This article was originally published in The Bastion, currently under renovation.
Before his introduction to BC developer Reliance Properties, Logan Ford had no reason to trust landlords. He arrived in Victoria from Calgary in 2007 as an HVAC tradesman by vocation and an oil/acrylic painter by avocation, just in time for the 2008 recession to dry up most of the available construction work. “I ended up framing houses for twelve bucks an hour,” says Ford. “I was miserable, hating my boss, and one day I just quit. I didn’t know what to do, but I was always making art.”
The week he left his job he sold a painting for $500, “which paid my rent, so I thought, okay, well, I’ll just keep this going as long as I can.” Victoria has long been a city rich in visual artists and poor in spaces for making and exhibiting art.
To navigate this paucity of affordable Victoria studio space, Ford—together with partner Ian George—rented 600 square feet in an old building in Burnside Gorge, and in 2013 the Rockslide Studio & Gallery was born. Within three years they had expanded to 4000 square feet, providing affordable studio space to a community of twenty-five artists. At the end of their initial five-year lease, the landlord doubled the rent in a successful effort at evicting Rockslide from the property.
Ford and George were offered a deal on a rundown property on Herald Street, on the condition they would restore the building at their own expense. They accepted on the assurance of an eight-year residency, and after months of major surgery—including hazardous-material removal, a new roof, and a fully muralled exterior—the landlord promptly sold the building to a Vancouver developer, who immediately demolished it. Rockslide was homeless once again.
They moved into a small industrial building in Rock Bay next, but their community was growing and they were in need of more space, not less. Ford’s persistence led to a meeting with Reliance, who had purchased the four-storey art deco heritage building on Blanshard at Burdett in 2019 with an eye toward turning it into a hotel topped by an eighteen-storey condo tower. Ford brokered what he terms “a great deal” for Rockslide to move in with a short-term lease, and took over the first and second floors.
“Within a few months the word got out that we had affordable studio space, and there was so much demand right away that we took the rest of the building, and now we have a huge wait list,” says Ford. With a temporary lease until January 2024, the building, once the home of the BC Power Commission (a precursor of BC Hydro), boasts sun-filled studios for eighty-five artists, four galleries, and five unique arts and culture organizations in addition to Rockslide: the Ministry of Casual Living, Supply Victoria, the Victoria Tool Library, Haus of Owl, and Sweetpea Gallery. Built as a WWII-era hospital that was rendered unnecessary by the end of the war, the generously wide hallways (for stretcher access) and high ceilings provide for excellent gallery displays. It’s a dream space for working artists, albeit a potentially temporary one.
Simon Ogden 