Nigel Dunn, left, opened Studio Marmōt on Glover Street — a place for young people to make “loud art.” With Dunn, from left, are Remy Blackburn, 13; Chloe Osborne, 14; and Nigel’s daughter Abby Dunn, 14.
Youth arts space opens on Glover Street
Nigel Dunn wanted a space in the Methow Valley where young people could make “loud art.”
So he opened his own and called it Studio Marmōt on the north end of Twisp’s main street, 137 N. Glover St.
“It’s for people to come make noise,” Dunn said last month in an interview in the space.
“I think that’s something that’s really missing locally,” he added. “There’s lots of quiet art. There’s commercial art. There’s nonprofit educational art. There’s not vibrant, loud art.”
Over the weeks when the space was under construction, curious passers-by already noticed a lot of commotion around the new venue, nestled between a barber shop and a store selling portable saunas.
The lookie-loos were excited to learn about Dunn’s business model, he said, “when I make a feeble attempt to explain it to them in, you know, capitalist terms — which it doesn’t fit whatsoever.”
What is Studio Marmōt, exactly? This time, Dunn made a not-so-feeble attempt at an explanation.
“If you took a coffee shop that didn’t serve coffee, and a skate shop and an art studio, and kind of crammed them all together, that’s kind of what’s going on here,” he said. “It is a third space in that sense. That is my hope for it, anyway.”
The studio is open Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 9 p.m., with expanded hours to come. Dunn hopes to attract young people to hang out and noodle on an acoustic guitar, make a painting, or take things apart on his tinkering bench. Writers can open up their laptops and discover their muse on comfy couches in one corner.
Despite Dunn’s desire to cater to the youth, he is social-media averse and doesn’t plan to use those channels to promote his new business.
“The valley’s not that big,” he said. “I feel strongly that we need to be developing more personal relationships and having conversations with people.”
Music and ice cream
Dunn envisions live bands and open mics for teens on Friday and Saturday nights, and an after-school gathering space during the week, without stepping on the toes of Room One’s new teen center.
“We’re trying to not trip over their schedule because they’re doing great things in there,” he said.
And oldsters are welcome, too, if they can handle all the noise.
“It did start out with me initially wanting to serve directly and specifically teenagers, but I know that that’s pretty ineffective,” Dunn said. “You need adults. You need mentors.”
Dunn will be there himself, of course, chaperoning the whatever-it-is that Studio Marmōt becomes. Dunn and his wife, Andrea, are committed to keeping the space open for two years, regardless of revenue, to see what happens.
As for that business model, Dunn said people can rent studio time, and ice cream and other snacks will be for sale — $3 if that price sounds right to you, or $1 if you’re a kid and that’s all you can afford.
Dunn also plans to support artists in residence with a $400 stipend (again, that dollar amount is flexible) plus supplies. The artist could sell their finished products at the studio or keep them.
“It might be good for a young artist who wants to try some stuff and doesn’t have the space for it, or the materials,” he said.
Dunn, who bought a home south of Carlton eight years ago with his wife and two children, said he and Andrea feel fortunate to be financially stable now, given their upbringing.
“We need to always be mindful of people who are in the place that we were in, and give back,” he said. “As a business, we definitely don’t measure success as profit.”
Then Dunn took one more stab at explaining Studio Marmōt.
“It’s a socialist business if such a thing ever existed,” he said. “I mean, it is what it is.”
