The WhyteStone Creative Outcrop

It’s time to pull your best stuff together and share it with the world! (Well, share it the DC metro area at least)

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/K7HL2VbpYgRb8Stf/?

CALL FOR ARTISTS AND PERFORMERS!
Artomatic 2024, our 25th Anniversary event in DC is ON and it is time to register! Registration link, dates, and all the info you need is here at artomatic.org.

Artomatic captivates, motivates, scintillates, invigorates, so everyone can participate!

Are you a creative individual who is looking more for a community than just a couple of random roommates?
The Salon Project, (a new, intentional, creative community) is currently seeking a few socially aware, actively engaged adults who are interested in joining us in co-creating a home & creative community in Columbia Heights.
We currently have mid-January/February openings for a small number of resident/co-creators to choose one of our remaining light-filled bedrooms in a beautiful Columbia Heights townhouse.
$1450.00 +shared utilities and house expenses and a commitment to community. 1st and last month required at move-in.
Previous group/community living experience strongly preferred.
The House:
Our stunning 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath home is centrally located in Columbia Heights, one of DC's most charming neighborhoods. Newly refurbished, the house is creatively decorated with lots of comfortable seating/work areas and is the ideal size for the perfect blend of privacy and community.

Misc. Details
Occasional group meals.
Communal Projects,
Fully Stocked ArtSpace,
Large format inkjet printer.
Communal Computer Workstation,
Video projection area
65-inch 4k TV
Full-sized laundry on site.
Smart LED lighting
Couples and Small Pets are invited.
The house has an enormous fenced backyard, perfect for entertaining with a fire pit, and is within walking distance to the many great restaurants, grocery stores, public transportation, and nightlife that Columbia Heights offers.
Our fantastic landlord is also part of our community, lives next door, and is very responsive.
If intentional group living sounds interesting to you, send a short email to [email protected] with the words “Salon Project” in the title, tell us a bit about yourself, your primary area of creativity, previous community living experience, and anything else interesting that you think we’d like to know!
Really looking forward to hearing from you!
The Salon Project

Who’s in?

https://flip.it/CYB.NV

The Suffolk manor house where 60 people live together

The Suffolk manor house where 60 people live together A group of 60 people who live together in a large house say they are thriving during the cost-of-living crisis.The Old Hall community share a former friary in East Bergholt, Suffolk, where they live off 65 acres (26 hectares) of land.They are working towards self-sufficiency in energy and food, with

Casting Call: Background talent for an upcoming Netflix film. $250 a day plus a Fitting fee and Covid test stipend. Apply at the link below:

https://rustindc.castingcrane.com/?fbclid=IwAR2F8WEyMmWpjlpWNikygLYAmw3IZwYP40yNuVf4POCvOlRlQl1b5n3ldWQ&fs=e&s=cl

RustinDC RustinDC

A number of WhyteStone Creative Outcrop” and “Black Rock/East” artists have been injured directly by the actions of this individual.

Owner Spotlight: Charles Lankford

(Note: These “spotlights” are written collectively by a group of tenants who directly experienced these things)

Charles Lankford lives in the Florida Keys and rarely comes to Baltimore. When he does, he refuses to sleep in his own building, instead choosing to sleep in his quarter-of-a-million-dollar camper while it blocks residents from half the parking lot.

He bought the building for around $250,000 in the 80s, and has put minimal effort or money into maintaining it since. The majority of improvements made on the building have been made by tenants-every time someone installs a bathtub or better kitchen, he kicks them out and re-rents the apartment for more. 

He’s the kind of guy that would prefer to spend more money bandaging a problem than to just do it right, despite personally being a multimillionaire. (That’s right, Brice and Jess’s dad is a millionaire, don’t let them tell you they grew up “middle class”) He voted for Trump and will go out of his way to try and convince you why you should have voted for Trump too.

Instead of replacing a badly leaking roof, he sends random maintenance guys up there with a bucket of tar to patch a problem, and instead of hiring an elevator repair guy, he has someone fix the door with a roll of steel wire and some tape. Then he acts surprised when two weeks later, people still have water pouring through the ceiling and the elevator is shorting out because the door won’t close properly. He will blame overworked maintenance people forever when he knows damn well his refusal to properly address issues is why the building is falling apart.

Literally his only contribution to the existence of the CopyCat is buying it in the 80s and then charging us rent while we made it the phenomenon it is. When he’s finally run us all out, all he will have is a warehouse building full of lead and asbestos.

During the pandemic there were lots of claims he needed us to pay him rent or else they couldn’t afford operating costs, but he got a PPP loan and his original mortgage was paid off decades ago. He paused all maintenance on the building during the pandemic and we know he cut pay for at least one of the maintenance guys, so what operating costs did he have exactly? Especially ones that he couldn’t pay as a guy who’s been making millions off of this building and other businesses for years. A guy who owns a Tesla can afford to fix an elevator and pay his maintenance crew, even with lost profit from a global economic collapse. 

For a couple years now, even before the pandemic, he has been under the impression that if he paints the inside of the building white and breaks it up into a bunch of studio apartments, he can charge “people from DC” $1200+ for a studio and maximize profits. (Mind you, many of these studios have shared bathrooms, with one shower for a whole floor, and you’re not allowed to have a stove in your apartment). He apparently thinks people from Washington DC are stupid?

He doesn’t care that the arts community has been making him money and improving his building for literally decades, we were a stopgap measure to make some profit while he waited for the neighborhood to gentrify, and he can’t wait to displace more people. He thinks if he can kick us all out, he can just lie to new people from outside the city and tell them the lead and asbestos have been taken care of. Don’t let him do it.

He claims to be a “patron of the arts” but let’s call him what he really is-A slumlord who believes the DIY scene exists for him to exploit and take advantage of. He doesn’t see a community full of creativity and passion, he sees people who will put up with a lot because they are trying to build dreams, and he wants to push them to the very limits of what they can handle so he can make a buck.

Good info

If you call yourself a Maryland Artist, you should apply for a stipend and attend the summit!
It’s simple. Do It!

Maryland Arts Summit | MCA - Maryland Citizens for the Arts The Maryland Arts Summit will take place on Thursday, June 9th & Friday, June 10th, 2022 at UMBC in person with limited virtual offerings!

Hey Family- We wanted to let you know that our dear Tumble has taken his final walk. He Loved deeply and was deeply Loved.

Long live Tumble. 💙