Tacoma Arts Live closes in June. What happens to 100+ creatives that rely on it?
The arts are alive in the many rooms adjoining a long hallway on the second floor of the Tacoma Armory.
Beneath the grand event space that’s come to define the historic building, performing artists are planning their next event. Visual artists are sprawled on the floor, sewing and gluing together their next masterpiece. Young creatives are learning how to build their business.
Come June 30, everything will go quiet.
The local nonprofit Tacoma Arts Live, along with its small business incubator Accelerating Creative Enterprise, is set to close that day, and the armory will eventually go up for sale, as previously reported by The News Tribune.
ACE is just one of many casualties in the eventual closure of Tacoma Arts Live, but for lots of local creatives, it is a lifeline.
“I need an art space. I need a space I can be creative. Because [if not], I can’t make product to sell, and I can’t make any money,” said Shadae Huff, who uses ACE for her business, Dae2Dae Creations.
The program offers free and low-cost rehearsal and work space for local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and women entrepreneurs, taking up much of the second floor of the armory.
Along with offering physical spaces for work and event production, ACE supports emerging artists and small creative businesses through workshops and peer networking.
The program is just a few years old, first launching in March 2023, but it’s grown significantly since.
More than 140 entrepreneurs participate in the program, and just last year, ACE partners used over 5,500 hours in the co-working spaces and produced over 130 independent events, said Tony Gomez, founder of ACE and chief engagement officer of Tacoma Arts Live.
Michelle Matlock, a local performing artist, producer and director in the theater and circus worlds, has been an ACE partner for the past year. She said having that type of affordable, physical space to produce her work is a rarity.
“Office space to be able to have meetings and collaborations that I’m doing, and rehearsal space for shows that I’m directing or performing in is invaluable, especially in Tacoma, because there’s no affordable space for emerging or even established performing artists in this city,” Matlock said.
After growing up in Tacoma, Matlock spent years in New York and traveled the world as a professional performing artist. When she came back to her hometown, she wasn’t sure if she could continue.
“I never imagined that I could actually sustain myself here in Tacoma, and ACE was one of the things that allowed me to,” Matlock said.
Along with helping artists and creatives financially, ACE provides a strong sense of community.
Huff saw it for herself just a couple of months after she joined the program when she lost her son to gun violence.
“The people here have supported me a lot … like, came to my son’s remembrance, helped me get by a really hard time. They didn’t have to,” Huff said.
Another ACE partner, Paris Moneh, said she feels that community support every day she walks through the armory.
“Everybody in here looks out for each other,” Moneh said.
The news of Tacoma Arts Live’s and ACE’s closure is still fresh for many of the entrepreneurs in the program. Many of them found out at the same time as the public when Tacoma Arts Live announced the news just over a week ago.
The arts nonprofit has been in the community for nearly 50 years but cited debt and a decline in ticket sales and grants as reasoning for the closure.
Since the armory is set to be sold, many entrepreneurs don’t know whether they’ll be able to stay in the space, or what the future of their business looks like.
“All the Legos have been dumped on the floor, and people are trying to envision what can be built,” Gomez said.
The impacts of the closure will extend beyond the entrepreneurs themselves, Gomez said.
“The number of creative folks living and working in the South Sound has a ripple effect across the region,” Gomez said. “So many of us live here and rehearse here, and, you know, ideate here and then produce, not only here, but also in Seattle and across the country and internationally.”
Tacoma houses many artists because it has a lower cost of living than nearby artistic hubs like Seattle and other larger cities.
Plus some, like Matlock, simply don’t want to live anywhere else.
“I know that Seattle’s there, and maybe Olympia’s there, or Portland, but I love Tacoma.” Matlock said. “I want to be in Tacoma.”
Angela Silva, co-founder and CEO of consulting company Collaborative Partners Initiative, has been with ACE from the start.
“It’s quite a Tacoma secret,” Silva said. “It’s really helped support and launch and speed up somebody’s dream.”
Collaborative Partners Initiative supports small businesses and nonprofits, and Silva realized the value of a physical workspace when working with clients, so much so that Collaborative Partners Initiative became a tenant in the armory.
That gives Silva more leverage with the armory’s eventual new owners. She said she hopes to negotiate to find a way to support other ACE partners.
“It’s still a space that speaks to people. They identify with this building — it creates a sense of belonging and a sense of motivation when they walk through these doors,” Silva said.
Beyond the armory itself, Silva said, she has hope that the mission of ACE and Tacoma Arts Live can live on in some way, shape or form.
“It’s going to leave a big hole … I’m not sure who is going to fill that void,” Silva said. “But I’m hoping that there will be other people that could see that momentum and carry that on.”
Even if there is no substitute for ACE in the future, Tacomans hopefully won’t lose their creative spark.
“You just make do,” Matlock said. “I’m a creator. I’m going to continue to create.”
