SAN FRANCISCO — No one ever said the business of art would be easy. In San Francisco, the landscape has felt particularly demoralized in recent years. A cost-of-living crisis, paired with a seemingly absent collector base and the closure of local art schools, has spurred an exodus of artists and galleries alike. Those who are sticking around are turning to alternative models to survive and foster community, from nonprofit status to retail business.
Last year, Cushion Works, in the Mission District, acquired nonprofit status and launched a membership program to help keep the lights on. That wasn’t gallery founder Jordan Stein’s initial goal when he opened the space in 2018.
“I don’t think of it like a gallery, and I’ve never had a business model,” Stein told Hyperallergic. Instead, he said he’s interested in exploring “who has lived here, what has been made here, and what can we learn from that?”
His program includes a range of Bay Area artists, from local legends R. Crumb and Dewey Crumpler to outsiders like Betty Bailey and BJ Newton to Whitney-exhibiting artists like Grace Rosario Perkins and Dionne Lee.
