Attack Bear Press Studio Fund
With so much of what Attack Bear Press does being free or low cost to be inclusive and accessible to the whole community, the cost of their work often comes back on the collective members. This year two of the founders were told the house they have rented for five years will no longer be available. The cost of relocating is cutting into their operating budget and they are facing the hard choice of possibly having to close their working studio.
This space at the Baustein Building in Holyoke is not just their base of operations, and the home of the Holyoke Ofrenda, but it is also the home to the Attack Bear's "Create Space" residency program. This program provides a emerging artist free studio space for up to 24 months at the Attack Bear Press studio.
The Attack Bears need their community now more than ever. Help ease their burden by making sure their studio rent is paid for the next 12 months. Doing so makes sure that high quality, socially minded art stays a part of the community!
If you have been out and about in Western Mass in the last five years your life has probably been touched by Attack Bear Press. Whether it be their Annual Ofrenda in Holyoke, their poetry vending machines, numerous public art events, type-in, or poets on demand this BIPOC led community arts and engagement/arts activism organization is always on the go. Attack Bear Press was founded by Jason Montgomery, Alexandra Woolner, and Jennifer Wagner in 2016 (known collectively as the Attack Bears) with the mission of creating, activating, engaging spaces with high quality art with a social justice message. In the last five years ABP has become the go to community arts collective across the region.
Like so many other artists, COVID hit ABP hard. With the community closed the ABP team worked hard to keep producing work and helping out. They launched their "Calaveras De Coronavirus" memorial
project that is comprised of 66,000 of paper postcards depicting calaveras skulls, each representing 15 people in the USA who have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Calaveras being shown in the CT River Valley and the Berkshires they launched [de]Range: a multi-site gun violence awareness installation. No matter what came the Attack Bears just kept going.
