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Founders Jason Aviles and John Naughton help artists to divide and define work and living spaces.
Two local entrepreneurs create living, working and art space for area upstarts on Tatnall Street By Krista Connor
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Photos by Sam Eli
estled among other buildings at 800 Tatnall St. is Artist Ave Station, its newly-painted white bricks and black-framed windows and doors a symbol of inspiration and imagination. Created this past November by 28-year-old John Naughton and 31-year-old Jason Aviles, Artist Ave is an arts-based catalyst for creatives and entrepreneurs to balance living, working and art, all within the same space. The two friends and local business owners spent a month gutting and remodeling the building—their shared artistic skill is interior design—and held a soft opening Dec. 31. Although it’s reminiscent of local makerspace models CoIN Loft and 1313 Innovation, which encourage co-working and creativity, Artist Ave has its own personality. Just about anything goes here, according to Naughton and Aviles. “One of the struggles of the artist is how to divide space,” says Aviles, also founder of Wilmington’s FLYOGI studio. “We’ve visited artists who have hundreds of canvases tossed about their
living rooms, and right next to that is a jumbled kitchen. We’ve seen that artists could become much more organized when they have accessibility to live and create and work in one place, if the space is divided and you can define areas.” Aviles and Naughton hope to create a sense of order and productivity by meeting artists’ living needs. To that end, they’ve created two luxury lofts above a ground-level showcasing and community co-working space, with a small “raw zone” workshop and artist lockers in the basement, which also features art, says Aviles. The rules here are loosely-defined, he says, so artists are apt to paint on the walls, the stairway, the floors, the ceiling, to display art wherever inspiration strikes. Smashed Label, an artist featured last month, utilized the stairway wall heading into the basement with graffiti-style lettering. “That freedom in a space really draws people in because that’s the number one thing for an artist that conflicts with their ideas and creativity—the boundaries,” says Aviles. “So here, we have an openness about that.” ► MARCH 2016 | OUTANDABOUTNOW.COM
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