Queery's future brick and mortar. 160 presumpscot street, portland maine

- in practice -

Queer•y is

a mixed use space

with five main limbs

“Key Holder” Members have access to 1200 square feet of shared practice space available 24/7 except during lecture or programing. They also have access to three private studio spaces (8x8 and 6x8) to book anytime, to one (of thirty two) 24 cubic foot storage lockers and to a collection of kits; each specific to an art or craft medium.
600 square feet of the main space is held for exhibition. This area will be available for touring artists to show work and for Key Holder members to exhibit their work in progress. Queer•y plans to establish as low a gallery percentage take as possible, starting at 15% and adjusting down when other avenues of funding are available.
Exhibiting artists will be giving lectures and leading workshops. Sometimes, these will be available only to key holder members, sometimes to key holder and community members, and other times ticketed and open to all. We are going to be recording and archiving these lectures and workshops for members to access and to live stream to anyone virtually. We see ticket sales to non-members for these lectures and workshops supporting both the artist and Queer•y’s programming.
Members will also have access to programming built around resourcing one’s life outside of an art practice such as work shops with…
- A bank branch manager to talk about financial planning and credit
- An auto mechanic to learn about accessible car maintenance practices
- A lawyer to learn about renters rights
Good Orderly Direction, Padien’s “conversational consultation” practice, will run out of an office within Queer•y’s walls. Key Holder members will have time each month to chat with Padien about art and life and finding more symbiosis between the two.
We see all of Queer•y’s programing, exhibition, shared creation space and mentorship as creating opportunity for LGBTQ artists to find one another. There is nothing more integral to life than community; it’s where we find support.

It’s a way of communal resourcing and of gathering to be more resilient, more impactful and more joyous; to collaborate and to share the skills and knowledge that we each have as individuals to support each other as a community. Simply, it’s a safe space to be queer, to make art and to ask questions.

This mission is in direct response to the vital role that artists play in our community as forces of cultural shift and to the idea that most organizations that exist to support artists end up being extractive of those artists beyond the artist’s means, especially of those in minority groups.

- IN MISSION -

It’s a gathering space where LGBTQ artists can be free and resourced to create, where queer people can find loving support, where artists from within and outside our direct community can exhibit work and share knowledge and experience with our members to foster a confident, diversified approach to living a stable life in symbiosis with their creative practice.