Artists find accessible home and workspace at Tannery Arts Center

The Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship was a place where struggling artists lived and worked in makeshift quarters. On Thursday, 36 people died when the building caught fire.

The tragedy is focusing new attention on the difficulty artists face in finding affordable housing options.

In Santa Cruz, the Tannery Arts Center offers artists a different approach to community living. The collection of living and creative spaces is spread along 8 acres of land in a converted leather tannery adjacent to River Street. And it is considered a model for affordable housing for artists.

“Santa Cruz is actually the fifth-largest city in density of artists in the whole country,” said Deanna Zachary with Santa Cruz County Arts Council.

But making a living as an artist isn’t always easy.

“It’s really hard to be able to afford a studio, to have the space, to be able to do your art as a full-time job,” Zachary said.

“Art can be expensive. Cameras cost money. Paint cost money. Every little thing to do with art costs money, let alone the time to do it,” artist Jeremiah Bell said.

Bell’s roommate, Jacob Seedman, moved into the apartment in 2014, but he had to wait a long time to get one of the 100 units.

“If there is a 500-person waiting list to live in an artist community, there is a huge demand in Santa Cruz that is not being fulfilled,” Seedman said.

This waiting list for the Tannery Arts Center is typically long–about two years–but those living here say it’s worth the wait.

“It keeps me wanting to produce my own art, and it keeps me interested in other people’s art. Walking through the hallways here is walking through a modern art museum,” Bell said.

And as housing gets more and more expensive in Santa Cruz, those living at the Tannery Arts Campus say they wish everyone could be that lucky.

“It breaks my heart, a) that it is not available to everyone, b) that people might look at this as something negative, you know, ‘Oh, all these artists, these crazy different types living together, let them just go and get day jobs’,” Bell said.

And their hearts go out to those artists who died in the fire in Oakland.

“No one should be in hiding, and worried about how they live and having the right space that’s warm and safe,” said artist Kat Willis.

The Santa Cruz Arts Council is reaching out to several GoFundMe pages in hopes of helping the victims in Oakland.