Kathleen Cei Photo

Leslie Shaffer, executive director of ArtSpace

New Haven's City-Wide Open Studios was "already moving" when Leslie Shaffer took the reins at Artspace in July, inheriting the gallery's arts festival from her predecessor, Helen Kauder, as a hand-me-down. But there's reason to think that the reverence Shaffer has thus far shown Kauder's vision may not endure beyond this year's event. Though noncommittal about possible changes, Shaffer's suggested that the future of Open Studios may be a less open, more streamlined affair—highlighting the work of "professional" artists in a more structured (some might say "legitimate") annual festival.

While this year's Open Studios has remained essentially unchanged, a relic of the bygone Kauder era, it will diverge from tradition in two significant ways. For the first time, this year's alternative art space—the temporary studios available for participating artists—will be a repeat of last year's Hamden Middle School location. Under Kauder, Open Studios commissioned a different space every year, adding an element of newness not just to the art but its environment. Artists used the space they were given to their creative advantage—turning a dilapidated, abandoned or otherwise unloved building into a medium with which to work. But the break with that tradition, says Shaffer, was a function of logistics, not ideology.

In May, Kauder selected the Prescott Bush public housing project in Dixwell—which was empty, and about to undergo renovations—as this year's alternative space. By August, when Shaffer visited Prescott Bush, there was a shortage of wall space for hanging art (wood-veneered cabinetry consumed expanses of that precious commodity). The space was already smaller than previous years, says Shaffer, and with the limited wall space was no longer large enough to accommodate the 250 or so registered alternative space artists.

While Shaffer says the shift from having a different space each year wasn't a choice so much as a necessity, she seems to have her doubts about the merits of change for change's sake. "This space works really well," she says of the Hamden Middle School. "I think that we would like to come back to New Haven, but I can't say for sure. This can accommodate our needs in a very nice way.

"Do you go with [what] works really well," asks Shaffer, "or do you go with the mysterious?" Locals, who've watched the event over the years, may see the choice of site as being rich with significance, but Shaffer—direct from Washington, D.C.—does not. "For me it doesn't have any meaning," said Shaffer, "other than we can accommodate a safe, healthy and positive experience for the artists. That's my criteria."

Returning to the same space this year may have contributed to the second major break with tradition. The sort of alterations artists have often made to their temporary studios—painting them with elaborate murals, mounting chairs in a sculptural pattern from floor to ceiling—won't be allowed this year. Shaffer wants to "leave the space better than we found it." If it seems odd that a gallery director would see residual art as the equivalent of property damage, it also says something about Shaffer. As reticent as she is to comment on what changes she may bring to Artspace—and, in turn, to Open Studios—one thing about the gallery's new director seems clear: She's no libertine.

When she talks about Open Studios being "uncensored," she practically blushes. And though her comments about the festival are invariably positive on their face, it's hard not to read some as having an undertone of derision. When she says, for example, that "unjuried just means that it's a free-for-all," it's difficult to hear that as a good thing. When she says that she came to "this wonderful festival that's already set up," only to add that her staff has "done an incredible job professionalizing it even more so this year," one wouldn't be out of line to think that maybe the festival isn't all that wonderful after all. When she says, "We're just going to make it a little tighter," the implication seems to be that the event as it's existed is in need of realignment. It may well be needed, but any reshaping that Shaffer does will not be without detractors.

Even something as simple as how artists are grouped within the alternative space might feel like a big change for those accustomed to the more haphazard arrangement of year's past. This year, Shaffer decided to group artists according to their medium.

"That's the best we could do," she explained, because she arrived so late in the process. Next year, she plans to "be more thematic with it." That will likely mean earlier deadlines and a more careful review of content. It may mean that not everyone who signs up is able to participate—though on that point Shaffer is particularly cagey: "I don't know enough yet," she says when asked whether the event will continue to be unjuried. "That is [Helen Kauder's] thing that she started and we'd like to do that—at least this year." So what about next year? "I don't know," Shaffer says, laughing. "If we can find something, sure."

Finding a big enough alternative space has grown more difficult over the years, says Shaffer, as there are fewer large, empty buildings. The ones that do exist are often either too "raw"—meaning that they are closed box stores, or other large, open spaces that would need to be built out to have enough wall space for a show—or lack plumbing and electricity.

The former Curator of Education at the Corcoran Gallery, Shaffer comes out of the Big Time institutional art world. As she told the Yale Daily News in September, she sees her job at Artspace as an opportunity to work with "emerging artists," but has also commented that this formerly New Haven-centric institution could look past Connecticut to remain contemporary and relevant. "We definitely want to reach out to more members of the New Haven community, and we'd also like to go farther afield—maybe get some more New York people here, too."

Looking "farther afield" has already begun. This year—in celebration of the 10-year anniversary of Open Studios—local artist and Artspace visual arts committee member Joseph Smolinski has curated "The Lasso Project," which will bring influential alumni of the New Haven art scene back to their roots. The project will present the work of nine artists who have passed through New Haven (and several who've stuck around, like longtime Open Studios coordinator Johanna Bresnick and established New Haven painter Frank Gardner).

Sometimes, says Shaffer, New Haven artists "go outside of New Haven and they become artists in their own right—or different kinds of artists—and we follow those careers. These are some people we felt had really made a significant impact on the art world and New Haven." The idea that leaving New Haven amounts to success, or that being a New Haven artist is somehow less—less successful, less influential, less professional—than artists who've opted to leave, may not be what Shaffer intends with these types of comments, but it may also rub New Haven's arts boosters the wrong way.

fmoon@newhavenadvocate.com