Brickbottom and Joy Street host open studios
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Four-year-old Vienna Reichert of Somerville checked out a painting at the Brickbottom Open Studios last weekend, accompanied by her dad Christopher. – Photo by Elizabeth Sheeran

By Elizabeth Sheeran

You couldn’t move more than a few feet in the Brickbottom Artists Buildings last weekend without coming face-to-face with art in one form or another. More than 100 artists who live and work in Brickbottom and the Joy Street studios welcomed the public into their homes and workspaces on Saturday and Sunday for their 26th annual Open Studios event.

Brickbottom resident Pier Gustafson said the yearly open house is an opportunity for the creative professionals to showcase the fruits of their labors and to share their passion with the public.

“A lot of people come to Open Studios to buy interesting art. Some people open their studios in order to sell interesting art. Other people like me don’t have a product to sell in that way. But I really like being inspired by people who come in here and who have never seen the artwork that I do before. It’s fun to entertain people once a year,” said Gustafson, who was demonstrating his work in ink with antique fountain pens while spinning a vintage Bing Crosby record on a classic Victrola phonograph.

The hundreds of guests who wandered the halls of the converted industrial buildings on Fitchburg and Joy Streets found a new take on artistic expression through every open doorway: Watercolor landscapes or abstract portraits. Sculptures crafted from delicate porcelain or from scavenged industrial parts. Traditional woodworking or state-of-the-art digital imaging. Practical or provocative. Funny or fashionable. Serene or surreal.

Resident artists graciously played host, patiently answering questions about how and why they do what they do. Some offered visitors a hands-on feel for their work. Many even laid out snacks alongside their collections. And the smorgasbord for the senses wasn’t confined to the artists’ lofts. There was poetry reading in the stairwell, live music in the loading dock and kids’ art projects in the laundry room.

Visitors on a quest for that special something to take home with them could choose from a wide range of one-of-a-kind finds, from fashion accessories to fine art, priced from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars.

Davis Square residents Alan Ball and Gail Strickler said they’d visited Brickbottom before but were bringing their seven-year-old daughter Marlena for the first time. “It’s fun to see how these people live. It’s inspiring,” said Ball.

“We were admiring how their art and living space are incorporated,” said Strickler, “displaying all these items in such a beautiful way. It’s just a certain way of living. It’s wonderful.”

The Brickbottom Artists’ Buildings are home to one of the oldest living and working artists’ communities in the nation, having its origins nearly 30 years ago when a group of working artists collaborated to convert two near-abandoned food processing buildings into a community of residential studios. Brickbottom now houses nearly 150 condominium loft spaces for artists and dozens more work out of the nearby Joy Street Studios.

More information is at www.brickbottomartists.com or www.joystreetstudios.com.