by Erik Espe
"I understand Picasso left 17,000 works behind when he died," says Palo Alto artist Lyn Simmons as she surveys her giant studio. "It's really important to have space to put your stuff." Here, in Simmons' classroom-size Palo Alto studio, there's plenty of space--and plenty of stuff.
Hundreds of paintings hang from walls and are piled in every corner. There's even a giant "in-basket" where paintings that have been displayed around the country rest after their long postal journeys home.
If it weren't for the large, square windows beaming bright daylight into the room, you almost wouldn't know from the inside that Simmons' studio was a once classroom. Until 1979, it held dozens of Cubberley High School students, before the school became the Cubberley Community Center.
You also wouldn't know the room only costs Simmons $316 a month to rent--a real deal in a town where tiny apartments can cost more than $1,000.
Simmons is a Cubberley artist, and in Palo Alto there's a certain honor in having that distinction. Not every artist can get a prized, city government-subsidized studio in the Cubberley Community Center. It's easy to see from looking at Simmons' jarring yet beautiful art why many consider her one of our great local artists. The mother of three and grandmother of five has had shows "just about everywhere, except New York," her original home.
Abstract works--dark, almost disturbing geometric shapes surrounding color photocopies of images from ancient Pompeii--hang on one wall. "This is my series of Pompeii works," she says. "I don't have a name for them yet. I'll probably just name them, 'Pompeii I,' 'Pompeii II,' etc."
Simmons' representational works are a bit cheerier. She has an entire series on pears, pastel pictures that wouldn't seem that unusual if it weren't for the shadows Simmons casts over the fruits, giving them a stark look, as if they've just been photographed by a flash camera. Dozens are stacked upright on her floor.
It's work that won Simmons a city-subsidized studio five years ago.
Simmons, like all 22 of the artists at Cubberley, had her work judged by a panel of art professionals before she entered Cubberley, and goes through yearly reviews to make sure she is producing plenty of work. The initial judging process is extensive and competitive (see sidebar).
In return, Simmons gets an affordable and sizable studio, plus the camaraderie of working with 22 other ?? artists who meet regularly, sometimes organize trips together, critique one another's work and hold art sales together.
"Cubberley permits artists to do work they otherwise couldn't have done," Simmons says. "I'm a prime example of this. I had a tiny studio before I came here."
But, undeniably, the single most important benefit of being a Cubberley artist is the rent. At a monthly rate of 42 cents a square foot, it's about half what an artist would pay to rent studio space in a comparable location in Palo Alto.
And in a city where art galleries are struggling to turn a profit while rents are high, these artists say they wouldn't be able to work as productively without Cubberley. It's why the most commonly used word among them to describe the studio program is "godsend."
"It's been a boon to my art career," says mixed-media artist Wendy Palmer, who in recent years has had work exhibited in national competitions in Palm Springs, as well at the Palo Alto Cultural Center.
Since joining the studios program, Palmer--whose paintings incorporate the use of found objects as small as fungus and as large as a mortar shell--has seen her art career blossom as quickly as her artistic style has changed. Five years ago, before arriving at Cubberley she created realistic portraits. Now she does expressionistic, sometimes war-related mixed media pieces.
"Before, I had been trying to use a room upstairs in my house for my art," the Palo Alto artist says. "But in that small space, I couldn't get an idea of what my work was about. Here, I can put my work up and get a sense of where it's going."
Her 480-square-foot, $202-a-month studio gives Palmer ample room to display her dark paintings on subjects such as the war in Croatia.
Several doors down, Prentiss Cole is working on his computer-age, mixed-media designs. After years of saving, Cole was able to leave his day job as an engineer in 1988 and pursue art full-time.
"Having this space enables me to produce the stuff I'm moved to do," the Los Altos resident explains. The rent for Cole's 480-square-foot space is $237 a month. Artists don't have to be from Palo Alto to get space at Cubberley, although Palo Alto residents are given priority over non-residents, who pay 5 cents more per square foot. Nine of the artists are non-residents.
Cole says his work is so uncommercial that it doesn't give him the revenue to afford a studio at full price. His at times disturbing mixed-media work isn't the kind of art you find hanging near a dinner table. "If all things are so interconnected, why do I feel so separate?" asks one of Cole's pieces, featuring computer-generated text over cloth sealed in rubber. Cole says universities around the country want his kind of art, but it isn't as profitable as scenic watercolors.
In another wing of the center, one of Palo Alto's most well-known artists, Marguerite Fletcher, is rearranging her 720-square-foot space, wearing a flannel, paint-spattered shirt.
"This community has been good to me in a pretty powerful way," Fletcher says. You've probably seen Fletcher's "Palo Alto," the shadowy portrait of a Waverley Street sidewalk that's a favorite in local poster stores.
Her immense, $301 space at Cubberley has enabled the 30-year Palo Alto resident to vastly increase her productivity. Ten unfinished paintings of hillsides and oceans surround a table packed with paints and brushes. Fletcher usually works on about 10 paintings at once.
"This is the first time I've been able to work the way I really want to," says Fletcher, who used to make the garage of her Palo Alto home a cramped studio. "I really want to work with lots of stuff going on at once."
Although there's a consensus among the participating artists about the benefits of the program, there isn't one among City Council members. This August, the Council debated whether the Cubberley program should put a cap on how long artists can stay there. Seven of the artists, including Simmons, have been with the program since its inception, and some Council members questioned whether they should be allowed to stay for an unlimited time or be asked to leave after 10 years. The Council voted to maintain the status quo, but will pick up the issue again in five years.
Some, including Mayor Joe Simitian, question the fairness of the program.
Ultimately, the Cubberley artists are being given a break by local taxpayers. The city subsidizes the 22 artists $112,500 a year by keeping rents lower than they could be.
"One of the important things about Cubberley is that it represents a realized concept of the city to nurture and support art," Simmons says. "That's Palo Alto's tradition in the Bay Area. In doing this they've put their money where their mouth is."
No Council members have suggested scrapping the program altogether and spending the money elsewhere. But Council member Ron Andersen has voiced concern that the low rents are available to rich artists as well as struggling ones. There is no screening process for financial need.
Simitian wonders if the program should have a higher turnover in order to allow new artists a chance at renting the subsidized studios.
At issue is exactly what the Cubberley artists program is seeking to accomplish. Is it a subsidy for established artists--some of whom have been working out of the studios for years--or is it a program designed to help new artists who need the boost of a low-budget studio space in order to start their careers?
The program's director says it's both.
"My perspective is that the objective is to find the best artists in the community and provide them the opportunity to work in Palo Alto," says Leon Kaplan, the city's director of arts and culture. "In doing that you encourage and nurture their growth as artists and their professional careers as artists."
Some, however, think artists should be asked to leave after a set period of time.
"It doesn't give enough artists the opportunity to use the center," says Adrienne Gillespie, who paints landscapes and uses her driveway and garage as her studio. She applied to be a Cubberley artist, but hasn't been accepted yet. "There should be more turnover because there are many artists who need the spot."
It wasn't an issue when the program started in 1989, after the Standing Committee for the Arts conducted a survey and discovered that a lack of affordable studio space was a priority problem among art organizations in Palo Alto. They opened studios at Jordan Middle School, which was closed at the time. But when Jordan reopened later that year, the program was moved to Cubberley.
"The concern I expressed was that it involves a fairly substantial subsidy over an extended period of time, many thousands of dollars per individual," Simitian says. "Clearly, it's a substantial cash subsidy to the individual artists. There's unanimous support on the Council for a significant subsidy to create an arts center. There's differing views as to how that subsidy should be shared among artists. Let's be sure we share the benefits of this subsidy with a reasonably large number of artists, rather than just a few."
Critics agree that it's difficult--if not impossible--to find affordable studio space in Palo Alto. But, they say, it's not be fair for some artists to monopolize the Cubberley spaces for too many years. Simitian feels the cap should be 10 years.
In August, the Council voted 5-3 against a proposal that a studio's rents should rise to market value after an artist had rented it for a decade. But the Council did vote to consider the issue again in five years.
"If people weren't going to move, we weren't going to kick them out, but at least charge them market rate after 10 years," says Simitian, who voted for the 10-year cap. "I heard (the artists') argument, I got it, but still had a concern. I felt like all we did was avoid the issue and hand it to another Council five years hence."
Artists argue that the space gives them the room to produce local art full-time. Even after their careers are established, they need the subsidy if they're going to stay in Palo Alto.
"We are always having to go to bat for Cubberley," says Linda Raffel, a Palo Alto artist who paints neckties in addition to large, colorful murals on fabric. She pays $349 for her 760-square-foot studio, and has been with the program since its inception.
"Before I came here, I was working in a double garage I was renting on Addison Street that I'd converted to a studio," she says. "The city kicked me out, though, because it wasn't zoned to be used as a studio."
Raffel and Simmons have been with the program for six years, Cole and Fletcher for 2 1/2 and Palmer for three.
"There's no way of finding affordable studio space in Palo Alto, no warehouses, nothing," Simmons says. "These artists bring back to the community what they take. It's not just taking space."
At the same time, it gives artists an opportunity to grow in their craft--and the growing process doesn't stop after a few years, artists say.
"What I've seen there is terrific growth on the part of the artists," says Cultural Center curator Signe Mayfield. "There have been some real outstanding things that have happened to them (since they started at Cubberley). Studio space in and of itself has a terrific impact on any artist."
Kaplan argues that there already is a healthy, natural turnover at the center. Three new artists have just been admitted, which is about the yearly average, he says.
"The idea that we simply look for new artists and rotate them out is not what I believe in," Kaplan says. "The program does encourage new artists, and we have a good track record doing that."
Some local gallery owners question whether the local art market is capable of supporting a thriving, non-subsidized, professional art scene in Palo Alto. "When I came to Palo Alto in 1980, one of the things I quickly learned was that affordable space for artists and non-profit organizations was becoming quickly difficult to find," Kaplan says.
Rent is also high in cities like New York and Los Angeles, but art also sells in those areas. Simmons says some of her work sells for 10 times as much back East as it does here.
In spite of the burgeoning wealth in this area, art sales in Palo Alto are low, gallery owners say.
Former Palo Alto gallery owner Lucy Berman shut down her gallery this fall after eight years of business in Palo Alto.
For the number of artists in Palo Alto, "there isn't a commensurate population of people interested in collecting art," she says.
Similar complaints are emanating from another local gallery, Smith Andersen. Still in business, the gallery finds many of its customers outside of Palo Alto.
"I've been in this town 30 years, and there's always been an apathy toward the visual arts here, only it's never been worse," complains owner Paula Kirkeby.
"It's not gangbusters, that's for sure. Fine arts is slow," says Phyllis Aroner, an artist and office staff member for the Pacific Art League, which holds art classes and runs a gallery in downtown Palo Alto.
Simmons says galleries--traditionally the best means for an artist to sell his or her work--are going out of business across the country, and there aren't enough galleries in Palo Alto to support all the local artists.
As a result, artists are selling work out of their own studios. But in order to do this they need a studio--not a garage or a cramped room in a house.
"More and more artists do not have gallery representation as galleries close up and get more selective," Simmons says. "More and more artists are using their studios as galleries."
While some local galleries have had trouble attracting customers, Cubberley is usually packed for its annual Open Studios tour and art sale, a great opportunity for Palo Altans to see art by local residents (the annual Art and Wine festival only features a handful of local artists, while local galleries often stock national artists). On-site Christmas sales at the center also draw healthy crowds.
Simmons is already planning her own sale.
"I'm having a clearance sale," she says. Although the date hasn't been set, Simmons will sometime this year clear out all those leftover pear pictures and abstract paintings--"the stuff that doesn't move in the galleries," she calls them.
The Cubberley artists recently got together to welcome painters Charla Groves of Palo Alto, Peter Foley of South San Francisco and Sarah Ratchye of Portola Valley, who have just joined the fold after passing the grueling application process. Like many of the Cubberley artists' meetings, this one reaffirmed the sense of community that exists there. Simmons believes one of the most important things Cubberley does is maintain a community of some of the area's best artists. It's something that doesn't enter the debate about Cubberley enough, she says.
"Cubberley creates a creative atmosphere you can't put into dollars and cents, or even words," says Simmons.
Ultimately, the artists and their supporters say, the city's decision about the Cubberley artists comes down to one question: Does the city want to give established, professional artists the right atmosphere to produce work in Palo Alto?
So far, the answer from the city has been "yes." Simmons hopes it will be the same in five years.
"Other than Cubberley, I can't think of anything else that could be done for artists, aside from landlords getting together and having pity on the poor artists," Simmons says. "Is anyone building any big warehouses anywhere?"
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