Artist and organizer Alexandra Adamo (aka Alex Makes Art) made the site of a former pub not just a studio, but a launch pad for a growing creative practice.
Adamo is scrappy – literally, since she takes fabric and paper donations and makes them into something beautiful. Much of her art is made with the community; she organizes group crafting workshops and guest lectures at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. For many years, she squeezed her art supplies into her home.
But since the spring, she’s been working out of 350 Massachusetts Ave., near Central Square. Because of Adamo’s work as community organizer, owners BioMed Realty property have provided the space at no cost to her for the foreseeable future. Adamo has worked with BioMed since 2019, but its team got a true sense of her growing art practice after seeing her 2023 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, “From Farm to Craft Table.” Adamo pitched the idea of using the space as a community-connected studio, and the rest is history.
The studio has broken Adamo’s artistic practice wide open. She installed a public art piece at Concord Library this summer and made a banner for the Honk! street band festival this fall. Most recently, Adamo accepted an artist-in-residency opportunity with Thayer Academy in Braintree that will begin in January and end with a showcase in February. She plans to use the residency to create a body of work with Thayer students that uses felt and other scraps donated from the surrounding community.
In the meantime, holiday shoppers take note: Adamo’s online store holds craft materials galore. And items from her 2023 “Fibercrackers” series, inspired from her time at the Museum of Fine Arts are framed and on sale for $375 a piece at the Green in Brookline, a house decor shop started by Pratt & Deutsch Interiors.
Adamo is only getting started. Her recent success is a testament to her resourcefulness, sure, but also shows what’s possible when artists are given what they need to thrive.
Alex Makes Art, 350 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridgeport, Cambridge
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