Blockfort

Tim Fulton 0:08Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, I sat down with Adam Burlett to talk about the new gallery and studio space, Blockfort, that he is opening this month alongside his wife Megan. Besides the space, we talked a lot about what it takes to build a community around your work, the middle step in the Columbus art scene, the business of art, and Adam gave a rundown of the tenants at Blockfort. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Adam Burlett on the occasion of the upcoming grand opening of Blockfort Venue. Adam, sort of give us the elevator speech of what is Blockfort?

Adam Burlett 1:04Uh, Blockfort's a shared studio and gallery, and we'll have both exhibitions and we have, uh, workspace for both artists and business tenants.

Tim Fulton 1:12Okay. It's 16 spaces on the first floor, plus the gallery. You're currently doing, you just gave me the tour, you're doing some build-out in the basement for not a proper shared working space, but, uh-

Adam Burlett 1:22It's a shared office

Tim Fulton 1:22... it's a shared office. Are you totally full up here on the first floor?

Adam Burlett 1:26Yes.

Tim Fulton 1:26Okay.

Adam Burlett 1:26So we have 22 artists working out of 16 spaces. Um, both gallery spaces are, uh, starting to book up. We have the main gallery booked up for the next year. The back space is starting to fill up with, uh, smaller exhibitions. And then the basement space, we're in talks with people to move into the shared office, and we're currently in the process of renovating that.

Tim Fulton 1:46Great. And you will be revealing your schedule for upcoming exhibitions shortly before the grand opening.

Adam Burlett 1:52Sure.

Tim Fulton 1:53Talk about sort of how this space came to be.

Adam Burlett 1:56Sure. I mean, the, the simple way of putting it is that Taco Cat was going away.

Tim Fulton 2:00Okay.

Adam Burlett 2:00Um, a former space that I, I was part of.

Tim Fulton 2:03Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 2:03And we had to find a new home, and after 12 years of working with, uh, buildings owned by NRI, it kinda made sense for us to go and try to find a new landlord and a new, you know, a new way to operate. And-

Tim Fulton 2:16NRI, Nationwide Realty Investors.

Adam Burlett 2:18Correct.

Tim Fulton 2:18And we'll get into the sort of past experiences that you've had, but you were at two different spaces that are now being taken over by the slowly expanding Grandview Yard.

Adam Burlett 2:28Both, uh, both of those spaces are now gone.

Tim Fulton 2:31Right.

Adam Burlett 2:31Completely demolished. So, um, we knew early on in some of that process that the buildings wouldn't be there for forever, and we've kind of... We've, at that time we accepted the sort of transient life of, uh, art spaces. But-

Tim Fulton 2:46I imagine if you know that you're not gonna be able to be there for more than five years, one, you're never gonna get locked into a lease that's more than five years.

Adam Burlett 2:53Yeah.

Tim Fulton 2:53And two, the price is, is gonna be a little bit more right.

Adam Burlett 2:56Yeah. Uh, uh, but unfortunately, it also means that you don't take as much time and effort into investing to make the space more intentional, mo- more finished, uh, more safe. Um, you know, you're, you know that you're only there for a short while, so why invest in something that you're not gonna be there f- you know, long term? So with a building like this, it allows us a little bit more opportunity to, to come in and be intentional and think about how do we make this a space that we can be at for the next 10 years easily and, you know, and just make an impact and be a anchor and be a steady presence in the art community. Um, I, I think that's kinda needed around town right now.

Tim Fulton 3:34Absolutely. And so Blockfort is located at 162 North 6th Street, right around the corner from Roosevelt Coffee for those that are familiar with downtown. And you live in this space. You actu- you and your wife moved in, uh, end of August last year.

Adam Burlett 3:47Correct. The room above the gallery was zoned for an apartment. So, um, when we came in, it was-

Tim Fulton 3:52Oh, so you didn't have to-

Adam Burlett 3:54No

Tim Fulton 3:54... get that redone.

Adam Burlett 3:55We didn't have to change it. We, we had to decorate, basically.

Tim Fulton 3:58Okay.

Adam Burlett 3:58And update and make sure that things looked nice and that we had the amenities that we needed. But yeah, it was already zoned as an apartment and people, people had previously lived there. And-

Tim Fulton 4:06Now, what was this building before?

Adam Burlett 4:08It was a NAPA Auto Parts. Um-

Tim Fulton 4:09Someone was living above a NAPA Auto Parts store?

Adam Burlett 4:12Uh, it was the office for NAPA Auto Parts when it was, uh, when it was open. But-

Tim Fulton 4:15Okay

Adam Burlett 4:16... um, before that, uh, there was sort of a period where that NAPA was gone and-

Tim Fulton 4:20Okay

Adam Burlett 4:21... people were living upstairs. Before that, it was the NAPA office, and before it was NAPA Auto Parts, it was a Brinks, um, Security.

Tim Fulton 4:28Okay.

Adam Burlett 4:28So they, uh, had a big safe in the back that is now, uh, Stinky Bomb Soaps' studio.

Tim Fulton 4:33Okay.

Adam Burlett 4:34So.

Tim Fulton 4:34Talk about what people can expect at the grand opening on February 25th.

Adam Burlett 4:39Sure. I, you know, at the grand opening, basically it's just an introduction to what's different here than the previous spaces that we've run. How, how are we handling the space different? You know, you'll get the experience of walking in the front door and coming into a gallery rather than at Taco Cat or Junction View, where you walk in and you walk into a hallway.

Tim Fulton 4:56Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 4:56Um, the, it's small changes like that that are, were kind of-

Tim Fulton 4:59And was that mindful, or is the space sort of lend itself to that?

Adam Burlett 5:02Uh, we found a space that was... We mindfully chose to do that, but we found a space that would allow us to do that.

Tim Fulton 5:08Got it.

Adam Burlett 5:09And in the intentionality of creating a space, we're trying to increase the quality of the environment that the artists are working in and that the public gets to experience when they come in. So as you go through the building, you'll see notable differences between what a Taco Cat or a Junction View was to what this building was because we're asking the artists to create the environment that they're in, so by creating sort of vignettes next to their door that represent them as artists. And-

Tim Fulton 5:34Okay

Adam Burlett 5:35... the hallways, instead of looking like blank warehouse hallways, instead look like, for lack of a better way of saying it, almost like a mall. You get a flavor of each store as you walk through-

Tim Fulton 5:43Okay

Adam Burlett 5:43... the, the corridors. Um, we're creating lounge spaces. There'll be skylights eventually put on the roof in the spring. Um, we have, uh, a secondary gallery space in the back that helps draw people through the building. Um, even things, simple things that you don't really think about when you go to a space, like how nice is the bathroom? We have, you know, brand-new bathrooms that, you know, are nice and functioning. In old spaces-

Tim Fulton 6:04It's not just like a mop bucket in the corner-

Adam Burlett 6:07Right

Tim Fulton 6:07... that's still full of water from two weeks ago.

Adam Burlett 6:08Right. And it's not, it's not like an old warehouse bathroom. It's, it's a nice, intentional space. Uh, really the, the 25th will be an opportunity for the public to come and see, like how is this different than other art spaces? How are we trying to take a step up and separate ourselves from, um, what some of the other art spaces? And what is the, the offering that we're gonna provide, and how do we, uh, intend to partner with other art spaces in town? Um-

Tim Fulton 6:32Can you talk about that a little bit? You're here to serve your clients. Your clients are the artists that are renting the spaces from you. You know, what's that balance of being a public space and being a, a space that's there to serve your clients?

Adam Burlett 6:45Yeah. I, I look at it as the primary goal is to serve our tenants.

Tim Fulton 6:50Okay.

Adam Burlett 6:51However, the tenants benefit from having public interaction. So if you're an artist and you're selling things, um, you know, the idea would be, okay, get your artwork up in front of as many people as you possibly can. Well, that's not gonna happen if you just constantly are showing your work in the same gallery or in your same studio.

Tim Fulton 7:09Right.

Adam Burlett 7:09So having a show that invites other members of the art community to show on our gallery walls brings different audiences through, allows our artists to get more exposure, creates connections between artists that aren't in the building and the artists that are in the building, and it becomes a, hey, you know, we help you out with a show at our space, how can you help somebody from our space out with a show somewhere else? And those connections and partnerships are really important in the art community. And, you know, we get asked all the time, like, "Oh, are you a competitor of 400 West Rich or Vanderelli Room or Mint Gallery or something like that?"

Tim Fulton 7:43Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 7:43And the answer is no. We're... One, there's not enough room in the Columbus art scene to be competitive like that.

Tim Fulton 7:48Mm.

Adam Burlett 7:48Nobody's out to get anybody else.

Tim Fulton 7:50Right.

Adam Burlett 7:50Everybody's offering something different. And, you know, I get excited when I start talking to people that are representing 934 Gallery and we're talking about doing openings on the same night, and saying like, "Hey, how do we get people to go to both locations?"

Tim Fulton 8:03Right.

Adam Burlett 8:04"Do, do we make a shared map? How do we get, uh, people to go over to Franklinton Fridays in the Vanderelli Room in 400? How do we also politely descri- describe what the difference is between what an artist at Millworks or, or Mint Gallery might be making versus what an artist at Block Fort might be making?" Um, the types of shows that we have, like we have very intentionally set out to be a middle step that I think is missing in Columbus.

Tim Fulton 8:28Okay.

Adam Burlett 8:29Um, historically in the Short North, there were many galleries that people used as stepping stones to further their career. A lot of those middle galleries left. Some of the upper level galleries have remained. And then, you know, with Junction View and Tacocat and, and 400 West Rich and Mint Gallery, like warehouse shows have become sort of a prevalent theme.

Tim Fulton 8:48Right.

Adam Burlett 8:49Well, a lot of people that are from the-

Tim Fulton 8:51And you would... A- and not in a disparaging way, but that is a low level show.

Adam Burlett 8:55It's-

Tim Fulton 8:55That is sort of a anybody can submit and theoretically get approved to be in it.

Adam Burlett 9:01Yes, depending on the show. Like so- it, it is the populist view of art.

Tim Fulton 9:05Okay.

Adam Burlett 9:05I, I won't say it's a low level show, 'cause that denotes that it's of lesser quality.

Tim Fulton 9:08Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 9:09But a populist view is that, yes, everybody that makes art should be able to show art, and, and that that's an important part of the art community in Columbus. Our, our community, I mean through Junction View and Agora and, you know, previous things really showed that we have a wide variety of artists. We have a breadth of people doing interesting things. But as that Short North diminishing happened, a lot of those steppingstone galleries that helped artists that have been making great work and have a consistent body of work, how do they get to the next step of being able to show in an art center or a museum or a, or a, you know, h- a big name gallery somewhere?

Tim Fulton 9:45Well, and some of that's getting representation as well.

Adam Burlett 9:47Right.

Tim Fulton 9:48And so it's getting exposure to those people that may want to represent them.

Adam Burlett 9:52Right. So where somebody like myself making my artwork, I had the fortune of showing with Jackie Mahan at the Mahan Gallery, and I built a, a reputation having shows in, in her space and, um, you know, that led to a lot of the buyers and a lot of the, you know, the upward mobility I had as an artist.

Tim Fulton 10:09Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 10:09Well, we're hoping that this space, the, the Block Fort Gallery ends up becoming a steppingstone where we're hunting down artists that we think have made consistent quality work and have shown in dozens and dozens of warehouses or, you know, have great Instagram accounts or whatever, but they need that next step where they can have a solo show that shows their work, like, as a body, just their work, and that we as a gallery do the work that it takes to help promote and sell that work. So a lot of galleries that are on the, what, you know, that sort of populist level-

Tim Fulton 10:42Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 10:43... they'll h- they'll hang it, but you're responsible for promoting and... Or, or they're doing promotion, but they're doing promotion to their same crowd.

Tim Fulton 10:49Right.

Adam Burlett 10:50We're trying to very intentionally make sure that we access people that may not normally go to a warehouse for a show and bring them into a space that feels more like a, a proper gallery, and introduce them to the work of people that maybe haven't had that kind of exposure. And, and so we're trying to be conscious of not just the artists that we're serving, but also the, the public that we're serving in terms of buyers.

Tim Fulton 11:13Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 11:13Making sure that we're making good connections so if a company comes and says, "I'm looking for an artist to decorate my walls. Do you know anybody that works in this style or this medium?" That we're making good recommendations that lead to, um, solid connections. And, uh, hopefully that will position us in a place where we are identified as respectable-

Tim Fulton 11:34Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 11:35... a respectable group of artists, a respectable gallery dealer. And then as the, the upper level galleries, you know, the Brandt Roberts and the Hammond Harkins galleries are looking for new artists, hopefully that they can stop at a place like what we're doing and say, "Hey, I would like to represent one of these artists."

Tim Fulton 11:49Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 11:50And, and we kind of reconnect that middle step where we're not gonna represent people, we're not gonna have people sign contracts, but those artists that are seeking that kind of representation have a vehicle to get there.

Tim Fulton 12:00How do you manage all of that? Because you're managing... First of all, you, you have a studio space here with Little Industries, formerly called Little Red Men, and then you're also essentially a landlord-

Adam Burlett 12:11Mm

Tim Fulton 12:12... to the 16 people also trying to fill out the space in the basement, and also managing a gallery calendar, and this is your home.

Adam Burlett 12:20Yes.

Tim Fulton 12:22How do you-

Adam Burlett 12:23I have no-

Tim Fulton 12:23How many hats are you wearing?

Adam Burlett 12:25I have no idea. I mean-

Tim Fulton 12:26Okay

Adam Burlett 12:27... aft- after, like, I actually feel n- right now like I'm more focused on the things that are good for me and the community that I serve than ever before.

Tim Fulton 12:38Okay.

Adam Burlett 12:38Um, and I've always been a person that-

Tim Fulton 12:40And by the way, longtime listeners of the Confluence Cast will remember you're actually the a- first person to be on the Confluence Cast twice. Uh, but you were a founder of Independence Day as well.

Adam Burlett 12:52Yes.

Tim Fulton 12:53So how do you feel about where you're at right now?

Adam Burlett 12:55Yeah. I, I mean, I feel good because I feel like for many years now I've kind of just done anything I can to help artists, help the art community, promote the art community. And over the last, like, maybe year or so, especially with Taco Cat having to go away-

Tim Fulton 13:13Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 13:13... I started thinking like, what could I do that would be hyper-focused on how I can benefit people? What, what is... I tried to identify what are the needs in the Columbus art community that, like, I can really focus on and serve. And Independence Day has been that. I mean, I think that festival has helped given the city an identity. It's built a great team of people that work together. Everybody that's on that board and, uh, that works in that organization dedicates a lot of time and energy to making, just to make Columbus better.

Tim Fulton 13:40Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 13:41And so here I am at 36 years old saying like, "Okay, I've done this now since I was 21-"

Tim Fulton 13:47Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 13:48... I've been running spaces. You know, how do I n- now instead, um, focus on something that I think that maybe for the next 10 years between now and when I'm 45 or whatever-

Tim Fulton 13:57Okay

Adam Burlett 13:58... how can I really make an impact for myself as an artist, for, um, the artists that I've been working with for a long time? How can we really get everybody to the next step? You know, going from a, a giant warehouse with, you know, dozens of artists and, uh, you know, giant shows into something that's more hyper-focused, uh, in a way I feel sometimes like-

Tim Fulton 14:18Hyper-focused in that you have control over it?

Adam Burlett 14:21Uh, yes, and, and that I know the quality of all the people that I'm working with.

Tim Fulton 14:25Okay.

Adam Burlett 14:25I mean, these are people that I-

Tim Fulton 14:26And you have control over who those people are.

Adam Burlett 14:28Yes.

Tim Fulton 14:29Okay.

Adam Burlett 14:29That is, that is a part of it. And, uh, you know, there's sort of a fine line between being dictatorial and, and, you know, overlord-y and-

Tim Fulton 14:37Right

Adam Burlett 14:37... and actually curating a, a decent collection of people that you trust that do good work and that are going to show up and be in the space, um-

Tim Fulton 14:47Well, and are a good mix of diversity of, of type of work as well.

Adam Burlett 14:51Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Tim Fulton 14:51I mean, as you said at the beginning, they are both artists and businesses.

Adam Burlett 14:54Yeah. And I love being able to run through that list of like, you know, we've got painters and sculptors and illustrators and, but we've got jewelers and printmakers and, uh, screen printers and mold makers and soap makers and designers and event planners. A- and all those things in the building end up creating that intentional system of, you know, if somebody's, uh, running an event, they can walk down the hall and find an illustrator to design the flyer, and they can find somebody to print shirts for the event, and they can rent PA speakers from, uh, one of the other spaces. And it's sort of a built-in system that feeds on each other. It's all the connections that you need, like, in close proximity.

Tim Fulton 15:32Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 15:32And if those needs are not in the building, then somebody in the building has those connections.

Tim Fulton 15:38Right.

Adam Burlett 15:39And, and there's also things like diversity of age, diversity of, uh, social experiences, diversity of race, diversity of sexual preference, like all those sorts of diversities, like we're trying to be very intentional in that, as we're at, say, a Junction View. It was just like whoever s-

Tim Fulton 15:54Whoever

Adam Burlett 15:55... signed up on the waiting list and could pay rent.

Tim Fulton 15:58Right.

Adam Burlett 15:58And I don't think that what we're doing here is like scripting the society to be like the Burger King Kids Club, but at the same time, there is some advantage to having like, uh, a little bit of a difference in the conversations that you end up having with the artists or the experience that those artists bring.

Tim Fulton 16:13Let's take this opportunity to sort of step back from Block Fort and talk about how we got here. You were saying, I think before we were recording, that you had been throwing some punk rock shows like back in '99. Where'd you grow up?

Adam Burlett 16:26Uh, well, a trick question. I grew up in Chicago area.

Tim Fulton 16:30Okay.

Adam Burlett 16:30Went to high school in the Cleveland area, came here to go to CCAD-

Tim Fulton 16:33Okay

Adam Burlett 16:33... in 1998.

Tim Fulton 16:35And so you were playing in punk bands, and that's how you ended up-

Adam Burlett 16:38Yeah

Tim Fulton 16:38... organizing some of those shows.

Adam Burlett 16:39Yeah. I had some friends that moved, uh, to Columbus with me my sophomore year of school, and then we started, started a band, started playing, and we were having fun, and it was mostly in DIY spaces, basements and, you know, backroom garage, you know, garage shows and stuff like that. And we were putting out records and, you know, traveling around the country in a van playing music. But we ended up, uh, getting a space largely because we needed a place to practice.

Tim Fulton 17:05Okay.

Adam Burlett 17:05But then it was a big enough space that we found, uh, on down on Whittier and Parsons, uh, which at the time was really bad. Uh-

Tim Fulton 17:12Right

Adam Burlett 17:13... and we lived in German Village area and would walk over and have bands stay at our place, and, and then they'd come over and play shows. And, um, there were a whole collection of people that were involved. Uh, you know, some really great bands from the f- the late '90s, early 2000s that kind of teamed up and, um, had different genres of music, and there were 13 of us that ran it, so it was called the Edition 13.

Tim Fulton 17:35Okay.

Adam Burlett 17:36Um, and a lot of those people still remain friends and are doing great work in town. I mean, you, d- people that you see all over the place. You know, Adam Lowe's a photographer and, you know, does all kinds of work, and he just happens to be a good musician that was interested in organizing things back then. Um, there, there's, you know, a dozen more people.

Tim Fulton 17:54Okay.

Adam Burlett 17:54That was kind of my first foray into like, "Hey, how about if you-"

Tim Fulton 17:57I can put something together.

Adam Burlett 17:59Yeah. And, and I can work with people, and I can, you know, organize something, and it, it felt, it felt good to use my skills and abilities both o- organizationally as an artist, as a, uh, uh, as a designer, as an event planner to, like, put together something that really didn't have to do with money. It had to do with, like, culture and how you feel about a, a space or a place or a living in a city, and I really liked that environment. I liked having bands stay on my couch and then making them spaghetti and then-

Tim Fulton 18:30Right

Adam Burlett 18:31... we'd go skateboarding and, you know, it... Stuff like that was fun. Then it came to Junction View-

Tim Fulton 18:35Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 18:36... um, which was actually, there was probably about a five-year period in there where I had gotten out of college in 2002. Um, I worked various jobs working as a event planner, a visual merchandiser. I worked at a commercial art company. I traveled a- around a lot for some of the work that I was doing.

Tim Fulton 18:52Okay.

Adam Burlett 18:53Um, was kind of disconnected Still making my artwork, still showing work in galleries, but I was kind of disconnected from the art school community, and I was also one of the kind of artists that decided that grad school wasn't a thing for me. I took out a lot of loans to go to undergrad. Um, I got a second degree and a, a teaching certifi- uh, certificate after I graduated, and I had student loans from all that. But I felt like I needed that community.

Tim Fulton 19:17Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 19:18At the time, I was on the... I, I was just a volunteer with the Ohio Art League, which I ended up staying with for about 14 years, and I worked my way from volunteer up to board chair and ran the organization for two years.

Tim Fulton 19:29Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 19:30During that time, I was running a community critique, um, that I just... A, a friend of mine that used to live with me, Greg Davis, and I started, like, having critiques in our house, uh, like right after I got out of college, and, uh, and they were fun, so then we moved them to the Ohio Art League Gallery. And that's where I met Mike Reed, who basically said, "Hey, I, I found this warehouse that there's a few artists in." And, you know, somebody had started it and started running it, but there was no real leadership there, and there was no-

Tim Fulton 19:58Well, it wasn't fully utilized.

Adam Burlett 20:00No.

Tim Fulton 20:00Right.

Adam Burlett 20:01It was like 10% occupancy i- in the building. And so Mike said, "Why don't we, you know, why don't you come on over and have a studio at this place? I'd love to have you." And then he and I started talking, and we ended up gathering up a group of people that be- eventually became the Couchfire Collective.

Tim Fulton 20:16Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 20:16Um, Couchfire Collective kind of said like, "Hey, let's all just move in and take studios in the same part of the building."

Tim Fulton 20:22You guys were in, like, one wing.

Adam Burlett 20:24Right.

Tim Fulton 20:24And to be clear, Couchfire Collective was a- again, a group that all sort of went into Junction View at the same time.

Adam Burlett 20:30Right.

Tim Fulton 20:30It was a separate artist collective.

Adam Burlett 20:32Right. And it, and it grew, and it evolved over time, where we started adding people that weren't even in the building that-

Tim Fulton 20:37Okay

Adam Burlett 20:37... added different skills. But the, the whole part of Couchfire Collective was, how do we take this group mentality and work everyb- if everybody does a little bit of work and we put on an event or sort of like, uh-

Tim Fulton 20:48'Cause that is the group that put on Agora.

Adam Burlett 20:50Correct.

Tim Fulton 20:50Okay.

Adam Burlett 20:51And, and we always thought of it as like l- uh, sort of live action social media, where, like, if everybody invites five friends to a show and there's 20 of us, that means we have 100 people.

Tim Fulton 21:00Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 21:00And if those five friends invite five friends, then we end up having, you know, a lot of people.

Tim Fulton 21:05Right.

Adam Burlett 21:06And so when, when we started the first Agora, I mean, it was like, "Hey, let's just have a show." And we had 50 pieces of artwork, and 300 people showed up, and, you know, it was fun.

Tim Fulton 21:16Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 21:16And then we said, "Let's do it again." And every year we did it again and again and again, until it got to the point where the 22,000 square foot building we were in at Junction View Studios was sort of maxed out.

Tim Fulton 21:26Right.

Adam Burlett 21:26And not only were people paying attention to what was going on in terms of shows, but the studio started filling up. And then the owner of the building said, "Hey, we kind of need a manager for this," and Mike and I kind of co-managed for a while, um-

Tim Fulton 21:38Because they were all individually paying their rent to the actual landlord?

Adam Burlett 21:42Correct.

Tim Fulton 21:43Okay.

Adam Burlett 21:43And there, but there was no, like, there was no community builder. It was just everybody... It was like paying for storage spaces. Everybody just-

Tim Fulton 21:49Right. Well, and not a whole lot of rules, too.

Adam Burlett 21:51Right.

Tim Fulton 21:51Right.

Adam Burlett 21:51And then it got to be, you know, you got 80 people in a building, and, you know, two bathrooms, and nobody's paying attention to when things are getting cleaned or, you know, how shows are being run or used and-

Tim Fulton 22:02How we're using the common space.

Adam Burlett 22:04And so, you know, Mike and I kind of co-ran these meetings, that we would just have once-a-month meetings, and, you know-

Tim Fulton 22:09Mm

Adam Burlett 22:09... a lot of people that were at Junction View remember the ridiculousness of sitting in this common space, all with a circle of chairs that we would pull in. And sometimes it was everybody bitching about something, and sometimes it was everybody planning for a show. And-

Tim Fulton 22:22Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 22:22... um, sometimes it was exciting. Sometimes it was tense. Sometimes it was nerve-wracking. Sometimes you were angry. Sometimes-

Tim Fulton 22:27Right

Adam Burlett 22:27... you were, you know, happy for somebody for some reason or another. We would all show up to shows. If somebody had a show in a gallery in the Short North, like, you basically had a built-in team of everybody from Junction View would show up. Whether you liked everybody or not wasn't important. You had, like, a family that you were a part of.

Tim Fulton 22:42Okay.

Adam Burlett 22:42And after a while, it got to be that the system of order needed to be even more in place, where, uh, Couchfire Collective started paying for internet at the building-

Tim Fulton 22:50Okay

Adam Burlett 22:51... because the landlord didn't provide. Um, so then people had to provide, uh, a portion. Like, I think it was like everybody paid $5 every three months for internet.

Tim Fulton 22:59Okay.

Adam Burlett 23:00And somebody had to manage that, and s- so I was doing that. All those things started growing to a certain point, and, um, Mike eventually decided to move on and, uh, and was-

Tim Fulton 23:10Well, 'cause it's down to also, is there toilet paper? Who's taking care of that?

Adam Burlett 23:14Yeah. And, and right around the time that Mike left was when NRI ended up purchasing the building from a different landlord.

Tim Fulton 23:21Okay.

Adam Burlett 23:21And when NRI took over, it was really tense because we thought that they were just gonna kick us out. And myself and a few other people went in, and we basically negotiated like businesspeople with NRI and said, "How can we stay here? If you don't have plans to tear the building down, what would it take for us to standardize rents, to make sure that the building is up to fire safety?" 'Cause NRI is very s- specific about making sure that their buildings are well taken care of and, um-

Tim Fulton 23:44Right. Even if they're gonna tear them down in five years.

Adam Burlett 23:47Yeah. And they, and for the first part of, um, NRI being landlords, at Junction View especially, they were very gracious. Um, uh, a guy named Chris Dale, who worked for NRI, and another guy named Matt Starr, who now works for Crawford Hoying, um, were smart enough to say like, "Hey, we could basically cover our overhead for owning the building, let people be here-"

Tim Fulton 24:08Right

Adam Burlett 24:08"... um, if we provide them with basic amenities." Artists don't require much.

Tim Fulton 24:12Right.

Adam Burlett 24:12So-

Tim Fulton 24:12What were the other big changes that you had to go through in order to sort of facilitate that and make that happen with NRI?

Adam Burlett 24:17The biggest, the two biggest things were all of the lease agreements changed.

Tim Fulton 24:22Okay.

Adam Burlett 24:23Um, so there w- We standardized a price for, for-

Tim Fulton 24:27Square footage

Adam Burlett 24:27... the space, for square footage.

Tim Fulton 24:28Okay.

Adam Burlett 24:29Before that, it was just whatever the previous landlord wanted to charge for a space, and some people were paying $1.40 a square foot, and some people were paying 20 cents a square foot, and it didn't make any sense.

Tim Fulton 24:38Okay.

Adam Burlett 24:38So we rearranged all that. Um, and then the other big change was the, the fire safety and, and actual updates to the building. They were kind enough when they, when they took over, they put track lights through the whole building. They fixed up the bathrooms, made sure the toilets worked, um, you know, made sure all the locks on the doors had push bars, and really kind of fixed the space up.

Tim Fulton 24:58Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 24:58And then they, because it was in Grandview Yard, they started doing things like sending plows over, and we had a janitor that would show up, um, that was, you know, taking care of Grandview Yard buildings. But to s-

Tim Fulton 25:09Technically, you were also part of Grandview Yard at that point, right?

Adam Burlett 25:11Right. And we, and we were, you know- The red-headed stepchildren of-

Tim Fulton 25:14So you were s- standardized the lease. I wanna get into a little bit of a conversation about structure of organizations. Were they paying rent to you, and then you were paying NRI?

Adam Burlett 25:22No, I ended up with my agreement working. So I got a discount on my rent for helping organize and manage the building.

Tim Fulton 25:31Okay.

Adam Burlett 25:31So if somebody wasn't paying rent and NRI was telling them to leave the building, which they dealt with all the finances. Nobody ever paid me.

Tim Fulton 25:38Okay.

Adam Burlett 25:38I never received any checks or anything like that.

Tim Fulton 25:40Got it.

Adam Burlett 25:41But if NRI decided that they were going to need to have somebody leave-

Tim Fulton 25:45Evict someone

Adam Burlett 25:45... I was responsible for interviewing and finding the next person. And, and we built like a team of people from the building that would, like, interview if somebody was coming in.

Tim Fulton 25:53So it wasn't just the wait- the next person on the wait list, basically.

Adam Burlett 25:56Correct.

Tim Fulton 25:56Okay.

Adam Burlett 25:56It was, we did a lot of best fit, and, and a lot of times people in the building had the first opportunity to switch spaces. So somebody may get in with a small space and graduate to a larger space. Different artists and tenants had different needs, so that was really when I started learning, like, what's the difference between somebody that's just painting in a studio versus somebody that's, uh, like doing wood turning-

Tim Fulton 26:17Okay

Adam Burlett 26:17... and has, like, heavy equipment. And so learning to manage those nuances, learning to deal with the social aspects of people not liking each other, or, uh, trying to put on a show with a bunch of people who are all have various ideas of what they wanna do. And I'd like to think that I do well with that.

Tim Fulton 26:34Okay.

Adam Burlett 26:34Like, just understanding people's personalities and trying to find a common ground. I know, you know, there's probably a fair share of people that think I'm a dictator and that, you know, I was commander of everything and... But I think I did a fair share of listening, so.

Tim Fulton 26:46Yeah, and in short, I think a lot of times it's... You sort of say, "Well, I was the guy that stepped up."

Adam Burlett 26:51Yeah.

Tim Fulton 26:51And, you know, I would love help. I'm nearing some benefit from this, but not enough to-

Adam Burlett 26:55Right

Tim Fulton 26:55... for it, this all to be worth it.

Adam Burlett 26:57Right, and, and that kind of plays into the, the lineage of these buildings-

Tim Fulton 27:00Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 27:00... is like, you know, by the time Junction View was coming down, there was a, a big pushback, right, when Junction View... When NRI announced that they were gonna take the Junction View building down-

Tim Fulton 27:09Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 27:10... um, they gave us plenty of notice. Um, they-

Tim Fulton 27:12You had like a year and a half or something, right?

Adam Burlett 27:13Uh, it was about six months that they gave us.

Tim Fulton 27:15Oh, okay.

Adam Burlett 27:15And they said, "Hey, we know that you guys are operating and there's a lot of people in the building. You're all gonna be displaced. Like, how do we make this a tr- like a peaceful transition?"

Tim Fulton 27:24Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 27:24And I tried my best to work with NRI to make sure that people were responsible in their leaving, that they weren't just leaving piles of junk and stuff like that. We had our last Agora, so we did 10 of them-

Tim Fulton 27:34Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 27:35... um, over the course of seven years. That 10th one was like a great celebration of like, hey, th- we did-

Tim Fulton 27:40This is what we did here.

Adam Burlett 27:41Yeah, we did awesome work here, and I still get all, like, teary-eyed when we had this big family dinner where we had, like, a big picnic table set up in the middle of the room, and all of us came, and everybody cooked, like, potluck style, and we had, like, one big last family dinner. It was really cool.

Tim Fulton 27:54That's awesome.

Adam Burlett 27:54And, uh, and then in the meantime, I tried very hard to, in some cases, like, uh, like with Devin Palmer, making introductions to the Idea Foundry and saying, like, "Hey, Devin's a great tenant. You should totally take him. He does great work that's in line with what you're doing." And now he's a main tenant over there.

Tim Fulton 28:12Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 28:12And, uh, kudos to, you know, Alex and his team for recognizing talent and taking him in, and kudos to Devin for being a good dude that you wanna be around.

Tim Fulton 28:22Right.

Adam Burlett 28:22And other people like, uh, Brydon Sharon ended up opening Brickbox Studios with, uh, Dr. Mike Wiesel. Dr. Mike was one of the tenants that was in Junction View before I was, and Brydon was the last tenant that I brought in before, uh, Junction View closed, and partnered the two of them up, and they decided to open their own studio. So I tried to provide them any assistance I could on, like, how do the finances work? What are the things that are needed to make a space, you know, function?

Tim Fulton 28:47Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 28:48Other people, like Chris Sherman, was opening 400 at the time, and I said, "Hey, here's a list of artists that are gonna need space."

Tim Fulton 28:54Right.

Adam Burlett 28:54Uh, and then even as Junction View was coming down, I said to NRI, like, "Hey, are you just mulling this over and gonna throw this stuff away?" And we went and we took every door, every track light, every toilet fixture, every electrical, anything that we could take, and some of that went to 400, and some of that went to Taco Cat.

Tim Fulton 29:10Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 29:11And then we sort of built the next space out of the rubble of the, of, of Junction View.

Tim Fulton 29:16And so Taco Cat, also owned by NRI, same sort of plot of land. From the get-go, you knew it was gonna be gone in five years.

Adam Burlett 29:24Yeah, yeah. NRI basically said, "Hey, for you and a f- few other people-"

Tim Fulton 29:27Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 29:27... "if you want to come over and move into this building, we have 5,000 square feet of space." Um, and so there's a couple of people from Junction View that were the ones that always showed up to exhibitions and helped hang stuff, and they were always at meetings and, you know, participat- participating in all the things that we would do. And I just said, "Okay, how do we, how do we get to a point where we very intentionally choose artists that are all very active?"

Tim Fulton 29:52Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 29:52"And we work as a team." And we said, "Okay, everybody's gonna put a little bit of money into this. We're gonna fix the space up together as a team, and then there, there will be nobody receiving any specific benefit from it." So, uh, we set up a structure where the money that we paid in went directly to making sure that everybody had internet, making sure that we had a nice space, and then we collectively ran shows. And, um, it functioned really well for a, a while.

Tim Fulton 30:17And what do you attribute that to?

Adam Burlett 30:19I, I will say first that I think that it was a good team of people-

Tim Fulton 30:22Okay

Adam Burlett 30:22... that had experience working with each other and that at least understood each other's personalities.

Tim Fulton 30:27Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 30:27So where they didn't get along or if there were arguments that came up, at least you understood where that person was coming from.

Tim Fulton 30:32Right.

Adam Burlett 30:33Um, mutual respect for each other's work was a big deal. I think that everybody in that building really knew that the artist next to them was making really great work, and that you needed to step your game up to be able to, you know, keep it up. Some-

Tim Fulton 30:44How much of it do you attribute the actual sort of everybody coming in knew what they were getting into?

Adam Burlett 30:49Yes.

Tim Fulton 30:50And so how much of it do you attribute to that, of sort of being, forgive me for continuing to use the phrase, smart and open about what was about to happen? It's not like at Junction View where somebody's like, "Well, I've been here since the beginning. I'm gonna do whatever I want."

Adam Burlett 31:02Right, right.

Tim Fulton 31:02"I never agreed to this."

Adam Burlett 31:04No, it was, it was actually even more intentional than just being smart and open. It was, we all signed agreements saying, "These are the things that we'll do."

Tim Fulton 31:11Did you have a business plan that people signed?

Adam Burlett 31:14Uh, yeah, it was a, a rules and regulations document that we co-

Tim Fulton 31:17Okay

Adam Burlett 31:17... we co-created it, and we all agreed to it. We all signed it. And then when somebody would get out of line and say like, "Oh, I don't wanna do this," we'd be like, "Well, everybody signed this thing saying, so we either need to amend the agreement as a group and come up with a new understanding-

Tim Fulton 31:29Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 31:29... or you need to do what you say you're gonna do." And it never really got to that point. I mean, after a while, especially with the construction that was going on in Grandview Yard, it became really difficult for Taco Cat Cooperative to continue operating under that sort of commune feel where-

Tim Fulton 31:45Okay

Adam Burlett 31:45... everybody was working. Some people got really burnt out. It became really hard to do shows. We had a really hard time running our business as a gallery there because the construction was just so overbearing. I mean, they shut the road down in front of our building. We weren't even allowed to drive to our own building for, like, six months.

Tim Fulton 32:03Okay.

Adam Burlett 32:03So trying to get people to come to shows, it was difficult, and that was a very hard experience.

Tim Fulton 32:08Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 32:08Um, we all had nice space to work for ourselves, and we all got along with each other, but we also had a hard time just running, running it as a business. Some of that came, you know, like, when we got into Block Fort. You know, we went and said, "Okay, we're gonna have to put X amount of improvements into a building." We looked for a building that everybody could kind of cooperatively, like, chip in a little bit of money and fix up a space, and we had talked about a space in Grandview that seemed like it would work for that. Ultimately, when we found this building downtown... And we really wanted to be downtown. I wanted to get out of Grandview. I'd, I'd lived-

Tim Fulton 32:41Okay

Adam Burlett 32:41... I had lived in the same house for 15 years in Grandview, and it was a great space, but I, I work with City Council, and I work with, uh, you know, people around, around the city, and I can't even vote for who the mayor is.

Tim Fulton 32:52Right.

Adam Burlett 32:52You know? And so I really wanted to be in Columbus. So when we found this building, we realized that it was gonna take a good chunk of change. And when we went to the bank to try to get a loan as Taco Cat Cooperative, they looked and they said, "Well, you've made no money."

Tim Fulton 33:05Right.

Adam Burlett 33:05Because the money we paid in went directly back out as rent and utilities.

Tim Fulton 33:10Well, and that was by design for you.

Adam Burlett 33:11Correct.

Tim Fulton 33:12Right.

Adam Burlett 33:12But we never thought long- longevity-wise, like, how do we build money in a bank? And, you know, 'cause it was, "Hey, no- nobody's gonna profit from this."

Tim Fulton 33:19Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 33:19That was the whole idea. And profit has always been sort of a no-no word in the, the sort of DIY space. You know, "Oh, you're getting paid and I'm not getting paid"-

Tim Fulton 33:28Right

Adam Burlett 33:28... kinda thing. Well, a lot of that goes into, like, even at Taco Cat, where it was a very functional system where there was a partnership-

Tim Fulton 33:34Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 33:35... there was still a lot of times where I was burdened with a lot of the work. Um-

Tim Fulton 33:40Right

Adam Burlett 33:41... and Junction View, Mike was there early on helping out, and then after a while, it was like, if I, if meetings were gonna happen, I had to organize them, or if an Agora was going to happen, I had to make sure that all the flyers got made-

Tim Fulton 33:52Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 33:52... and the, you know, call for entries went out. You know, between those things and then my experience with Wonderland, where, um, you know, we had tried to go and make a monster facility that had-

Tim Fulton 34:00I forgot about Wonderland.

Adam Burlett 34:02Yeah, a monster facility that had everything in it. And, uh, as much as people may view it as something that failed and never happened, um, for me, it was a giant learning experience. And I learned all kinds of new rules and regulations, and I learned how other spaces around the country worked. I did countless amounts of research on how spaces around the country have worked, and the one thing that I kept seeing over and over again is the success of spaces, especially early on-

Tim Fulton 34:30Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 34:30... is largely attributed to the individual or individuals that were leading it and making it happen.

Tim Fulton 34:35Okay.

Adam Burlett 34:36And in some cases, those individuals that were making it happen ended up doing well, and that them doing well ended up leading to the space having an even longer projection of how it does well, as opposed to other spaces that burned out their leaders, like a, l- a lot of nonprofits do.

Tim Fulton 34:52Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 34:52Um, burn out their leaders, or the system falls apart, and when that leadership leaves, that the organization falls apart.

Tim Fulton 34:59Right. Let's speed up the timeline just a little bit, and talk to me about how you, once you found the space for Block Fort, how you made the decision to say, "Okay, this is gonna be mine."

Adam Burlett 35:09Mine and my wife's-

Tim Fulton 35:10Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 35:10... um, uh, who should be here, but she's, uh, helping run the North Market right now. So.

Tim Fulton 35:14Right.

Adam Burlett 35:15Uh, I mean, it was really a conscious decision of like, okay, I'm 36, I've been doing this now for many years. I feel like I've given a lot to the community, and I don't feel like that has to stop, but if I'm going to be able to push it to the next level, we can't be arguing in a group about whose turn it is to buy toilet paper.

Tim Fulton 35:34Right.

Adam Burlett 35:34So by making it a for-profit business that I own, that I can still sort of be benevolent in how I lead the thing, and I don't have to be dictatorial. People are still allowed to, you know, voice their opinions on how the space is run or what's needed.

Tim Fulton 35:48But there is ultimately a person.

Adam Burlett 35:50Right.

Tim Fulton 35:50Right.

Adam Burlett 35:50That I can say, like, "Hey." Some of the things that happened at Junction View were happening in this space. I would have no problem kicking a tenant out.

Tim Fulton 35:58Okay.

Adam Burlett 35:59You know? Uh, if I found out that somebody in this building was stealing something or throwing food over walls or something like that-

Tim Fulton 36:05That would be it.

Adam Burlett 36:06I-

Tim Fulton 36:06There's no need-

Adam Burlett 36:07Yeah

Tim Fulton 36:07... for a discussion. There's no need for a group of people to get together and-

Adam Burlett 36:10Right

Tim Fulton 36:10... and talk about it. Right.

Adam Burlett 36:11And at Junction View, I had no authority. I had to wait for NRI to kick people out.

Tim Fulton 36:15Right.

Adam Burlett 36:15And at Taco Cat, we had to have, like, a group vote decision on everything.

Tim Fulton 36:20Okay.

Adam Burlett 36:20And so here, it just kinda simplifies it, and it makes it easier. There are rules and regulations that are basically the same rules and regulations we had at Taco Cat.

Tim Fulton 36:29Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 36:30And how do we take those rules and regulations that already seem to work for everybody and just have something that enforces them?

Tim Fulton 36:36Right.

Adam Burlett 36:36Hopefully, that won't happen. I mean, there's not, like, a rule book on how that's gonna play out or something, but if somebody's not using their space or they're, you know, sleeping in their space or something like that, I'm not gonna, like, instantly kick them out like some dictator.

Tim Fulton 36:51Right.

Adam Burlett 36:51I'm gonna go and I'm gonna have a conversation. "Hey, are you all right? Are things going okay?" Like, "Do you need help?"

Tim Fulton 36:55"Hey, you can't sleep here."

Adam Burlett 36:57Right. "Have you-

Tim Fulton 36:57Right

Adam Burlett 36:57... have you paid rent?" Like, "Oh, y- you lost your job? Okay, how do we work through that?" And I can-

Tim Fulton 37:02Right

Adam Burlett 37:02... I can be as benevolent as it makes sense for me and the fact that my wife and I took a loan out to, you know, help build the place out.

Tim Fulton 37:11Right.

Adam Burlett 37:11But I don't have to worry about who, whose turn is it to wash The, you know, clean the bathroom. It's my turn to clean the bathroom. And if I don't wanna do it, then I need to hire somebody to do it.

Tim Fulton 37:20Right.

Adam Burlett 37:21It's just more straightforward. And I think that actually has relieved a lot of the tensions from the tenants, too, or at least I'd like to hope that it does. For instance, we used to have family dinner.

Tim Fulton 37:29Okay.

Adam Burlett 37:29We, we still have family dinner. Um, it's just a way to once a month we get together, we eat food together and talk about what shows people have coming up, what things people are working on, what their needs are, how they can help each other out. It's just a way to get together once a month and see each other face to face.

Tim Fulton 37:44Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 37:44Well, that used to be our meeting where we would argue about whose turn it was to clean the bathroom or who's, uh, who's running the next show. Now, I cook for everybody, and we come and we have fun and we talk, and everybody-

Tim Fulton 37:54And it's productive rather than reductive.

Adam Burlett 37:57It's friendly.

Tim Fulton 37:57Right.

Adam Burlett 37:58It's, y- it's rather than people being combative and trying to argue over whose turn it is or w- to, you know, who owes what or whatever, now it's just people getting together and talking and helping each other out. And I think that that's like a stress relief, um, or at least I'd like to think that. I also have the ability now with, over the last, you know, however, 15-plus years of organizing things and doing things in town, like any of the connections that I've made, I feel totally fine bringing connections to the operation. So if there's a partnership that we wanna have with a, with a different arts group in... Like, there's a group in Oklahoma City that I talk to frequently. Like-

Tim Fulton 38:33Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 38:34... rather than saying, "Hey, let me see if this group will vote to have a show of yours," I can say like, "Hey, I think this will be a good thing for the community and I am going to do this show."

Tim Fulton 38:43Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 38:43And th- it doesn't have to be a discussion.

Tim Fulton 38:46I see. Again, with 15 years of experience organizing things and negotiating with, you know, large corporations, what was the learning curve with getting this place going? Were, were there things that you were like, "Oh, I have to worry about this now," that you hadn't had to deal with before?

Adam Burlett 39:00I'll say that the learning curve was learning to trust myself-

Tim Fulton 39:03Okay

Adam Burlett 39:03... and saying that like, "Hey, I have 15 years of experience. I know what works and what doesn't. I just have to trust myself and tell myself like if a tenant is upset about something before we moved in or if it seemed like a construction person was saying like, 'Oh, hey, we should build it this way,' and I was saying, 'No, we should build it this way because I know how the artist is going to use it.'"

Tim Fulton 39:23Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 39:24I, I just kinda had to trust myself. There's a lot of fear, uh, from b-

Tim Fulton 39:29Did you experience like a crisis of confidence of like, I don't know-

Adam Burlett 39:32Oh

Tim Fulton 39:32... that like-

Adam Burlett 39:32Always. I always have.

Tim Fulton 39:33Okay.

Adam Burlett 39:34I mean, I think that's part of what maybe makes me okay at this job is-

Tim Fulton 39:39Okay

Adam Burlett 39:39... you know, like is that even with Independence Day and stuff, like I'm always wondering, "Am I doing the right thing? Am I, am I helping people? Am I not helping people?" Like, as much as anybody may have a difference of opinion on this, like I really do mean to try to help people.

Tim Fulton 39:52Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 39:52And I, I really... Yes, I wanna help myself. I- that's, you know... I can't help others if I can't help myself. But at the same time, I have to tell myself like, "Hey, you know what you're doing. You got this." And then the financial part, I'm, I have never been and I probably never will be a wealthy person.

Tim Fulton 40:09Okay.

Adam Burlett 40:10And how do you take what little money and resources you have and make the most of it? And by all means, a lot of this, this Block Fort has been built on goodwill of partners and friends, people that I've met in the community. People like, uh, Brent Foley at Triad Architects and Blake Compton at Compton Construction have really done a lot to help artists in the community.

Tim Fulton 40:33Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 40:33And then, then having new experiences like trying to decide a bank. Y- you know, I had negative experiences with Huntington Bank-

Tim Fulton 40:40Right

Adam Burlett 40:40... where I go in and they, they don't understand what artists do. But a Heartland Bank, and Kelly Law at Heartland Bank will sit down with you and say like, "Let me hear your story. Let me hear about your 15 years of experience. We don't know if this is a viable business necessarily, but we know that we trust you."

Tim Fulton 40:56Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 40:56And those are new hard hurdles.

Tim Fulton 40:59Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 41:00Um, there's always been somebody else that's been a, a training wheel. Josh Quinn and Andrew Dodson balancing me out with Wonderland.

Tim Fulton 41:05Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 41:05All the tenants of Junction View, uh, the boar- the boards that I've been on. Like there's always been a, a balance, and now the balance is my wife, which is a lot of pressure to put, put on one person, but she's fortunately very good at it.

Tim Fulton 41:16Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 41:17And you know, sh- she's dotted I's and crossed T's, and I'm concepts and daydreams about how things can work. And I'm good at building things with my hands, and she's good at building things with spreadsheets. And-

Tim Fulton 41:27Okay

Adam Burlett 41:28... you know, those complementary skills, this wouldn't work if we didn't have those complementary skills.

Tim Fulton 41:33Okay.

Adam Burlett 41:33And, and I think that the tenants of the building know that too. They see that she's dotted I's and crossed T's. They know that she's the one that every time somebody buys a piece of artwork, they're gonna get a handwritten letter from my wife that says, "Thank you for coming to Block Fort and buying artwork."

Tim Fulton 41:45Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 41:45At the same time, like I'm not gonna let things get stale. I can dream up shows and I can work on projects in the alley, partnerships in the neighborhood, partnerships with organizations around town.

Tim Fulton 41:55Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 41:56You know, we're really excited that people are seeing what we're building and starting to say like, "Hey, I wanna... Let's do something together." CCAD and CSEA and Creative Babes and all these groups that are, you know, they're good partners.

Tim Fulton 42:07Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 42:07And I wanna, I wanna see that community grow.

Tim Fulton 42:09Give us a rundown of the tenants that you have in the building right now.

Adam Burlett 42:12Well, there's my wife and I. I'm a painter. She's a quilter, knitter, photographer. Jamie Summer is known as the drag king Jams Dean.

Tim Fulton 42:21Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 42:21Um, she's here making costumes and paintings. Lisa McClymont, who is a metalworker, painter, designer, and her partner Kat Sheridan, who is a ceramicist and kind of a conceptual artist. Uh, Logan Schmidt and Rachel Schmidt. Logan is, uh, an illustrator. They are very involved in touring craft shows and things like that. Uh, and then she does modeling. Larry Doyle is, uh, an illustrator painter, uh, former member of Taco Cat. Lisa was a member of Taco Cat also. Christopher Burke, who is the fantastic realistic urban landscape painter. Um, he's sort of our resident Wordsworth. Um, Chris Blaine, who is the art director for City Barbeque, um, who I met and worked with on Independence Day projects and as a younger guy, got a lot of spirit and really excited to jump in and has been doing good work getting his studio fixed up and ready. Allison Rose Screen Printing moved from their Clintonville location, uh, next to Studio 35 and then moved into our building, and that'll be kind of an experience, uh, for them in terms of they've always been in a retail space.

Tim Fulton 43:24Yeah, not having that.

Adam Burlett 43:25So th- they'll have the opportunity... You know, even like right now they're on vacation and there's a stack of boxes in the corner over here. And as people need to pick things up, like we're here to help them deliver those even though they're out of town.

Tim Fulton 43:38Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 43:38And I don't think that they've had that before, and it's great because they're a daily presence. Every day they're here working-

Tim Fulton 43:43Mm-hmm

Adam Burlett 43:43... you know, 9:00 to 5:00, probably 9:00 to 11:00 is more like it. But you really g- you get to be like partners and friends with people that are here a lot. Shirleila Jones is a designer, painter, um, does fantastic watercolors. We actually chose her. We wanted to choose at least one person that we had never met before that we chose on the merit of their work.

Tim Fulton 44:03Okay.

Adam Burlett 44:04And her work was really, really strong, and then we met her and she was like really friendly. And then after we ended up signing her as a tenant, we found out that she is friends with all kinds of friends that we're friends with and she worked at Zen Genius where I worked at Zen Genius at one point.

Tim Fulton 44:18Okay.

Adam Burlett 44:18She worked at Peabody Papers and so she's been great. Marshall Shorts and David Butler, uh, share a studio. Marshall is the, one of the founders of Creative Control Fest and is a fantastic graphic designer, um, does a lot of social advocacy in town. Um, David Butler is a sort of a, a social issues painter, does, uh, very large scale paintings and he works at the Pizzuti Collection. Lucy Shearer and Jake Mensinger are recent CCAD grads that, uh, Lucy just did the last year's Independence Day poster.

Tim Fulton 44:47Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 44:48Um, so I kinda got a chance to meet them and work with them and they're good kids. They got great spirit. They have hard work ethic. Um, Jake's been doing murals, uh, around town so he's kind of, you know, working on building his repertoire of large scale artworks. Uh, Katherine Bell Smith is a sculptor, a material artist and she's been with us for a long time in Taco Cat and Junction View. She was in both. And then Megan and Rob Green. Megan is Stinky Bomb Soap, Crafting Outlaws, Midwest Craft Con, and her husband Rob is a mold maker who runs a company called The Field Works that molds, uh, historical replicas and, uh, tabletop gaming pieces.

Tim Fulton 45:26Mm-hmm.

Adam Burlett 45:27So that's our upstairs tenants and then downstairs, uh, we're gonna be working with a new design company called Freight. It's, uh, three younger guys. We're working on designing the basement and then we're interviewing a few additional tenants for the, the downstairs space.

Tim Fulton 45:40Great.

Adam Burlett 45:40It's packed house.

Tim Fulton 45:42Absolutely. One last thing. What advice do you have for somebody who's interested, uh, has an idea for an event, for a gallery, for simply organizing a group of people? Like, are there hard and fast rules or recommendations that you would make to them about how to get that going?

Adam Burlett 46:01My biggest recommendation is the same recommendation I've been making for the last dozen years, that there are people out there that are willing to help you and willing to give you information, that the advantage of a city like Columbus, um, as opposed to a New York or an LA is that because we are known as this big small town, that we still have friendly neighbors that are willing to help out. And I, for one, dozens of times have provided a- advice to people that are starting spaces, sometimes unsolicited advice that they aren't really asking for.

Tim Fulton 46:30Right.

Adam Burlett 46:30But, you know, people want to help each other out and I think that, um, if you have the desire to run an event or a space, seek out the people that already run events and space that you like and ask them because they'll help you.

Tim Fulton 46:42Right. Well, and, uh, there's certainly things that you haven't thought of yet-

Adam Burlett 46:46Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 46:46... I'm sure.

Adam Burlett 46:47Definitely.

Tim Fulton 46:47Great. Adam, thank you so much for your time.

Adam Burlett 46:50Thank you.

Tim Fulton 46:56Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite landlord. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a good week.