BARN Raising the Barn
After 10 years, Albany Barn still connecting artists
television show decorate some of the hallways. These scholastic adornments pay homage to the past life of a building almost demolished.
Ten years ago, the Albany Barn broke ground at the derelict St. Joseph’s Academy on Second Street for its new home. Today, the Barn continues to support artists and the Arbor Hill neighborhood through programming and affordable housing with an eye toward extending its mission across the Capital Region.
Background
Albany Barn began as Rock2Rebuild, a grassroots production company co-founded by Jeff Mirel in the wake of the tsunami that hit South Asia in 2004. Rock2Rebuild organized local artists and arts organizations to present a fundraising concert for tsunami victims. Seeing the impact uniting local artists and the community could have, Mirel wanted to continue the energy, and thus emerged the Albany Barn.
“That name was taken from the concept of a barn raising,” Mirel said. “For me, that was what that first Rock2Rebuild concert was … it was always that concept of the creative community coming together, and bringing the greater community together, to do good.”
The feedback from artists was overwhelmingly positive, said KP Holler, the former executive director of the Albany Barn who was with the organization from its inception and the current executive director for the Sanctuary for Independent Media. They wanted to continue this kind of creative, community-driven work, but pursuing a full-time artistic career was challenging when they were taking on other jobs to deal with market rate rent for studio, rehearsal and residential space. Albany Barn needed a roof.
Finding a home
A live/work space for creatives wasn’t a new concept, though it was new to Albany. Mirel found inspiration from AS220 in Providence, R.I., a nonprofit community arts organization providing affordable live/work, studio, exhibit and performance spaces for artists. Armed with a vision, the Barn began to tour spaces.
While the Barn team was scoping out warehouses, the Albany Housing Authority was looking for an adaptive reuse of St. Joseph’s Academy. The former school-turnedcommunity-center sat derelict, and the Housing Authority wanted to transform the building, but in a way that connected with the neighborhood.
“It was this really important community space in the Arbor Hill neighborhood, a place where people remembered going to school, using it as a community center, learning to box,” Holler said. “It had all these really great stories and memories, and people really cared to save it.”
A board member’s connection with both organizations led to a partnership, and, on April 10, 2013, the Albany Barn and Academy Lofts officially broke ground at St. Joseph’s Academy.
“In some ways the building found us,” Mirel said.
In 2014, the space officially opened with 22 live/work one-bedroom and studio apartments; offices; a stage and a flexible audience that could become a gallery or event space; and work-only studio spaces designed with consulting help from Artspace, a nonprofit real estate developer for the arts, and community input.
“Tons of work was done when we opened to ask people what they wanted, but it’s always changing,” said Casey Polomaine on a tour in late March, who took over as executive director following Holler’s exit in January 2022. “You just kind of have to be ready to adapt. We’ve turned rooms that were meant to be closets into private studios.”
All apartments and the 13 studios are filled, Polomaine said, with the waiting list for the apartments — which existed from the start — at 150 applicants. Albany Barn’s goal is to be a stop on an artist’s journey and that the support through affordable housing and studio space, professional development and paid job opportunities propels them to the next phase of their careers, said Polomaine, who started with the Barn as a theater artist in 2014, though there is no limit on how many times an artist can renew their lease.
To renew, tenants must confirm their economic status meets the requirements for low-income housing and meet one-onone with Polomaine to discuss their artistic ventures, progress and goals and community engagement. Proof of income was always a part of the renewal process, Holler said, but proof of being an artist was something the Barn developed after a few years of operation. While the Barn doesn’t judge the quality of an artist’s portfolio or limit their creative exploration to whatever they pitched during their panel interview, the organization wants to make sure artists remain a priority.
“Everyone needs affordable housing,” Holler said. “But not everyone needs affordable housing in an arts incubator model.”
Each apartment includes a full kitchen, bathroom, large windows, loft and an open floor plan that artists transform to meet their needs. For Jordan Taylor Hill, a drummer and dancer, that meant minimal furniture to maximize room for movement and his vast collection of drums. For painter Megan Ruch and her cat Sherman, it meant walls lined with her vibrant, poolside paintings; desks piled with watercolor supplies; her favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quote scrawled on the chalkboard, another remnant of the apartment’s school days; and an open door to hear her neighbors creating.
“I’m inspired every day just from the space, just from waking up and being here,” Ruch said.
Both Hill and Ruch have lived at Academy Lofts since its opening. Potential tenants need to complete a two-prong application. The first step is to confirm household size and income per affordable housing criteria. Once financial need is determined and the applicant has moved into the top 10 on the waitlist, applicants engage in a panel interview to discuss artistic and community engagement goals. Anyone can apply who meets the income requirements — a limit of $27,200 for a one-person household and $31,100 for a two-person household — but artists are given priority.
“We really look at: Do you want to grow as an artist? Do you want to make art your career? Do you have ideas and goals and a drive to make yourself better, and make the creative economy better and make this community better?” Polomaine said.
Artists who do not meet the income requirements but still want workspace at the Barn can apply for one of the 13 studios which also has a wait list, albeit much smaller than the apartments because of greater turnover, Polomaine said. Some studios are swathed in tapestries woven from sweaters, wedding gowns and uniforms. Others are splattered with paint with stacks of canvases encroaching on any available work surface, including the floor. Rental rates for these spaces are about $1.50 per square foot with extra tacked on for premium studios, including those with windows.
The Albany Housing Authority partnership, grants, donors and revenue from rentals and programming helps the non-profit to keep rent low, Polomaine said. This allows artists to focus on their careers. Ruch, for example, has been able to expand into new mediums, bring her whimsical watercolor animal greeting cards to more stores in the region and build out her arts education programming for kids and adults. Hill recently returned from a sabbatical to Conakry, Guinea where he studied traditional African drumming and dance with masters, which he’s bringing into the community programs he runs out of the Barn.
“It’s about building community and connecting with other artists or folks in the area who want to be a part of the culture,” Hill said of his weekly drumming and dance classes.”I think learning about traditional music is a great way the inner city kids — Black and brown kids — to know there are other options for them if they have an interest in music.”
Rebounding and expanding
The Albany Barn is all about its place in the neighborhood, but it’s also growing beyond its initial Arbor Hill footprint. It partnered with Albany Center Gallery and the Albany Parking Authority to develop Capital Walls, which funds public art across the Capital Region. This September, the Albany Barn’s sister space the Electric City Barn on Craig Street in Schenectady will turn five. The makerspace features coworking spaces, a metalshop, a wood-working workshop and various studio spaces, but no apartments, though Polomaine said the idea was considered when the team was planning the makerspace.
While the pandemic stalled the Electric Barn’s momentum and brought changes to the staff —Mirel and Holler stepped down from the board and executive directorship respectively — both Barns have stabilized, and the team, consisting of four full-time and one parttime employees plus volunteers, are working to bridge the two locations and connect artists to the resources that best service their needs, whether it’s the fiber shop at the Electric City Barn or a private studio rental in Albany. “When someone enters our orbit, we’ll make time to figure out what their priorities are,” Polomaine said.
““That name was taken from the concept of a barn raising. … It was always that concept of the creative community coming together, and bringing the greater community together, to do good.”
Jeff Mirel, whose Rock2Rebuild grew into
Albany Barn