Mt. Airy Art Garage’s last Holiday Market before it finds a new home

As they anticipate this weekend’s Holiday Market, Mt. Airy Art Garage (MAAG) founders Linda Slodki and Arleen Olshan are making lemonade from a lemon of a lease. Late last summer, the couple learned they’d have to leave the space in which they’ve built a haven for artists across the area, investing time, energy, and a quarter of a million dollars in capital improvements. If the six-year-old venture survives, it will have to relocate by August 2016.

As their anger dissipated, MAAG president Slodki and Olshan reviewed their options. “We’re looking to stay in the community,” Slodki says. “What we’ve seen is that rents are too high — there has been a lot of expansion in this area — or people have buildings that need to be gutted. We did that here; we’re not doing that again. What we want is a partner vested in the arts, who understands our position as a creative placemaker. That makes the most sense.” Though nothing is official, Slodki hopes to announce MAAG’s new home before the year’s end.

Support grows despite the pending move

Buoyed by the support of Philadelphia’s arts and cultural organizations, the Northwest Philadelphia community, and artists who have benefited, Slodki and Olshan choose to be positive. “We’re noticing how much support we have gotten,” Olshan says, explaining that initially, supporters wanted to picket the building owner, but have now accepted the relocation and are simply backing the organization as it prepares for the future. While Olshan admits that the task is “scary,” she quickly adds, “it’s also stimulating and may be for the best. We have a growing number of members.”

Slodki says though the new space will be smaller than the current facility, having less square footage won’t curtail MAAG programming. “It will still allow us to do everything we’re doing now — there will be gallery space and performing space and studios, and we see community partnerships growing. We’ll get into the community more.”

Holiday Market

This weekend’s sixth annual Holiday Market, which has become a festive fixture in the area, will be special. “We’re celebrating being in this space through August of 2016,” Slodki says, “and saying thank you to our constituencies. The call for artists [to exhibit and sell work] sold out in one week, and we have many new artists participating. It’s a time to see how far we’ve come and look to the future positively.”

The final weekend of Mt. Airy Art Garage’s Holiday Market is coming up on Saturday and Sunday, December 19 and 20 from noon to 6pm at 11 West Mt. Airy Avenue in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. Admission is free.

At right: Batiks by Kathy Robinson are available at the Holiday Market. Image courtesy of MAAG.