There’s a new arts space in The Port that feels like the Cambridge of the past: The Lucky Jungle.
Like so many people who seem so at home in Cambridge, founder Carly Sanker is from elsewhere: She grew up on the South Shore of Boston and attended the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has spent time in California doing animation and digital art for Marvel and Disney. She lived in a treehouse in Miami’s Little Haiti. With a partner, she’s helped create The Lucky Jungle, a Crayola-colored space next to Lamplighter Brewery selling plants and furniture – though the classical music playing on a recent Saturday morning suggested something else. In fact the Lucky Jungle is a community space that wants to create a maker’s space, home for music and a learning space focused on art.
This could be the reinvention of Out of the Blue and Zeitgeist art galleries, creative free-for-alls that seemed part of Cambridge’s less prosperous past (“I have yet to say ‘no’ to someone who wants to show their work in our space,” Sanker said) along with the even longer-ago Project Inc. photo school on Huron Avenue. Fittingly enough, The Lucky Jungle is near the Cambridge Arts gallery at Inman and Broadway, and the ongoing Central Square cultural whirlwind that includes Starlight Square, not far from the tiny and long-lamented Mobius Art Space at 55 Norfolk St.
There’s an ongoing crowdfunding campaign for The Lucky Jungle that Sanker hopes will raise $30,000, mainly in rent expenses. “We know that we’ll be successful because we’re continuing to give it our all every day and we now feature work from over 20 local artists and craftspersons,” Sanker said online. “We’ve poured a lot of time and energy into this beautiful space that we know will bloom at the right time.”
The Lucky Jungle is at 286 Broadway, The Port.
Update on Aug. 27, 2021: The Lucky Jungle ended July 5 and transitioned to a similar shop called 286broadway focused on plants, art, thrift and jewelry under the leadership of a former Lucky Jungle partner, Santos Carrasquillo.
Feature image credit: The Lucky Jungle via GoFundMe.
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