Finding a permanent home for a local business catering to artists of all ages ended up taking much longer than watching paint dry.
Karen Schupack, of Delmar, founded the Albany Art Room in 2007 and never expected her unique business to catch the attention of artists, budding and established, as much as it did.
“I didn’t know it would be as sort of popular and community based as it ended up being,” Schupack said. “It became clear to me that people really counted on the place as sort of an extension of their homes almost but with different options.”
The business offers a bevy of art classes in drawing, painting, pottery, printmaking and various crafts, but its open studio feature became the “main identity,” she said. Anyone can walk in and pay $8 per hour and work on their own art or craft, with materials included.
“There aren’t a lot of places like that and I think it is nice to have a place where people who don’t necessarily know each other … can be creative in the same environment,” Schupack said. “So I think that is why it kind of naturally grew into a community center.”
Schupack said she closed her first Madison Avenue location after the cost of renting the space turned out to be more expensive than she could sustain. For the last two years, she kept the business going on a scaled down level at 40 Broadway near the Port of Albany.
Albany Art Room’s new location at 350 New Scotland Ave. in Albany marks the return of open studio and expanded class offerings. Art supplies and local handmade crafts are also sold.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Thursday, Oct. 24, at the Art Room, and a grand opening party was held Saturday, Oct. 26.
The new location costs around a third less to operate than the Art Room’s original location, Schupack said, and this time she owns the building. She said finding the right building was a challenge.
“I had to invest a lot of money into this building,” she said, “but since I owned it I was investing money into my own property, so that made it worthwhile.”
Extensive renovation were made, including tearing down the walls of four rooms on the first floor to create an open space and ripping up the wall to wall carpeting and refinishing the wood flooring underneath. A fair amount of electric and plumbing work was also completed.
Besides finding a building to purchase for the business, Schupack said the most challenging thing was getting out the message of what exactly the Art House is.
“Early on, it was just getting people to understand what it was about,” she said. “It was a challenge to get people to understand the business model.”
The idea for Schupack’s business came from a desire to take art classes herself, but not wanting to drive all the way to Troy. She also wanted to allow her child to have an artistic outlet, but was “hesitant to make really big messes because it is a pain.”
“I was thinking about kids and adults right from the beginning,” she said. “It was kind of a wide variety of people I was hoping to cater to, and also lots of levels of experience.”
Placing her artistic venture in Albany has always been important to her, so even through the difficult search, she kept her focus on the city.
“I believe that Albany needs places like this and I want to provide that,” Schupack said. “It could have been easy enough to find that place in suburbs when I was having trouble finding a building, but I was committed to saying in Albany.”
Visit www.albanyartroom.com for more information on classes and available studio time, or call 966-2781.