Less than five years after moving from the Strip District to Upper Lawrenceville, local arts group Contemporary Craft is expanding into a second building, dubbed the Contemporary Craft Timmons Studios — conveniently located just across the street from its current home.
The group’s existing workshop, gallery and store space — which will now be called the Contemporary Craft Raphael Building — is located at 5645 Butler St., and on Tuesday the purchase of the building at 5688 Butler St. was announced. Formerly occupied by the Hunter Saw and Machine Co., the new space was most recently an event rental.
Executive director Rachel Saul Rearick said that this next chapter will allow Contemporary Craft to enhance its ability to offer workshops and workspace to local makers in materials including metal, paper, wood and others.
“The building was originally used for industry — it was a saw blade manufacturer. They made saw blades for the steel mills, from my understanding. They were very large circular saws, like three feet tall,” Rearick said during a tour of the Timmons Studios.
Architects bought the condemned building in 2012 and completely redesigned and renovated the space.
“I think, from our perspective, there isn’t a space more adequately situated for us. In the spirit of craft, this building is wood, metal, and beautifully constructed in an aesthetic that fits our organization,” Rearick said.
The second floor of the building, with picturesque windows overlooking the neighborhood, will hold a studio for weaving, quilting and embroidery. There is a large space at the rear of the first floor that will serve as the blacksmithing studio, which will be the last part of the new building to be opened later this fall. There is also an outdoor courtyard.
“The way that we envision the courtyard is that we will actually plant native species that are also used for dyeing fabric, so it will have a little bit of a different life,” Rearick said.
Contemporary Craft will keep a seating area in the outdoor space as well, which even in February is already alive with birdsong.
“It’s nice to have green space in the middle of the industrial,” Rearick said.
The first floor has an already-existing woodworking studio.
“We’re really excited about bringing the studio back online, our community has really been asking for that,” Rearick said. There will be space for carving furniture and other aspects of the woodworking process. The other side of the first floor will be a “wet fibers” space with water access, where papermaking and other crafts will take place.
The Timmons Studios is equipped with a lift and kitchens, adding more amenities to its many workspaces.
Rearick said that in addition to creating more space for workshops and artisans to learn and make their crafts, the new acquisition will free up more space in the Raphael Building for their Artist in Residence program.
“We will build out an Artist in Residence space … so that they have a dedicated space to actually work in that has sinks, exhaust and storage. Right now they’re essentially working out of a makeshift space in the back.”
Allison Jones, Contemporary Craft’s director of programs and residencies, is looking forward to transforming old studio space for use by resident artists. “Now they’ll be in a studio where people from the street can see them working … there will be a lot more opportunity to interact with our residents.”
It will also allow a new gallery in the Raphael Building for local and regional artists and collectives.
With the announcement of the purchase, Contemporary Craft launched a $4.5 million capital campaign that was already 70% funded by Thursday, less than two days after it was made public.
With the high demand for an urban crafting space in Pittsburgh, Contemporary Craft found itself at a 9,000-square-foot space deficit for its existing needs and required an additional 2,000 square feet of room for planned future growth. The Timmons Studios building will add about 13,000 square feet to Contemporary Craft, doubling its size.
Jones said that demand for studio space and workshops really is that high. For example, their weaving program — which consisted of two looms when they moved from the Strip District — has blossomed to the point that they no longer have the room to store enough looms to meet their needs. “The workshops are filling up, and we have waitlists. … All we could see is potential and still, all we can see, it’s just more potential,” Jones said.
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“I think that right now, there’s a real desire to work with your hands,” she said.
“Lawrenceville really embraced us and the community really rallied around our programming to the point that already, in two years, we found that we couldn’t meet demand in workshops,” Rearick said.
The team at Contemporary Craft sees it as an enormous stroke of good fortune that an opportunity arose right across the street right when it was needed, and the timeline for bringing Timmons Studios online is very aggressive. Woodworking equipment will be brought out of storage as soon as Feb. 18, according to Rearick. Moving large tools — such as looms and lathes — will be as simple as bringing them across the street … though that’s easier said than done.
“It’s a blessing and a curse. How much do you carry in your arms?” Rearick said.
“We’re imagining that by the end of March, we’ll be running a few woodworking classes and a few fiber classes,” she added. Everything else will be functional by autumn.
The main gallery space in the Raphael Building will remain mostly devoted to national and international artists. The exhibition “Keiko Fukazawa Retrospective: The Space in Between” will open on Friday and run through May 3. There will be a free opening reception on Friday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. and a free guided tour will be held from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday (registration is required).
“We really do believe in community, we really value that the community has embraced us … we’re really grateful that exists in a way that has enabled us to do this,” Rearick said.
“A really special and important part of who we are as an organization, I think, is being that place where people can come and do this cool thing that they haven’t done before with other people. I think that’s just really needed right now,” Jones said.