SARASOTA, Fla. — For many, the ongoing pandemic has pushed them into finding their purpose and many have turned their passion into a business portfolio. Two women in Sarasota have now teamed up to launch a business that is aimed at helping other local artists.
Local artists and art educators, Elizabeth Goodwill and Barbara Gerdeman recently opened Creative Liberties Artist Studios. They said the multi-artists studio they've set up is a gift to the community and provides support to artists who want their talent to be more lucrative.
"This studio is something that just kind of happened so we are very excited about it," said Barbara Gerdeman, co-founder, Creative Liberties Artist Studios.
"I had an idea, and she was like, 'I had a dream,' and we talked and I was like 'Well these are the things I've been hearing from people,' and it clicked together and people were like 'you guys need to do this now,'" said Elizabeth Goodwill, co-founder, Creative Liberties Artist Studios.
The studio is located at 901 Apricot Avenue in the Limelight District near downtown Sarasota.
While there are currently nine local artists with unique leasing arrangements, the studio can house up to 16 resident artists at full capacity.
The studio helps provide a place for artists to work, showcase their art and where members of the public can buy their works.
Gerdeman said with the cost of renting individual studio spaces so high, many artists are forced to work in makeshift spaces at their homes and often have inadequate spaces to display, sell or store their work.
"There is a huge need for studio space for artists in Sarasota actually. Since we started this we've had multiple inquiries about space and we're having a waitlist right now," Gerdeman said.
"Some of the artists that we have been working with and talking to are artists who have been making art for a very long time. They're older artists, they have extensive bodies of work, upwards of hundreds of pieces of art and they have nothing to do with it. It's taking up all kinds of space in their homes, in their closet, on their beds, wherever they can store it and they are like help we need help to sell this art," said Gerdeman.
"What we want to do is to give them an opportunity to have their work seen and have they'll work sell and get it out there and help them get organized and give them a chance because many of these artists are not at a point in their lives where they will go and knock on gallery doors or go to weekend festivals and that sort of thing," she said.
The studio features different types of local artists who use various materials, including watercolor, acrylic or mixed media to express themselves and create masterpieces.
"These are just some pieces I found in the garage, yet another space in my house that I'm trying to get out of. I am just putting them together and doing some mixed media and photography," said Traci Kegerreis of Sarasota. Kegerreis is a mixed media and multi-disciplinary artist and was describing scrap wood pieces left over by her carpenter-husband which she had paired with old magazine cutouts and turned into abstract art.
Kegerreis is one of the nine local artists at the studio and she said artists like herself struggle with finding resources.
She said the studio is helping them with things like social media, web design, sales, connecting with galleries as well as shipping.
"Trying to find a venue, working as a team in marketing, other people have strengths and so many different things so it just helps you as an artist," she said.
"It has been magical and the people that we're connecting with, and the artist that we're working with are so thankful and we feed off of it too and it's very energizing, it really is," said Goodwill.
The grand opening for the Creative Liberties Studios is set for Dec. 4 at 10 am.
Sarasota Creatives Liberties Studio
