“your lease will not be renewed” and with those fateful six words the twenty year tenancy of contemporary artists in the Oldknows Factory was sealed.

There is not enough space here to start unravelling the history of the art studios, the ups (four flights of stairs) and downs (because you forgot to buy the biscuits from the very convenient placed shops across the road).  Once these words were uttered the process of finding a new space started as did the seemingly insurmountable task of clearing the space. There was twenty years worth of accumulated junk in amongst all the finished or incomplete work; projects started and abandoned things, lost never to see the light of day until now, ideas buried beneath piles of usable material. Its a case of finish or chuck it. The bins have been filled and refilled. Quite often I might take rubbish to the bins and return with armfuls of usable stuff that someone else had thrown out.

So like rats leaving a sinking vessel the artists are on the move, strange that we should be sidelined by a push to develop the building as a centre for the creative industries. Maybe contemporary art is not creative, or perhaps we just don’t work hard enough; it might be that in this visually illiterate outpost of consumer society, art is just not seen as important. Therefore, artists who generate very little income in a society where income or should I say economics is seen as the only way of doing something, become inconsequential. What I say to all these philistines out there is remove all reference to visual art from society and see what a mess it would be.

So what will I miss about the Oldknows studios…. well there is the view over the city, how many studios can boast such a vista? I have often thought about collecting up all the photos and paintings of these views and developing an exhibition, but maybe that’s best left as just a thought. Of course with a view comes light and again I don’t know of other studios that can equal this. I shall also miss the steady trickles of dust emanating from the ceiling as it slowly contracts following the renewal of the roof, I am not sure which I prefer the dust or the drizzle from the leaks, dodging around with buckets trying to catch the drips was always good fun. And then there were those crazy occasions trying to herd pigeons out of the windows made even more interesting if several people joined in, often this became a bit like a game of tennis… and of course i shall miss the four flights of stairs to and from the studio.

Naturally my first reaction when hearing those fateful words was “oh fuck” , “disaster “ , “end of an era “ and other such lamentations. But then the search for a new space kicked in and as some of us went looking at other spaces and the resolve was to move out and start afresh, things did not seem so bad. In fact now I am of the opinion that this might be the best thing to happen to us for a long time. Shake the whole thing up start again. Out of this can arise a new stronger group, okay we may lose a few here and there, that’s to be expected, but now is the right time to be thinking in these ways, after all the whole economic system is in freefall god knows where it is going to land.

So as the economic systems collapse the demand for large refurbished office space or even the dreaded studio flat diminishes and thus releasing onto the market a loose knit organisation of thirty plus artists whose only demand is a large space and a roof, a bit of light and running water (preferably not down the walls or from the ceiling), is seen by many an estate agent as a godsend, a chance to off load those awkward rough and ready spaces that no one else would dream of using. Maybe this is why I have these people actually ringing me up and telling me about potential spaces. Many of these properties stand empty which means that we can actually pick and chose, offer mad deals for cheap rent or even no rent and opt for the right space for the bigger and better more dynamic group. The group’s identity, built up over the years as always distinct from one another but always on the same track, can hopefully be taken this with us into a bigger and brighter future. There is a deal being negotiated that could place us in the centre of town and I bet once we get in there and have an open studio we will get far more visitors.

Paul Matosic, Artist