70 Artists Face Displacement In The Mission

Studio 17, Mission District San Francisco, one of our city’s largest art collectives

Studio 17, one of our city’s largest art collectives may disappear this year.  Redlick Building owner failed to renew the lease which expires June 2015.

“We are stuck in limbo and our situation as working artists in this city is dire,” said Robert Donald, visual artist and the master leaseholder for Studio 17 who has made numerous attempts to work with Holman and his realtors to renew the studio’s lease.

“As a longstanding and cornerstone presence in the heart and soul of San Francisco’s Mission District, we are looking to find solutions that preserve our presence as artists and as a community.”

Since purchasing the building in 2013, Rick Holman has evicted In the Works, a community and events collective, and Homeless Children’s Network, a non-profit dedicated to solving homelessness and poverty among youth, has silently left the building. Despite being zoned for a neighborhood-serving business, the space once home to the Homeless Children’s Network is currently being rented to PlanGrid, a software company.

Studio 17 is one of at least three artist studios currently facing eviction in San Francisco. The other artist collectives are Workspace Limited and SOMA Artists Studios, which are home to about 30, and more than 40 artists respectively.  These open studios could be the last opportunity for the San Francisco community to engage with Studio 17 as a collective artist community.

The Artists of Studio 17

“San Francisco has a unique,creative culture that draws people from all over the world and the city’s artists are essential in crafting a robust and vibrant society,” said Joen Madonna, Executive Director, Art Span. “In this boom economy, we are losing artists studios at an unprecedented rate and now more than ever we need conscientious protection of these valuable communities.”