Space for Artists: It’s Not an Abstract Idea

Anita Neal is pretty happy these days. The painter and sculptor has found what she says most artists would kill or die for: a huge, rent-free studio.

Like most artists starting out in Orange County, finding affordable studio space was difficult for Neal, who searched for months but kept coming up empty-handed. Sometime in November, in desperation, she turned to a local businessman named Frank Mola, who allowed her to use some empty office space he owned in Huntington Beach in exchange for free art lessons.

The deal worked so well for both parties that Mike Mudd, the city’s arts and cultural affairs manager, heard about it and named Neal to lead an ad hoc committee intended to persuade other businessmen to provide up-and-coming artists with inexpensive studio space.

Neal, now organizing the ad hoc committee, said private businesses can get numerous benefits from providing free or subsidized space: free artwork and income tax write-offs as well as lessons. Neal is researching the possibility of soliciting space from school districts with empty classrooms. In exchange for the space, she said, an artist may be willing to offer free art classes.

Mudd, who was appointed to his position in July of 1986, said that finding affordable studio space for artists is one of his top priorities.

“There are a lot of artists out there working out of their homes or garages,” Mudd said. “And that is just inadequate.”

Neal is a high-spirited 58-year-old who was born in Glendale (Mudd says he named her to the committee as much for her energy as for her experience). She said that moving into her 2,500-square-foot studio on the 15th floor of the Charter Savings Building at Warner Avenue and Beach Boulevard was “like being given the Hope diamond. It was like Christmas every day.”

At one point, she remembers, she was so desperate for space that she even tried to rent a Quonset hut at nearby Meadowlark Airport. “Unless you’re an established artist making horrendous amounts of money, it is very hard to find a place,” she said. “You keep going down all these blind alleys.”