Krista Peel and Zak Starer live what they call "the perfect life." Until eight months ago, that meant handing over their West Philadelphia apartment to complete strangers every two weeks while they stayed with friends. These days, the young married couple still share their space with others - only now, they don't have to leave home to do so. As founders and codirectors of the Philadelphia Art Hotel, Peel and Starer run a rent-free artist studio and residency out of their spacious East Kensington rowhouse. In return for two to six weeks of housing and studio space, the artists need only donate some of their work to the house, making an already vivid interior color scheme abundantly rich. (The bright yellow window frames of the Art Hotel already stand out on the city block.) But during the six months of the year when they host their carefully chosen pool of 12 to 16 national and international artists, Peel and Starer also reap other, intangible benefits. "When I think about my perfect day, it includes making art a part of my lifestyle," said Peel, 36. "Zak and I are both artists, so we wanted to be connected to other artists and talk about artwork on a regular basis. But we didn't want to run a gallery - we wanted a more private space." Hoping to model the program after residencies in which they had both participated, Peel and Starer started looking for property in 2007 near where they were living in San Francisco, but couldn't afford the square footage they wanted. They moved to Philadelphia two years ago and found what they call "a thriving undercurrent of people in the local art scene." In that West Philadelphia apartment, the couple still didn't have the space they needed to comfortably host other artists. But they did it anyway. "We're definitely of the mind-set of just finding some way to start rather than wait for the situation to be perfect," said Starer, 28, originally from Philadelphia. "There's never going to be enough money, time, space, or any of those luxuries, so we decided to just dive right in and get started." After a year of providing residencies in West Philadelphia (and having to camp out elsewhere every time they did), Starer and Peel were able to buy their house, aided by the first-time homebuyers tax credit, for about $151,500, according to Philadelphia tax records. Today, the house is divided into separate living areas - the upstairs holds a kitchen and three living and studio spaces, each named after the color of the brightly painted walls. Peel and Starer live in a modest first-floor area. The couple use their own funds to sustain the Art Hotel (they clean in between visits and provide sheets and towels), while artists pay for transportation and food. Peel teaches jewelry-making classes part time at a senior-care facility in West Philadelphia and sells artwork on the handmade-sales website Etsy, while Starer works at Moore College of Art & Design as a photo, video, and printmaking tech. They don't receive any grants or other funding, which necessitates "being resourceful, reusing materials, and keeping things simple," Starer says. Both are fairly handy, and the utility bills during the warm months - when artists stay - are not significant. For visiting artists, the opportunity to change scenery for next to nothing is enticing. That was one of the things that attracted Caleb Lyons, 28, who works in painting, sculpture, video, and performance art, and found out about the Art Hotel from a friend who attended Temple University's Tyler School of Art. "It's hard for me to picture paying to go to another studio - that could be gratifying if you're making enough money to afford that, but that hasn't been the situation I've been in so far," said Lyons, of Des Plaines, Ill., who lived at the Hotel until July 17. "But it's important to get out of your studio and see things differently. "There's a saying that 'the true artist is never on vacation,' although," he says, grinning, "it can easily be flipped to say that 'the true artist is always on vacation.' " Peel and Starer also encourage artists to interact with the Kensington community through lectures and collaborations. Lyons and Kathryn Scanlan, a writer and video artist, along with the Art Hotel's other July artist, Elana Mann, presented a collaborative video screening in mid-July in a vacant lot. But while Scanlan prepared, she was approached by neighbors who were curious about what she was doing. "This has been a really interesting neighborhood to stay in," Scanlan said. (Next up is an artist talk with the newest artist-in-residence, Danielle Rante from Dayton, Ohio, at 7 p.m. Aug. 5 at Coral Street Arts House, a nearby exhibition and event space.) All are committed to a full-time artist's lifestyle. Mann, 29, of Los Angeles, a video and performance artist, teaches part time and has received several grants to fund her collaborative art-making. Scanlan, 30, and Lyons used to run a gallery out of the basement of their Chicago apartment. "We're pretty poor and we just kind of scrape by, but we do what we need to," Scanlan said. She and Lyons currently run an informal conceptual-art residency program from their house in Des Plaines, and say they dream of someday starting a commercial gallery and running it "as artists, not as typical gallery owners or dealers." Other programs in Philadelphia offer some combination of residency and studio space for free, but few are as flexible as the Art Hotel. The 40th Street Artist-in-Residence program in University City offers five artists free studio space for one year, but does not provide living quarters (and artists must live west of the Schuylkill). Others, like Kensington-based gallery collaborative FLUXspace, provide limited artist-in-residency options on an as-needed basis, but don't yet have a formal program set up. The Art Hotel provides the widest range of options for artists who want to combine living and studio space. "We're kind of the middleman," said Starer. "We don't do this for money and will probably be doing something like it ad-hoc for the rest of our lives, so I guess you could say it's a romanticized notion of providing a place for pure art-making." An Art Hotel residency can also result in new connections and a new outlook on art as a lifestyle. "In art school, you learn about the gallery track, but that's very different than living an artist's lifestyle," Peel said. "I just hope through this residency program I can help make it known that there are other options for doing art." Starer says their 10-year plan is constantly evolving as they carve out their own niche in the local art scene. "You can't ask much more than that from an art practice."
Artists in residence
Krista Peel and Zak Starer live what they call "the perfect life." Until eight months ago, that meant handing over their West Philadelphia apartment to complete strangers every two weeks while they stayed with friends. These days, the young married couple still share their space with others - only now, they don't have to leave home to do so. As founders and codirectors of the Philadelphia Art Hotel, Peel and Starer run a rent-free artist studio and residency out of their spacious East Kensington rowhouse. In return for two to six weeks of housing and studio space, the artists need only donate some of their work to the house, making an already vivid interior color scheme abundantly rich. (The bright yellow window frames of the Art Hotel already stand out on the city block.) But during the six months of the year when they host their carefully chosen pool of 12 to 16 national and international artists, Peel and Starer also reap other, intangible benefits. "When I think about my perfect day, it includes making art a part of my lifestyle," said Peel, 36. "Zak and I are both artists, so we wanted to be connected to other artists and talk about artwork on a regular basis. But we didn't want to run a gallery - we wanted a more private space." Hoping to model the program after residencies in which they had both participated, Peel and Starer started looking for property in 2007 near where they were living in San Francisco, but couldn't afford the square footage they wanted. They moved to Philadelphia two years ago and found what they call "a thriving undercurrent of people in the local art scene." In that West Philadelphia apartment, the couple still didn't have the space they needed to comfortably host other artists. But they did it anyway. "We're definitely of the mind-set of just finding some way to start rather than wait for the situation to be perfect," said Starer, 28, originally from Philadelphia. "There's never going to be enough money, time, space, or any of those luxuries, so we decided to just dive right in and get started." After a year of providing residencies in West Philadelphia (and having to camp out elsewhere every time they did), Starer and Peel were able to buy their house, aided by the first-time homebuyers tax credit, for about $151,500, according to Philadelphia tax records. Today, the house is divided into separate living areas - the upstairs holds a kitchen and three living and studio spaces, each named after the color of the brightly painted walls. Peel and Starer live in a modest first-floor area. The couple use their own funds to sustain the Art Hotel (they clean in between visits and provide sheets and towels), while artists pay for transportation and food. Peel teaches jewelry-making classes part time at a senior-care facility in West Philadelphia and sells artwork on the handmade-sales website Etsy, while Starer works at Moore College of Art & Design as a photo, video, and printmaking tech. They don't receive any grants or other funding, which necessitates "being resourceful, reusing materials, and keeping things simple," Starer says. Both are fairly handy, and the utility bills during the warm months - when artists stay - are not significant. For visiting artists, the opportunity to change scenery for next to nothing is enticing. That was one of the things that attracted Caleb Lyons, 28, who works in painting, sculpture, video, and performance art, and found out about the Art Hotel from a friend who attended Temple University's Tyler School of Art. "It's hard for me to picture paying to go to another studio - that could be gratifying if you're making enough money to afford that, but that hasn't been the situation I've been in so far," said Lyons, of Des Plaines, Ill., who lived at the Hotel until July 17. "But it's important to get out of your studio and see things differently. "There's a saying that 'the true artist is never on vacation,' although," he says, grinning, "it can easily be flipped to say that 'the true artist is always on vacation.' " Peel and Starer also encourage artists to interact with the Kensington community through lectures and collaborations. Lyons and Kathryn Scanlan, a writer and video artist, along with the Art Hotel's other July artist, Elana Mann, presented a collaborative video screening in mid-July in a vacant lot. But while Scanlan prepared, she was approached by neighbors who were curious about what she was doing. "This has been a really interesting neighborhood to stay in," Scanlan said. (Next up is an artist talk with the newest artist-in-residence, Danielle Rante from Dayton, Ohio, at 7 p.m. Aug. 5 at Coral Street Arts House, a nearby exhibition and event space.) All are committed to a full-time artist's lifestyle. Mann, 29, of Los Angeles, a video and performance artist, teaches part time and has received several grants to fund her collaborative art-making. Scanlan, 30, and Lyons used to run a gallery out of the basement of their Chicago apartment. "We're pretty poor and we just kind of scrape by, but we do what we need to," Scanlan said. She and Lyons currently run an informal conceptual-art residency program from their house in Des Plaines, and say they dream of someday starting a commercial gallery and running it "as artists, not as typical gallery owners or dealers." Other programs in Philadelphia offer some combination of residency and studio space for free, but few are as flexible as the Art Hotel. The 40th Street Artist-in-Residence program in University City offers five artists free studio space for one year, but does not provide living quarters (and artists must live west of the Schuylkill). Others, like Kensington-based gallery collaborative FLUXspace, provide limited artist-in-residency options on an as-needed basis, but don't yet have a formal program set up. The Art Hotel provides the widest range of options for artists who want to combine living and studio space. "We're kind of the middleman," said Starer. "We don't do this for money and will probably be doing something like it ad-hoc for the rest of our lives, so I guess you could say it's a romanticized notion of providing a place for pure art-making." An Art Hotel residency can also result in new connections and a new outlook on art as a lifestyle. "In art school, you learn about the gallery track, but that's very different than living an artist's lifestyle," Peel said. "I just hope through this residency program I can help make it known that there are other options for doing art." Starer says their 10-year plan is constantly evolving as they carve out their own niche in the local art scene. "You can't ask much more than that from an art practice."
