Help transform artist Peter Valentine’s house into an art center
There is an opportunity right now to meaningfully advance the arts in Cambridge, a city that in recent years has experienced a significant decline in artists’ space. We are proposing to transform the property of legendary outsider artist Peter Valentine, at 37 Brookline St., into an art center.
A diverse group of us are proposing that the city, the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority or a beneficent individual buy the property so we can establish the “Peter Valentine Center for Cosmic Creativity & Butterfly Preserve,” or the Valentine Art House. Our vision includes an artist residency program with living and studio space as well as community gathering and workshop areas in the three-story house, surrounded by a native plant garden.
Members of the art center advisory board include Jason Weeks, Cambridge Arts; Nancy Berliner, curator of Chinese art, and Michael Jeffery Bramwell, curator of folk and self-taught art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Michael Monestime, of the Central Square Business Improvement District; Claudia Zarazua, Cambridge’s director of arts and cultural planning; Sarah Gallop, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Adi Bemak and Rob Okun, Peter’s sister and her husband; Jill Shulman and Merhi Sater, developers; Ross Miller, public artist; and Cathie Zusy, longtime curator, project director and community activist. Advisers are Charles Sullivan, of the Cambridge Historical Commission, and Dan Marshall, of the Cambridge Community Center for the Arts.
We have identified a foundation eager to preserve Peter’s “Cosmic Moose & Grizzly Bearsville” fence, admired by curators at the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Visionary Art, as well as visitors from near and far.
Now we need to identify someone to buy the property for the common good.
If you appreciate the need for art spaces in Cambridge, green open space and places for the public to gather and make things, please support our vision by emailing our city manager, City Council and the executive director of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority as soon as possible. (Include me in the email too, please.)
- Yi-an Huang, [email protected]
- City Council, [email protected]
- Tom Evans, executive director of the CRA, [email protected]
- Cathie Zusy, [email protected]
Peter’s family, who are enthusiastic supporters of seeing the home stay a hub for creativity, must identify a buyer for the house by early January, so time is short.
If we can’t “move the energy forward,” as Peter would have put it, this property is likely to become more luxury housing – something no one, including his family, wants to see happen. How sad that would be.
Contact me if you have questions.
Cathie Zusy, for the Valentine Art House Advisory Board
The article suggests that Peter’s family are enthusiastic supporters of maintaining the property for artists, yet they are demanding that the property be sold quickly for a price of $2.2 million! There was ample opportunity to work with Peter to preserve the property, especially around the time of the recent go fund effort to fix his plumbing. Peter often said that his ability to get the property from MIT for $1 (even though the deed suggests $100,000) was a great gift. Peter’s deal with MIT ended the Blanche street /Cambridgeport organizing effort for affordable housing. Peter unfortunately resisted efforts to ensure that the property could be memorialized as artist space or affordable housing. If the Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust wants to invest $2.2 million to purchase the property and then make it habitable for three families, I support their efforts. I would like Peter’s family to embrace that goal as well.
The family that had zero involvement with him when he was alive?
Take your pictures while you can, it’s going to go the way of ManRay.