In the fall of 2017, 825 Warner Street became the birthplace for what would grow to become one of the most recognizable artist collectives in Atlanta, The Bakery, now based in South Downtown. The original location was just a raw space that people transformed into a magical place. Widely known for their art exhibitions, open mics, workshops, and a wide variety of other events, The Bakery has worked hard over the years to give practitioners and lovers of DIY art a space to learn, grow, network, and create.
Now, the people who started The Bakery have a new, even bigger project they are working on, The Supermarket. The founder and creative director, Willow Goldstein, and Assistant Director Amanda Norris sat down with Georgia Voice to discuss how The Bakery Atlanta came to be, what it is today and what they hope to bring to the table with The Supermarket.
Goldstein credits many of her ideas for The Bakery to her childhood and time spent with her mother on their 12-hour trips to Florida to visit family. It was a time before screens, so she said they “would make up imaginary BnBs and restaurants, talk about planning a whole menu. It was just a lot of make-believe.” Goldstein grew up around many artists in Cabbagetown before it was what it is today and her mother, who studied at the Atlanta College of Arts, always instilled in her the importance of the arts.
Goldstein’s mom also instilled in her much ambition.
“She thinks everything is possible,” she said of her mother.
That belief has always allowed her to place no boundaries on what The Bakery could be. It took that ambition to get the ball rolling in the first place. She went to college in Boston and later moved to New York for a few years, working different art internships and volunteering for different organizations, such as Arts in Bushwick, that would inspire her. She was feeling like she had run her course in New York, and Goldstein said, “I knew that if I wanted to do something I had to come home and do it.”
It took some time to get comfortable returning to an Atlanta that did not feel like the place she knew anymore, but she finally found her footing. Shortly after buying a home through a first-time homebuyers program, Goldstein personally guaranteed her lease on The Bakery’s original property, meaning that if she failed, she would lose her house. Whatever the warehouse was going to become needed to work.
When asked about what inspired the foundations for The Bakery upon its inception, Goldstein said, “When I moved home in 2017, I was like, there are so many art spaces, what am I going to do? … I felt like they were boys’ clubs that I couldn’t get into.”
Access and collaboration were a core value for her. She had found some inspiration from places in New York that were mixed-use facilities, but in Atlanta, things were more fractured between different styles, media, and circles.
When asked about their initial goals when finally getting started up, Goldstein said, “From a person who had just personally guaranteed a three-year lease on a three-acre property … My goal was just to pay the rent every month.”
Their programming started out with simple open houses where they would grill for people and see if they would help paint a wall in return. Goldstein said of the original property, “The Bakery was a building that attracted a group of people that built this thing like building their ship as it was sailing. Several of those people are still involved today.”
One of those people was Norris, who was at the very first event after hearing about it through the grapevine.
When asked what was new and different about The Bakery from her perspective, she said, “All of it … I came and I had never seen anything like it. Imagine a giant warehouse, murals everywhere, a ton of artists … Everybody seemed like best friends even though no one knew each other.”
The Bakery had an organic growth from the beginning; Goldstein and Norris both acknowledge that The Bakery became what the people who showed up made it.
Norris said of the biggest early challenges that “a lot of it was just problems that come with managing a physical space.” Goldstein said, “We’re our own property managers. We’re our own HR department, our own security.”
The team and community support have grown over the years.
The team feels like it caught lightning in a bottle with the success of The Bakery. Even through COVID-19 and closing the doors on the original space, the fire that The Bakery lit hasn’t gone out. Now they are taking on a huge new project with The Supermarket, an over 12,000 square-foot space in the Poncey-Highland neighborhood. The Supermarket will be its own thing, but will bring many of the same flavors and values seen with The Bakery. They thrive on the code: experiment, collaborate, and play.
The organic growth of The Bakery is part of what made it such a magical place. On bringing that to The Supermarket, Goldstein said, “I think that it’s something I’m struggling with in this space [The Supermarket], because it’s like the first time we did it and I know it worked doing it that way, but also this is bigger. It’s more expensive, and the stakes are higher. There’s so much more to this space that wasn’t the case then. The city is different. The part of town we’re in is different.” It’s very important to them to give the community what it needs and to let The Supermarket become its own place.”
They are very excited about the potential of the new space. The Supermarket will be big enough to hold larger-scale events for gatherings and performance arts and even host multiple events simultaneously. The Supermarket’s full potential is still unknown. Norris said, “A lot of it will depend on behind-the-scenes factors, primarily sources of funding such as corporate sponsorship and new revenue streams such as expanding our daytime educational programming.”
They have many plans aiming for more youth arts programming. Goldstein is most excited to eventually launch a youth summer camp in the future to address community needs. She said, “We’ve always existed to serve and provide a service where there isn’t one and the biggest thing that I’m hearing right now is that Atlanta does not have places where kids and parents can coexist and doesn’t have enough youth art classes.”
I asked why community is so important when it comes to artistry. Goldstein said, “I think there is true correlation between mental health and creativity for better and for worse. I think that folks who don’t necessarily fit the norms of what society wants, having space to exist safely and successfully is really important. Status quo doesn’t work for those people, so it has to be a creative space.”
Support these creative spaces this spring by attending a monthly Bring Your Own Art night at The Bakery Atlanta or be on the lookout for their many programs, including new educational workshops. They will also be hosting a youth art exhibition on March 23. Be on the lookout for the next fundraiser at The Supermarket. If you are part of a small creative business and are interested in becoming a partner, reach out! Most importantly, just spread the word. Follow them on Instagram @thebakeryatlanta and @thesupermarket.atl.