Like the groundhog taking a peek outside its burrow to check on whether it’s really spring yet, artists and makers are finally beginning to emerge from the work-from-home exile imposed by the arrival of COVID five years ago. Turning inward and getting contemplative for a while can be a fruitful way of coming up with fresh ideas and approaches in one’s creative life; but there comes a time when one feels a need to bounce them off one’s peers, to seek input and constructive criticism.
Ally Bell has been feeling this expansive urge for some time now, and she says that many of her artist friends have expressed similar yearnings. Even before she resigned from her position as director of operations at Unison Arts last year, she had started looking around for some sort of co-working space that she could use to make her own art or hold a pop-up show. It was important to her that the space be conducive to building a “small, tight-knit” community of like-minded artists who could come together to collaborate, trade ideas and spark mutual inspiration.
At the time, in late 2023, Roost Arts hadn’t yet found a new physical location to replace its gallery that had folded during the first year of the pandemic shutdown. Besides, Roost’s membership consists largely of established artists a generation or more older than Bell, and she says that she’s “trying to attract people who aren’t already on the scene.” Finding her own commercial space that’s small enough to be affordable, but also big enough to feel like more than just an extension of her own home office/studio, seemed like the way to go.
So it was that Bell founded a business that she calls We Did It Boys Studios, LLC, with the intent of leasing a space that could be shared with other young artists with a compatible vision of collective creative ferment. The name derives from “an inside joke among my friends,” a celebratory phrase they use whenever one of them achieves some small success. “I want it to sound a little cheeky,” she says.
More than a year ago, she found the space she was looking for: a suite of small rooms in the middle of the Medusa Antiques building at 215 Main Street in midtown New Paltz, which had been carved out of a larger space that used to house Rock Yoga. “This was the locker room,” she notes, pointing out that the bathroom actually comes with a shower stall. The cozy back room is a combined lounge and storage area, with a rear window, and connects via a longer hallway/gallery with a sunny gathering space and workroom in the front, plus part of a deck shared with a couple of other businesses.
Not counting the “outdoor room,” The Studio by We Did It Boys Studios only constitutes 371 square feet, but the ten-foot ceilings and ample sunshine spilling in from the south window and glass door make it feel airy and welcoming. Bell invested much time and thought into renovating the space to make it art-friendly, installing multidirectional ceiling light fixtures, painting the walls off-white (one is set aside for projection) and furnishing it with movable work tables and various types of seating. The main room can accommodate up to 20 people for a class, meeting, opening reception, screening or performance. Floors are bluestone tiles throughout, easy to clean.
At one end of the gallery hall is a shelving unit loaded with free art supplies for members. “I’m a big fan of recycled and found materials,” Bell says. Her own trajectory as an artist started in high school on Long Island; she came to New Paltz to attend SUNY, earning her BFA in Graphic Design. Drawing, especially in ink, was her original preferred medium, although these days much of her work involves computer graphics. After school, she soon found employment doing remote design work via e-commerce, and relocated back to the Island to work in a graphics agency. But the Hudson Valley kept calling her name, and in 2017 she moved back and went to work for Unison in a variety of capacities.
She stayed at the venerable not-for-profit community arts organization for seven years, under a succession of job titles, moving on when Unison moved out of its longtime home on Mountain Rest Road. The project she has dubbed The Studio was already well in motion by then. She also has a sideline as a deejay. “All that experience has kind of culminated here,” she says, waving around at the new space. “I’ve never really been a nine-to-fiver.”
And now, Ally Bell is looking for a core group of fellow creative non-nine-to-fivers to share use of The Studio, on a monthly paid membership basis. It’s mostly her own work posted up on the walls at present, but, she says, “I want it to be more of a group space, with around 10 to 15 members to drop in… You get wall space, you can host events, you get chances to sell your work or do a workshop.” While her primary goal is to foster “a small art collective to have our own home base,” membership wouldn’t have to be a long-term commitment for all; “people who do pop-ups” could also join for a month or two at a time.
The space isn’t outfitted with the elaborate ventilation systems required for art media that generate toxic fumes or dust, such as ceramics and metal sculpture. Potential members might be “2-D” artists who work in acrylic and watercolor paints, drawing in ink, pastels or charcoal or collage-making, as well as the growing percentage of creatives who do their illustrating on a laptop. Scheduling of use of the space – whether for co-working on an art project, meeting a client, teaching a class, screening a video, hanging a show or whatever – will begin effective April 1. Events and exhibits produced by members will be open to the general public. “The success is really having people come in here, connecting and working,” Bell says.
To apply for membership in The Studio or schedule a visit, go to www.wediditboysstudios.com/the-studio. You can also contact Ally Bell directly at wediditboysstudios@gmail.com.
Join the family! 
