Space Effort Getting Aloft : Subsidies Will Provide Rooms for L.A. Artists

Artists don’t talk about space the way normal people do. It’s seldom, “Hey, there’s a space over there, next to the Buick.”

Space is the great obsession of the artist. It is outer and inner, physical and psychic, the void that gives way to inspiration and creation.

And the best space is cheap.

All of which explains why sculptor Leonard Skuro would walk through a barren three-story brick building at 2401 Santa Fe Ave., deep in the grit and clatter of industrial downtown Los Angeles, and say, “This is a beautiful space .”

This property, where terry cloth was once tailored into the “Robes of California,” is unique at the least. Construction will commence next month to transform the three buildings on this 3 1/2-acre site into 44 units of loft housing. While loft conversion projects downtown have become common, this plan represents the city’s first major attempt to provide subsidized housing for artists.

The Santa Fe Art Colony, as the project is known, promises to be a significant outpost for the tenacious art community scattered in the crannies of downtown Los Angeles. For the individual artists--the lucky few who get in--the project promises affordable rent, a stimulating working environment and permanence.

“Artists call me and say they hear we’re going to have some lofts available,” said Skuro, who is a part of a development group led by arts patron Marvin Zeidler and the Community Redevelopment Agency. “When they ask me how much, it’s so nice to say four hundred. They say, ‘Four hundred a month? You’re kidding!’ ”

At a time when 1,000-square-foot lofts are being routinely leased for $800 per month and more, the art colony will provide 13 such lofts for roughly $404 per month, 26 lofts for $605 and five more spacious units for $750. Tenants should be able to move in the spring. Another eight units are to be added within five years.

Coming on the heels of the recent opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art on Bunker Hill and the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the colony is sure to be cited by some as further evidence of Los Angeles’ maturity as a center for the arts. New York has had subsidized artist housing for many years.

Yet the $3-million project comes at a time when the downtown art community is struggling, a potential victim of its own success. Its founders were able to get vacant industrial space--illegally--for a nickel a square foot 15 years ago. In 1980 the city sanctioned loft living with its artist-in-residence ordinance, but the new code forced upgrades that jacked up rents and forced many artists to find more illegal roosts.

Professional developers are now at the forefront of the loft conversion business. As the “serious” artists who aren’t financially successful get displaced, commercial artists move in, and so do the young urban professionals enamored of the idea of loft living.

The Santa Fe Art Colony is reserved expressly for “serious” artists. Already, more than 50 names are on the waiting list, although the only advertisement has been by word of mouth.

A review panel will face an interesting task. First it must determine whether an applicant is truly a serious artist, whatever that is. The artist must also need the physical space to do his work (poets need not apply). Applicants must also qualify under income guidelines established by the CRA, which has the right to review tax statements in its screening process.

Zeidler, the proprietor of the Zeidler & Zeidler chain of men’s stores, says the panel will not judge whether an applicant is a good artist or a bad artist--just whether he or she is an artist or a non-artist.

Drawing these distinctions is a fretful matter.

“I know it’s going to be difficult to determine who is an artist . . . but it’s someone who is making a serious attempt at doing art for a living,” Zeidler says. “If you’re doing clowns, that may not be my bag, but I’m not going to pass judgment on that kind of work.”

“I think the clown issue is a real problem,” said Skuro, who hopes that the painters of clowns and waves crashing on the beach aren’t interested in the garret life.

Skuro cited a friend, a talented person who spends 90% of her time working at commercial art, but another 10% striving for something more meaningful. He shook his head. How do you judge her against one who strives for something meaningful 100% of the time, especially if he never achieves it?

“We’re going to make some enemies,” he said. Skuro is sympathetic. His started as a potter. Now represented by the Ovsey Gallery, he says he has supported himself for three years exclusively through the sales of his work.

“I know what it feels like to be on the other side,” he said. “I feel lucky to be on this side.”

Zeidler and Skuro did not begin with the idea of subsidized housing. They first teamed up on a five-unit loft project a few years ago a few blocks from the Santa Fe, where Skuro has his studio.

When the Santa Fe property became available, their group bought the building--and only then, when they learned how much renovation would cost, realized that it was financially unfeasible.

The redevelopment agency entered with a $1.2-million loan at 6% interest, with the strings attached to assure housing for low-income artists. Zeidler expects some modest profits, 10% of which under the CRA agreement must be donated for art in public places.

“It seemed like a good idea from the beginning,” said Bill Jones, the agency’s rehabilitation director. On another industrial block nearby, the CRA had earlier financed the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits (LACE) gallery, which includes four lofts along with a a performance space and bookstore. Another project of eight units for artists is also being considered.

Hopes for the Future

Beyond that, it does not appear that the agency could fund other artist housing projects for several years. “There’s just no buck,” Jones said. Such “big-ticket items” as a new Convention Center and expansion of the Central Library, he said, have absorbed much of the budget.

As for Zeidler and Skuro, their fondest vision for the Santa Fe Art Colony is of a vibrant collection of artists who draw inspiration from each other and maybe even become a movement. It is possible, they say, that some truly important art and artists will arise from this space.

FO Artist Leonard Skuro, left, and businessman Marvin Zeidler outside factory that will be turned into housing for artists.