Rising rent and taxes threaten Vancouver non-profit that provides space to artists

A Vancouver non-profit that has been supporting full-time artists with subsidized rent says their financial situation is dire — and the 95 small-business owners are all at risk.

Glass artist Jude Kusnierz started Beaumont Studios when she decided to split the cost of renting out a black box theatre on the corner of 5th Avenue and Alberta Street in 2004 with a group of artists.

The vision for the small-business collective arose three years earlier after a recession hit North America and Kusnierz was forced to lay off staff.

“I’d stand in front of the window every day and turn to my remaining staff and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a gallery up here, and sold our wares, and the wares of other artists who made products in Vancouver?’”

A similar fate now threatens her non-profit, which in two decades has provided studio, event, store, gallery and recording spaces for more than 90 Vancouver artists that occupy its two buildings.