7/16/2023 0 Comments Artstudio on scjool busPart arts outreach adventure and social practice enterprise, the Mobile Art Hive enables us to travel from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, meet people where they are at, and provide free and low cost opportunities for under-served communities from across Durham region and beyond to connect and express themselves creatively. The Mobile Art Studio is a 2009 Chevy short bus that has been converted into an Art Hive, Creative Re-Use centre and place making machine on wheels, with the generous support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation. As long as people can come together - in person or online - to create, the LivingRoom continues. The studio space at 149 Simcoe Street South was a special place, but what made it special were the people who used it, and how we used it together. Rather than compromise the quality of the experience, we decided to close the storefront studio in order to find new ways of bringing the studio to you and sparking the art of Human-ing. With the 2020 pandemic, the tiny storefront studio space was no longer safe or suitable for the diverse needs of the community members we worked with. We discovered that the Art of Human-ing was perhaps the most exciting creative process that we were engaging in, and that the things we made often supported or facilitated that exciting work. We explored and discovered ways to question, and clarify, resist and support, speak and embody our truths, and be ok with uncertainty and the weirdness of becoming. Through the art we created and the conversations that occurred around the art, we also learned about one another and ourselves. With the help of folx like you we opened a bricks and mortar store-front studio space in 2014 where people could walk in, grab materials and tools off the shelf to make whatever they wanted or needed to make in a supportive environment, welcoming around 15,000 visits a year from community members across Durham Region. In order to create and get known, you have to suffer.We have access to so many resources that we didn’t have twenty years ago.In 2013, the LivingRoom started as a weekly pop-up in a local restaurant that let us make use of their space after they’d closed. “A lot of artists think, they have this mindset that in order to be an artist, you have to be poor. “There’s a lot of opportunities out there for artists and they just have to find it,” Maldonado said. Maldonado wants to have this mobile art studio finished by the end of the month. “I don’t have to worry about rent, I don’t have to worry about utilities, I don’t have to worry about losing my spot - I go to people,” Maldonado said. “It’s going to be a sanitized environment.”īy being mobile and safe, Maldonado hopes to continue creating a therapeutic art experience for his customers. “The whole bus is going to be sanitary,” Maldonado said. He is hoping to “have families engage in something they’ve never done before.” Maldonado will offer “art parties” for up to six people. “He’s always been ahead of the curve coming up with new ideas.” “He’s done a good job pivoting this pandemic to create this new idea which nobody else has which is something he has been good at,” Cooley added. By being able to bring the studio to the party … it’s a lot more flexible obviously. “It was a challenge prior to the pandemic getting a large number of people to come to his studio,” Cooley said. Going mobile will eliminate that issue, said Dave Cooley, a volunteer helping the downtown arts community. I don’t have to worry about solar, I don’t have to worry about a gas generator that makes noise.”ĭrawing enough people to maintain a storefront can be challenging for an art studio. “It twinkles… The whole bus is going to be powered by a free energy generator that I designed and built. “I put up a star ceiling so now all you see while you are sitting down is stars,” he said. Star ceiling panels have already been added. He is about halfway done with the conversion. Since creating his original business plan, Maldonado has always been interested in converting a school bus into a mobile studio. I am not going to be one of those people because I am very versatile when it comes to my businesses.” “Some (businesses) are never going to be able to open up ever again. “I am not going to let a virus destroy my entire business,” Maldonado said. MERIDEN - Apollo Maldonado recently closed the doors at his downtown pop up art gallery, the Artists Colony, but found a way to continue his business with a mobile digital art studio.
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