The Art House

Syracuse, New York

In 2017, after many years of teaching at the collegiate level, I felt a renewed charge and mission to help communities in dire economic and societal crisis using music and art as a means for transformation. To that end, I help found the Art House Alliance. With 16 university students and members of the downtown Syracuse community, I set out to fix up an abandoned drug house. It took a month and half to get it livable for the first residents: a violinist, violist and cellist which coincidentally and fortunately made up a beautiful string trio. The Art House Ensemble, (as it became to be known), presented a multitude of concerts including performances at the Cancer Center of Upstate New York, the Veterans Association, Civic Morning Musicale Community Concerts, the Everson Art Museum and numerous assisted living centers as well as the Art House itself. 

The Art House Alliance provided housing for the initial residents, who were also in dire need of financial assistance, in exchange for giving back their gifts as performers and teachers to their  surrounding communities . Thus began the beginning of a poignant partnership between artists and community who have the ability to influence social and economic change. Since the inception of The Art House Alliance I have witnessed a wealth of significant metamorphoses in the community. Providing a hot meal for hungry children and adults with musical and artistic instruction coupled with live performance literally fed my neighborhood in need’s souls and tummies. I have observed first-hand the power of music and art to transform people’s lives, whether it is giving them inspiration or igniting their own inner musician and artistry.

 The art that has been created by the community members themselves has touched all of us more than we could have ever anticipated. The drawings and paintings hang in and outside of the Art House not only creating beauty but serve as a reminder of the creative gifts that are embodied within in all of us. The Art House has been filled with music whether it be improvisatory singing and playing gatherings with the residents of the house and community, composing, open rehearsals, sound healing workshops and spontaneous poetic renderings to music. 

There is an area of downtown Boston dubbed “Methadone Mile” which is a district in crisis now at the height of the opioid epidemic. I am a dreamer that music and art can inspire and create change even if “the onset starts small” with one person, and that one person becomes two people, then three, and eventually a neighborhood and community that believes in the collaborative power of change through artistry will realize itself. 

Today, the Art House is a fully functioning center for the arts, hosting a myriad of different cultural events, artists, and workshops. Click here to explore their website

Sincerely, 

Laura Bossert-King

Artistic Director