The Bakery Seeks a Bright Future

 
 

An Update for Our Supporters ~ July 2022

Is it just us, or has the world been in hyperspeed this year?

After a flurry of Spring activity, Summer has brought the heat along with some new COVID variants. Somehow it’s already July and we’ve done a lot of things but opening a venue in record time (for the second time) isn’t one of them. Rumor has it, the best things are worth the wait! In the meantime, we are staying very busy!

We are excited to announce that The Bakery will officially be incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in 2022. This will allow us to be eligible for more grants and eventually seek institutional funding. We are also thrilled to introduce Tatiyanna Pinckney (they/them) as our newest team member. They will be heading up programming as well as lending their graphic design skills to the evolution of the Bakery brand. We are looking forward to re-establishing and fortifying our community partnerships this year in order to facilitate more collaborative art experiences across Atlanta.

As a nonprofit organization, The Bakery will continue to focus on areas where art, education, technology, and the environment intersect. We have always been a need-based collective and Atlanta seriously needs grassroots arts and culture organizations to thrive in the coming years. We hope to work in more public spaces, offering creative solutions to issues within our built environment, education experiences, and create more digital resources for our network. Allowing out of the box thinking to be taken and applied to the world, to be allowed to interact and intersect with the commonplace of daily functioning/society.

While we are waiting for our future home at Yellow Studios, we hope you will visit us at our South Downtown Gallery located around the corner from Underground Atlanta. (Check out our calendar of programming here.) We are fortunate to have been a 2022 Arts & Entertainment Atlanta Grant (A&E Atlanta) along with our neighbor Cat Eye Creative and others. The DIY arts have had a long history operating in Downtown and we hope to be a part of the ongoing revitalization.

We have always been in the business of “creating space” within and outside of physical space. The idea is more tangible within the spaces we operate - 825 Warner St, New Square, 92 Peachtree St - these spaces feel like The Bakery - but The Bakery is also a feeling that can exist alone, a state of mind if you will. It’s about questioning, curiosity, and trusting the process while having some fun along the way. Read our history if you want to hear more about this firsthand!

After watching our newest fundraising video, we hope you learned a little bit more about why The Bakery has been, and will be, a vital component to keeping Atlanta a vibrant, progressive, and playful city, the Atlanta we all know and love. This task should be a shared responsibility and thanks to your donations, it is!

These funds are going to keep us going until we can get the doors open and show you our future grand home. But Yellow Studios is only part of what we are and will become... Bakery is an idea and sense of community much larger than any old warehouse.

Thanks again for your support - your patience will be rewarded!

With Love,
The Bakery Team

THE BIG NEWS:

Please join The Bakery as we embark on a large-scale fundraising and awareness campaign, not only in support of our upcoming endeavor, but also in hopes of restoring a vibrant, creative ecosystem right here in Atlanta, GA. 

Expanding on our previous and existing projects ~ 825 Warner Street (our original multifaceted home), private artists studios in East Point, several community projects around Atlanta, and our South Downtown white-wall gallery ~ The Bakery looks to a brighter ✨ yellow ✨ future. 

Our newest space is located inside of Yellow Studios, a campus created for artists by artists. In collaboration with Mammal Gallery, The Bakery will operate a 5,000 SF live performance venue. A platform for connection, community, and expression, this Chosewood Park location will soon be a playground for creatives in Atlanta and beyond. We hope to support artists, curators, and organizers that have a vision stretching beyond the limits of the traditional venue: a home for interdisciplinary experiences.

 
 

THE ASK:

The Bakery has never had deep pockets or high-dollar donors. For the past 5 years, we have relied heavily on small donations, earned revenue, and volunteers to keep the dream alive. 

Today, we are asking for your help in raising $100,000 to keep the dream alive and get The Bakery at Yellow Studios off the ground. Building a space for live performance isn’t easy and it isn’t cheap. We have a few months to raise these start-up funds - before our opening in Spring 2022.

They say if you build it, they’ll come. Help us build it. So you can come.

 
 

Here’s the breakdown: 

  • Equipment/Physical Assets - $20K

  • Facility/Labor - $60K

  • Legal/Business- $20K


These are rough, but frankly conservative numbers. In true crowdfunding fashion, we are asking for small donations to achieve our goal, and we believe we can with you!

  • Tier #1: $25 

    We ask that you donate $25 if you are a working artist, a service industry worker? 

  • Tier #2: $100 

    We ask that you donate $100 if the thought of spending that much money doesn’t make your heart race. 

  • Tier #3: $500 

    We ask that you donate $500 if you feel that supporting other people's dreams will not cost you yours. 

  • Tier #4: $1,000+ 

    We ask that you give at least $1,000 if you understand that the value proposition is not a financial return on your physical money but rather an endowment of support towards a cause that is fundamental to our human nature and our shared sanity.


We are hopefully emerging from a long couple of years without each other, without the arts in the way that we are used to experiencing them. And still, remember, when things are darkest, we often turn to our favorite song, our favorite movie, or our community. At the core of all of these are artists, and people. Supporting spaces like us ensures we're reemerging into a world we all still want to be here for.

SHARE:

Sharing goes a long way. If you care about The Bakery and our mission but can’t donate much, please put this in front of someone who can. Send it to your rich aunt, successful college roommate, or that friend who invested in Bitcoin in 2010. Help us spread the word!


OUR MISSION:

The Bakery is a collective of artists, curators, and creative thinkers dedicated to offering alternative models to local creatives and beyond. We host and produce experiences that encourage people to collaborate, connect, and share. The Bakery exists as a venue, an art gallery, and a playful platform for experimentation across disciplines. We currently have space in South Downtown and Chosewood Park.

 
 

HISTORY:

We’ve done it before. We can do it again. 

The Bakery was born in the Fall of 2017 in the form of a multi-faceted arts complex located at 825 Warner Street in Southwest Atlanta. The 23,000sf warehouse was first built in the 1940s as a commercial Bakery nestled between the neighborhoods of Adair Park, Capitol View, and Oakland City. The space was founded by and based on a lifetime of ideas by mother-daughter duo, Willow H Goldstein and Olive Hagemeier, alongside the various volunteers who flocked to the project. What unified us then, and now, is the belief that art is pivotal to existence. 

These early volunteers became guiding lights in the formation of The Bakery, both as a physical space and as a concept. These volunteers grew into staff, art administrators, peer facilitators, event managers, and community ambassadors. Together we transformed a barren concrete box into a  lively studio complex with various multi-use performance and art venues. We hosted live music, contemporary movement, drag shows, theatre, educational programs, late-night dance parties, and countless other projects and passions. For almost three years, 825 Warner Street served as a hub for collaboration, experimentation, learning, and play.