One Night Art School, coming Thursday to Union Square, was announced in June as a free, hands-on arts event – a “campus” – where guests could try everything from figure drawing and printmaking to dance, comedy, painting and clay in a single evening.
All 400 tickets sold out immediately, said Stephanie Scherpf, co-director and chief executive of Arts at the Armory. A press release went out June 30; the tickets were gone by July 6.
“With almost no marketing,” Scherpf said.
It was a surprise answer to the question formed over the past year by a coalition of local arts organizations and creative businesses called Somerville Arts Engine: What if the arts were treated as economic infrastructure, rather than as an amenity?
The event is the first large-scale public work by the Arts Engine and a showcase use for 10 Prospect St., an empty building put up by the Union Square master developer USQ as part of a 20-acre, 3.8 million-square-foot neighborhood of lab and office space, a hotel, 1,000 homes, retail and green spaces.
The lab market has collapsed since development began. Greg Karczewski, president of USQ, estimates there’s 14 million to 15 million square feet waiting for businesses to lease, and 10 Prospect, open since 2024, represents 60,000 of it (as part of a 196,000-square-foot building with 450 homes and an 18,000-square-foot public gathering space).
“We’re working on getting it leased up. It’s a very challenging market,” Karczewski said in March, but that leaves 10 Prospect St. available for something people do want immediately: a One Night Art School. (It’s hosted other community events, such as a June 2024 small-business workshop called “Keeping Small Strong.”)
In the 6 to 10 p.m. Thursday event, held with support from the Somerville Arts Council, guests are encouraged to wander, experiment and discover the arts through workshops, demonstrations, performances and interactive experiences led by Somerville’s arts organizations and creative businesses – “ a semester’s worth of creativity” that includes a chance to draw from a live model (an offering of the Boston Figure Art Center), learn how to do the hip-hop dance move known as popping (from the Deborah Mason Performing Arts Center), participate in a podcast (EventThem’s Live Podcast Experience), throw clay (Mudflat Studio) and try mock stage combat – including sword fights and slaps (from Theatre@First), among other things.
“The arts have always helped define what makes a community worth being part of,” said Damon Lehrer, founder of the Boston Figure Arts Center and an advisory committee member of the Somerville Arts Engine. “USQ recognized that supporting the arts isn’t just about hosting an event – it’s about investing in the people, organizations and creative energy that give a neighborhood its identity.”
Karczewski acknowledged this implicitly in an event press release: “USQ was envisioned as more than a collection of buildings, it was designed to be a place where people come together,” he said. “The arts play an important role in creating vibrant, connected communities.”
There’s more to explore here, Scherpf said, calling the One Night Art School not just an event, but “proof of concept of what can happen when a developer invites the arts into an untenanted building and lets the creative community lead.”
“If this kind of collaboration works, why isn’t it happening more often?” Scherpf asked.
Developers and municipalities often talk about activating vacant buildings, creating vibrant neighborhoods and building community, and “the arts do exactly that. Yet arts organizations are typically approached as nonprofits seeking support instead of strategic partners capable of boosting the economy, driving innovation and creating the sense of place that makes neighborhoods successful,” Scherpf said.
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