Jarod Opperman / The BulletinArtists at The Wilds, a shared studio space in Bend, work in their respective spaces recently. Since opening in October, the Century Center has gained 18 members.

A growing number of working Central Oregon artists and other creative professionals are closing the door on their garage studios and pooling their energies and resources into shared spaces.

Bend is home to several such creative arrangements. Willow Lane is among the newest. It opened Dec. 1 at 400 SE Second St. in Bend. The 2,100-square-foot industrial space is the former home of a CrossFit studio, but today’s occupants are making art instead of muscle.

Including herself, Willow Lane has four members, said jewelry-maker McKenzie Mendel. She shares the space with a painter, greeting card-maker and an organic lipstick designer.

Mendel grew up in Bend and attended art school in Savannah, Georgia, graduating in 2009. After moving back to Bend, she worked from home for a couple of years.

“It was easier for me when I started my business to work at home. Because it was just a place to go to work,” she said, “but it felt really isolating after a while.”

Prior to opening Willow Lane, she joined, and eventually took over, Lumin Art Studio, a group studio in Tumalo. It wasn’t the business model, but rather the location, that led Mendel to close Lumin and open Willow Lane.

“Tumalo became a long drive for me, especially on days like this,” she said Monday, during one of the day’s periodic snowstorms. “So I opened a studio closer to home,” she said. “These shared studio spaces are a good way to get into a space (and) have a sense of community.”

They may be particularly welcome to art-school graduates. “(At school) there’s always a sense of community — you’re always working among people, getting ideas and feedback,” she said. “Working out of the home, that’s not there anymore.”

Each member of Willow Lane has a small retail area within his or her workspace. In order to focus, however, public hours are limited to noon to 4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday.

“We really love having our time to work on our art, so our hours are limited,” Mendel said. “People can come in if they’re curious to see what the space is about, but … when we’re not open (it’s) appointment only so then we can really get our work done.”

Working at The Workhouse

Willow Lane is located just down the road from the Old Ironworks Arts District on Scott Street, home to a few studios using similar models — Cinder Cone Clay Center, Armature and The Workhouse.

The Workhouse is a combined group studio and retail space with a focus “on high-quality, locally made, sustainable art that offers diverse options for conscientious buyers,” it states on theworkhousebend.com.

Additionally, shoppers can observe and interact with the shop’s eight members while they work, providing a look into the art-making process.

Along with visitors, the arrangement has also better informed the artists as to one another’s processes, said Cari Brown, who partnered with Stuart Breidenstein, of neighbor tenant Stuart’s of Bend, to open The Workhouse in March 2012.

“Because we also have retail, they each cover retail shifts in the shop as well, and so they help sell each other’s work. They talk about each other’s work with other people, give referrals,” Brown said. “I feel like that has helped everyone get better at talking about their own work, too.”

Collaboration among the resident artists can take different forms, she said.

Case in point: Earlier that day, when Workhouse member artist Karen Eland, who uses coffee and beer as her medium, needed aid, fellow Workhouse member Abney Wallace, a printmaker and sculptor, was able to help.

“He just helped me ship a painting just now,” Eland said. “He was like, ‘You can use my cardboard … I don’t need this one,’ and I created a box.”

Artists can also partner in more traditional ways, too, such as working together on a piece or, in the case of Wallace and fellow Workhouse member Christian Brown, teaming to co-host a figure-drawing salon Tuesday nights.

SageBrushers Art Society

Though group studios are gaining popularity, they aren’t an altogether new concept locally. SageBrushers Art Society was founded in 1952 by five women who wanted to promote the arts in Bend, according to member Jennifer Ware-Kempcke, a multimedia artist.

“They gained more members through the years until they realized that they needed a space to gather together with artists to create, explore and hold classes,” Ware-Kempcke said via email.

In 1959, the growing group began renting SageBrushers’ current home at 117 SW Roosevelt Ave. from Deschutes County.

“The following year, they were able to purchase the building through a special agreement with the county for $1 to create an art space that would benefit all those living within Deschutes County and the surrounding areas,” she said.

The small house wasn’t large enough to accommodate the growing group, so members began raising funds to add on the studio space, which started in 1962 and finished in 1968. Today, SageBrushers boasts 113 members, holds classes for artists of all levels, provides space for them to work, as well as to meet and critique one another’s work.

“The members gallery-sit, garden, maintain the building and provide all the cleaning and repairs,” she said. “Each artist contributes an annual membership fee and a suggested 15 hours per year in labor.”

All in the family

There are also local families of artists who collaborate in the studio, including the folks behind Blue Spruce Pottery. Michael and Michele Gwinup established Blue Spruce in 1976, and ran a gallery in south Bend from 1982 to 2007. Today the Gwinups make functional and decorative raku and stoneware pottery from their home studio joined by their daughter, Melissa, and her husband, Patrick Woodman.

“We all work on the pots,” Michael Gwinup said. “Each person has their specialties, but we all do everything.”

Sibling artists Lori and Lisa Lubbesmeyer take a unique approach in their work together in a second-floor studio in the same Old Mill District building that houses Tumalo Art Company, an artist-run gallery.

The identical twins both studied art at the University of Oregon, where Lori pursued oil painting and Lisa printmaking. Even after they both moved to Minneapolis in the early 1990s, they worked individually — until meeting for coffee on their 30th birthday, when they made the decision to work together.

Instead of one coming to the other’s discipline, they went into a new medium, fiber landscapes. They take turns working at a piece, creating a visual dialogue, as they put it.

“What we’re doing is building over each other, layer over layer,” Lori said.

“Out of respect to our differences, and trying to support that,” added Lisa, “we don’t ever plan or discuss throughout the process what it is we’re going to create. The subject, the composition — it all comes purely out of reaction.”

‘Keeping the flow going’

The three artists who came together to launch The Wilds — Kelly Thiel, Karen Ruane and Wallis Levin — say it was important to them to procure a large space and open it up to the community.

“There are a lot of people who are entrepreneurial or freelancers who work for themselves, and their choices are home office or coffee shop,” said Ruane, a painter and paper marbler who serves as operations manager at The Wilds. “This is sort of filling that need of an appropriate work space for people who don’t want the distractions of a coffee shop or the distraction of home.”

Since opening Oct. 12 in the Century Center on Bend’s west side, The Wilds has acquired 18 members. At any given time, there’s usually about eight people working in the studio.

There’s also the option of being a flex member. Flex members pay a little less, just $150 a month compared to the $400 and up paid for by those who want their own fixed studio space. While they don’t have a designated work space all their own, flex members get 24/7 access to The Wilds’ communal areas and, starting in January, a locker in which to store their belongings.

On Jan. 6, The Wilds will start holding “Work With Us Wednesday.” Members of the public will be able to come in for free (RSVP required) and check out the space.

“We’ll hold classes eventually. We just want people feeling really comfortable coming in,” said Thiel, a ceramic sculptor and mixed-media painter.

The benefit to working in a shared space is “creative synergy,” she said. “It’s not being stuck in your garage. It’s being around other creatives who are pumping each other up and keeping the flow going.”

The drawbacks

There can be drawbacks to communal spaces. Members can’t make quite the mess they might in their spacious garage. Noise and interruptions can also stifle creativity.

At The Wilds, the members have come up with a signal for “Do not disturb”: Headphones. If someone has them on, it means they’re trying to focus.

For the most part, local artists working out of shared studios say they don’t mind interruptions, especially from prospective buyers.

“It’s a great break in the sense that it’s good for us to look up now and again, and gain some perspective,” Lisa Lubbesmeyer said. “But also, people are just so interesting. We love talking with them and just getting that dimension of texture of life that we might otherwise not.”

“Everybody has a story. I guess we’re just generally interested in people,” added Lori Lubbesmeyer.

“And no offense, Lisa, but working with Lisa in the four walls, when we are creating, we’re so focused in whatever dialogue we’re having about … what’s happening, personal or otherwise. It’s fantastic, but we can be too insular for ourselves.”

Even two people working together in a room can become myopic, they said.

“I guess when you’re this familiar, it’s like talking to ourselves,” Lori said. “But it looks a little less kooky.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com