It was terribly depressing when Humphrey Street Studios in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood was put up for sale in 2019—and seemed to be doomed to displace some three dozen artists.
Sculptor Joe Wheelwright and furniture maker and sign carver Neal Widett bought the old dry-cleaning facility at 11-13 Humphreys St. with partners in 2001 and turned it into studios for artists, whom they attracted with low rents. But when the two artists died their widows and two other owners put the building on the market. If artist-owned buildings were just as vulnerable to artist displacement as any other landlords, what hope did artist spaces around here have?
But the Humphrey Street artist-tenants formed an association, with support from the Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, and ran a preservation campaign that resulted in the City of Boston contributing $1.7 million, and helping connect the artist tenants with New Atlantic Development, which bought the property for $2.8 million in 2022, then divided the site into affordable housing and 44 artist studios.
The artist-space advocacy group Art Stays Here Coalition was born out of that campaign. They have now curated “#Art Stays Here: Faces, Spaces & Places” at the Somerville Museum from June 5 to Aug. 23, 2026. A free closing reception is scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 23, from noon to 2 p.m. This isn’t an exhibition of art or historical artifacts, but rather informational broadsides, plus banners of photos depicting some 60 artists, to showcase the group’s six years of activism. Art Stays Here’s steering committee is Ami Bennitt, Becky Donner, Ethan Dussault, Franklin Marval, Sam Potrykus and Cristina Todesco. They call it a “spacial justice exhibition exploring the value of artist workspaces and the mission to end artist displacement.”
Signs summarize the complicated success at Charlestown Rehearsal Studios, 50 Terminal St.; efforts to relocate artists from 119 Braintree St. in Allston; and work to preserve Joy Street Studios, Washington Street Arts Center and Milk Row Studios in Somerville from displacement. It also notes artists displaced from The Star Store at 715 Purchase St. in New Bedford; “drastically raised rents” that have pushed more than half of artist-tenants to leave 1 Cottage St., Northampton; and lost artist spaces at 55 Amory St., Jamaica Plain; The Piano Factory in Boston’s South End; 128 Brookline Ave., Jamaica Plain; and the EMF Building in Cambridge.
Visitors are invited to write postcards advocating elected officials. “We know what happens when we don’t advocates,” organizers write on one sign. “Let’s see what happens when we do.”
The Somerville Museum stands across the street from 57 Central Street Studios. The exhibit celebrates how Art Stays Here successfully worked with some three dozen artist-tenants there to have the four-story building purchased this year by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston, with support from the city of Somerville, to preserve it as affordable artist workspace.
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