Business of the Arts: Full Moon

New Moon Studio Space LLC opened its doors in September 2023 with a simple proposition in mind: to provide rentable spaces for artists to create.

Its owners, the wife-and-husband team of Kate Baird and Mike Stevens, had street cred in the local creative community, with Baird having served as museum educator for the Springfield Art Museum and Stevens as executive director of the nonprofit Moxie Cinema, a downtown art house theater. Baird is also a practicing artist who understands the need for space to ruminate and create.

The studios are located at the former Oak Grove Elementary School, built in the mid-1930s with low-key art deco details, like curvilinear interior walls. After its service as a school, the building, at 2574 E. Bennett St., became the home of the Junior League of Springfield. With the help of their families, Baird and Stevens purchased the building for $400,000 and got to work on renovations.

The two-story building is 10,000 square feet with 12 finished spaces occupied by 17 paying tenants plus Baird. It’s currently at full occupancy.

Each atelier is a little bit different from the others in size and layout. Some larger units retain the dimensions of the original classrooms, and some have tenants sharing space divided by partitions.

Baird declined to share revenue figures, but she did say that rents, ranging from $150 for a closet to $800 for a full-size classroom, cover the business’ expenses. Rates are holding steady for artists who are entering their second year, she said.

The lion’s share of operating expenses is in building maintenance and improvements, according to Stevens, who said they eventually plan to build up reserve funds to take care of the old building long term.

“Basically, for the time being, we put the revenue that the building generates back into the building,” Stevens said.

Baird and Stevens both have other jobs. Baird is an educator with the Springfield Public Schools Parents as Teachers program, and Stevens is project coordinator for the Drew Lewis Foundation’s Blue House Project.

As for what kind of artists are in the building, in some ways, they’re every landlord’s dream tenants: quiet ones who don’t stink.

“We turn away dancers and musicians,” Baird said, adding that artists whose work includes dust or fumes would also not be accommodated.

Baird said a quiet space is conducive to most artists. Artists work in paints, printmaking, mixed-media, digital arts, photography, fiber arts, mask-making and sculpture. There are also two writers who share a space, one working in the morning and the other at night.

As important as the absence of noise and fumes is the focus on fine art, Baird said.

“There have come a few points where we’ve had openings, and there were potential renters for the space who wanted to use them in ways that they would say are creative-adjacent,” she said. She gave the example of a prospective tenant who bought items at auctions and estate sales and fixed them up to sell online. “That’s not really what our purpose is – and if we were doing that, then we would charge more.”

There are no events in the space, which Baird said is not public facing.

“Nor are we really looking for it to be,” she said. “It’s not a community arts center; we don’t really do any programming.”

Additionally, New Moon has coded locks on all of its doors, plus an ethos that says the work comes first, even if artists choose to interact in their down time.

Jenny Green, who makes serigraphs – or screen prints — in the old school’s basement, is one of the original tenants of New Moon. Green, who is retired from teaching, saw her studio as an opportunity to set up a press and focus on her art.

Green said she wants her printmaking to be her business and not just a sideline.

“I mean, I do it because I love it, but it’s an investment,” she said, noting she spent about $10,000 on her art last year.

But now that she has professionalized as an artist, Green says she’s making progress, with a show of her colorful pickle prints mounted right now at Big Momma’s Coffee and Espresso Bar on Commercial Street and some small-scale private classes beginning soon in her New Moon space. She is also in discussion to participate in the Springfield Regional Arts Council’s corporate program, for which artists are paid to loan their work to businesses.

Photographer Elise Randolph also rents studio space at New Moon. Randolph does digital photography, and from time to time she has commercial customers come in for sessions using either the natural light from the huge windows that line a wall or from her studio lighting. She said she does private sessions at a relaxed pace with her subjects, documenting intimate parts of people’s lives.

“It just gives people private space to be and to sink in,” she said.

Sculptor Jon Stevens – also the contractor behind the building’s renovation – occupies one of the large studios, where he likes to use found objects in his work.

“It kind of permeates all my life, you know?” he said.

He said it has been great working with Baird and Stevens.

“As somebody who likes to make stuff, I think it’s phenomenal,” he said. “It was so nice to meet the people and talk about art and that community part of it. I’m really excited to ease into the other side of things, too, and have a space here.”