We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful The Haven. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with The below.
The, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
The Haven is inherently the byproduct of a group of artists taking a risk to follow their paths when society might have suggested otherwise. We were founded by a group of live painters who mostly made their living traveling and making art at music festivals. When the lockdown started our summer, and because of that our art careers were put on hold. We all were pretty productive in our own studios, but at that point too much of our fulfillment came from painting with each other and fostering creative community. Ten of us took over an old kettle bell gym in Portland, Oregon to start our co-creative experiment. When the rest of the country started to open up we started throwing underground art parties, and the momentum outgrew our location very quickly. Or next risk came in jumping into a collaboration with JaJaPDX to move into a 20,000sqft warehouse to expand the vision. We brought in the healers, psychedelic therapists, tea artists, and a whole slew of new painters. The risk was well worth it, and the momentum is still ramping up because of that leap of faith.
The, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We operate from two perspectives. One is through the lens of the artists who call The Haven home. The second is for the community that gets to experience it.
The artists get to work in a supportive and collaborative environment where community and healing is held at a higher reverence than art. Part of that is because when the healing and community is fostered, more potent art is made as a byproduct. Artists here get to have access to the healing and community support systems in the comfort of their own studios while being infinitely inspired and pushed by their vibrantly talented peers.
For the community at large:
We are all individually inspired by the novelty and healing that happens at music festivals, but we’re also very aware of the privilege that it is to be exposed to those worlds. It not only is expensive to get a ticket, but also expensive to have the camping gear, food, supplies, and the ability to take off work and travel to the festivals. For that reason we want to recreate that experience in the urban environment to make the novelty accessible to anyone and everyone. We’ve created an organic cross marketing ecosystem where people can come in for a show and get exposed to our healers, or come in for a massage and learn about an artist that will change their life in some way.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is called upon anytime you try to get so many artists together in one building and bring in the community. On top of that, we are in an extremely politically and socially divisive time. And artists are extremely passionate and opinionated by nature. This has been one of our more difficult obstacles, but through our resilience we’ve developed really heart centered structures like our conflict resolution and mediation program.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Society can first and foremost drop any preconceived judgments of the lifestyle of the artist. This will open them up to support the artists in the way that best fulfills them. But of course, please buy more art. Artists can do wonders for society if they can alleviate a bit of their financial stresses.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thehavenpdx.com
- Instagram: @thehavenpdx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehavenpdx
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thehavenpdx