Over the past couple months Easyside team members have taken some much needed personal time – including two separate trips to NYC – and one of our studio artists welcomed a beautiful new baby! So it’s pretty remarkable that during that same period we’ve dealt with a small studio flood, held over a dozen committee meetings, and launched a brand new art+food program. In case you missed it, Takeover/Takeout is a monthly(ish) art event featuring a local artist or community organization, after which participants can “take out” a bag of free food, prepared for us by our partner organization, 4DWN, out in Dallas.
Our first event took the form of an interview between Corrie Thompson and Francisco Araujo Alvaredo in their studios at Easyside. They discussed what motivates their work, how they use materials, their proclivity towards nasty collections, the ever-elusive work-life balance, and what artists they think about (for Francisco, artists from Arte Povera and Fluxus, for Corrie, largely anonymous American quilters and embroiderers). We’ve prepared a video focusing on Francisco’s side of the conversation in case you missed it, so check it out! Stay tuned for a video on Corrie’s contribution.
We also hosted a Takeover/Takeout giveaway at Arts Fort Worth’s November opening, one at the FunkyTown Mindful Market this past Saturday (this event was canceled, but we still distributed food to students and artists in the community!) and we’re looking forward to another Arts Fort Worth opening in December. Leftover food from these events has been donated to FunkyTownFridge, the mutual aid fridges on the North, South, and West sides of Fort Worth. If you’d like to be involved in picking up, organizing, or passing out food at future Takeover/Takeouts, sign up here and we’ll get in touch!
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is right around the corner (right after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Biz Saturday, Cyber Monday…) Please consider donating to Easyside this holiday season so that we can keep providing resources to the artists, students, and neighbors in our local community. Our studios are in full swing, but the rest of our space needs some love! Raising money on Giving Tuesday would help us to make necessary repairs to our shop roof, renovate our micro gallery walls, and install plumbing in our break room kitchen. These improvements are all super important for Easyside to become a flourishing and fully equipped resource for our studio artists, our neighbors, and our artist community here in Fort Worth.