunity to add other things like paint and printmaking to it, gave me all of the tools I needed to like communicate these very complicated ideas because I could layer it all and I could layer the physical with the conceptual, you know, all physically layering it on my artwork.

So that's what I've come up with.

- That's awesome, especially highlighting like redlining and I don't know if gerrymandering even counts in that In everything I have all the city planning be- - It could be.

- It's like terrible.

(Karen laughs) Thank you, Karen- - Yeah.

- For calling us about the art room in your own personal work.

- Thank you.