The ARTery provides studio space for its members to work on their art

Tim Harty, The Business Times

On June 24, with a soft opening about two weeks away and the grand opening slated a week later on July 14, Robbie Breaux and her husband, Chuck, stopped at The ARTery to check things out and eat the takeout they had picked up at nearby Tiki Bird Restaurant.

They greeted Chip Walton, the Grand Valley Creative Alliance’s executive director and the man overseeing the ARTery’s formation, and chatted briefly about how close to the finish line the project was.

“This has been a dream of mine for a long time,” said Robbie, who chairs the GVCA’s board of directors.

“Well, it’s here,” Walton said. “It’s almost fully here.”

Three weeks passed since that day, and now: IT IS HERE.

The ARTery is open, providing studio space in various forms at 539 Colorado Ave. to members to use to create their art.

The ARTery describes itself as “a community creative space with an open-studio operating model, featuring defined spaces for ceramics, fiber arts, printmaking and indoor/outdoor community spaces.”

The ARTery provides a variety of memberships from basic to premium to the private-wheel rental, its most expensive tier. To learn more about The Artery’s memberships, go online to thearterygj.org.

In addition to providing studio space, the ARTery will offer classes and workshops.

This is what Robbie Breaux dreamed about, because such space has been sorely lacking in the Grand Valley. And she and Chuck wanted it so much, they made the largest donation to the ARTery: $1 million.

A community survey, she said, revealed the need for a space like The ARTery.

“Lots of things came out in that survey,” Robbie said, “but one of them was space, a space where people can make art. So, that’s where we hoped to hit up some things that hadn’t been offered or weren’t being offered.”

The survey informed The ARTery’s setup into its four distinct areas – ceramics, fiber arts, printmaking and mixed media.

The mixed media is addressed in the front of the building, where an open area with tables lets members sit down and make what they make.

“That front part where people can store their materials and then come make, to my knowledge, does not exist in the valley, in any meaningful way, anyway,” Robbie said.

For fiber arts, she said, “There have been some fiber-arts businesses that have come and gone. So, this is coming in under a nonprofit, so hopefully we’ll be able to offer those fiber-arts materials and equipment for those folks.”

Printmaking, she said, “has kind of come and gone,” but there are some printmakers in the valley, hence a need that The ARTery can meet.

Last, but certainly not least, given it occupies the most space in The ARTery, is the ceramics studio, which is starting out with 15 ceramic wheels and several kilns, with the ability to add more of each.

It is fulfilling an unmet need, Robbie said, in that existing ceramic studios in Grand Junction simply can’t meet the greater need of the community. The current state of ceramics classes in the Grand Valley, she said, is such that when classes are offered, they’re filled within minutes, predominantly by people who don’t need the class; rather, it’s their only access to studio time.

She comes by this knowledge as a ceramic artist and teacher in the Grand Valley.

“There are lots of folks who are interested in ceramics who simply can’t get in at the places that exist,” Robbie said. “So, we want to offer primarily an open-studio concept, which is where people don’t really have to take a class. They could come in and work, presuming that they have had classes elsewhere, so they know how to use the equipment. They just need to be oriented on that equipment, and then they come and do open studio as opposed to taking a class.”

Asked if it’s safe to presume The ARTery will be embraced by Grand Valley artists and makers, given the expressed needs in the community, Robbie said, “I think this is going to go over big. I really do.

“I’m very excited about being open. It is scary, because the three front areas (mixed media, fiber arts and printmaking), I don’t have anything to compare it to. So, we don’t really know until we open the doors if people are going to come or not, but I really think they are. I’ve been talking to people, and a lot of people have been asking. So, I’m really excited.”

Membership goals

Walton said it’s difficult to address questions about membership goals and revenue projections at the outset. Given the variety of memberships, clarity will require time.

“What I will say is we want to be able to serve a really wide variety of different skill levels and types of creatives,” Walton said. “I think we’ve got the people that are hobbyists, and then we’ve got the people that take their art very, very seriously. We’ve got recent graduates, we’ve got retirees, we’ve got just, I mean, all of those kind of profiles are gonna be different types of users.”

Memberships will drive revenue, but they won’t be a lone source. The ARTery has a small retail area for sales income. Storage space will be rented out. Nonmembers can purchase drop-in passes for studio time or pay for classes or workshops.

“I would be thrilled if our revenue from the ARTery gave us 60 to 65 percent of our operating costs,” Walton said. “And then the organization through fundraising, through grants, through other activities, would backfill the remainder.”

A sizable investment

The Grand Valley Creative Alliance purchased the building at 539 Colorado Ave. in March 2025 for $745,000, according to the Mesa County Assessor website. Then, it renovated and equipped the building to house The ARTery.

“The renovations and conversion of the space and the setup costs, it’s gonna come in right around $1.6 million,” Walton said. “That’s being funded primarily through private individual donations. … We also are getting some foundation support from the Western Colorado Community Foundation, from the Gates Foundation in Denver. Alpine Bank came in with the sponsorship of the community studio. But the majority of it is coming through individual donations.”

Walton said The ARTery as a nonprofit won’t be completely self-sufficient. It always will need a mix of “government support, foundation support, the generosity of individuals.”

However, he said, “I would like to think that this would be sufficient to the extent that it could be. It could be really an anchor to what the Grand Valley Creative Alliance is doing elsewhere in the community. Getting a bricks-and-mortar space is huge for the organization. Without it, it’s very hard to sort of really solidify your presence in the community. With it, we’ll really be able to, I think, scale up the organization, our fundraising efforts, our community engagement and outreach.”

Perfect location

Robbie Breaux said after the Grand Valley Creative Alliance determined it wanted to provide a maker space, it started looking for property. But finding real estate where the alliance wanted to be, and post-COVID-pandemic, made for a longer-than-anticipated wait.

“I mean, we looked for like three years, trying to find some property,” she said. “That’s just very difficult to find any space of any size around downtown Grand Junction. We really wanted to be in the creative district.”

Breaux said talking to some different people in December 2024 led the Grand Valley Creative Alliance to 539 Colorado Ave., and it “pounced on it, because we had been looking for properties, and we would find properties and within days they were gone; somebody had bought them. So, we jumped on this one.”

The Grand Valley Creative Alliance closed on the property about three months later.

Walton added the location was ideal for several reasons, but there was one area where it fell a little short.

“It’s probably the smallest square footage that they felt was possible,” he said of the space The ARTery required. “I think ideally it would have been nice to have another thousand square feet, maybe to have some more flexibility.”

Helping offset the tight interior quarters is the patio in front, and Walton said The ARTery will make the most of it. During nice weather, a door between the patio and the mixed-media community space will be open for people to go in and out.