Support Rural Arts

Support the dream of ARQ

We have been providing rural artists with affordable living and work studio spaces for over 25 years. Generating thousands of works, in dozens of creative mediums.

Above all ARQ is a dream and a goal. It’s difficult to keep in operations, and has relied heavily on under-compensated labor (mostly David’s, but definitely Scott, Chris, Alex, & Zoë as well) throughout its history.

Many of our artists are low-income - and work in crafts and skills that are often undercompensated. We want their work to be respected, celebrated, and integrated into personal and public spaces everywhere! BUY MORE LOCAL ART

Explore our recent "Investment Projects" on the "Scaffolding” page

Pictured are five electric heat pumps, installed in 2024 as part of our BlocPower project.

What are upcoming property goals?

All our structures are timber framed and 75 to over 100 years old. The list of broken windows, painting projects, and socket replacements is endless.
Much of our work is completed by current ARQtists work-trading rent through sharing their skills.
Our 2025-2027 goals: repair dry-rot floor in the Grey Barn on the Goldenrod level. Replace broken window panes in storage area of ARQ Barn, build a composting toilet outhouse to lessen pressure on shared bathrooms.
Every time a studio is vacant we try to pursue improvements to the space. Sometimes this looks like adding a sink, replacing floor boards, or painting the walls.
Our 2025-2027 Goals: We are planning to add gutters to both Metal Shop buildings, to mitigate the ground-level flooding that has been a recent issue. Planning to repaint the windows on the first and second floors of the ARQ Barn to preserve the wooden frames.
Add induction burner and personal sink to two studios. To lessen pressure on shared kitchen.
We believe in sustainable reuse building practices, to that end we are regularly checking the current inventory at Finger Lakes ReUse, and local demolition sites, to use these items in upcoming ARQ repair and improvement builds. If you work in a space that regularly has bulk building materials to offload, reach out to see if they could help us build our inventory of necessary materials when they become available (eg. roofing, lumber, building materials), at a fraction of the regular cost.
We are on a long-term goal of replacing all our heating and cooling in each studio with electric heat pumps. In 2024 we installed 15 heat pumps in the ARQ Barn (!!), which was a monumental leap forward in this effort! We still have 4 more living and work spaces we’d like to add heat pumps to.
We are also pursuing better weatherization solutions in all our buildings, and swapping out appliances for energy sensitive models.
To support our ARQtists, we encourage you to buy directly from them!
We are actively trying to pursue solutions for increasing public art on the property, and encourage current residents to pursue long-term installation pieces in various areas.