If you went to art school, where do you live? (And where do you want to live?)

[Dugger57]

Help me settle an argument with my DH. I think there is such a thing as an “arty area” and I think ours used to be, but now it’s a city-worker area. He thinks I’m bonkers and places are just places.

I can start it : I live in Victoria Park (but not really sure where I want to live!).

Not that it matters at all, but I’m sure there’s a trend! “Arty areas”, I think, are ones that were once inexpensive and have a particular feel about them.

(Anyway maybe you all think I’m bonkers too!)

There’s one near me. There are annual Artists’ Open Houses so clearly a higher concentration of artists than most places. Some coastal towns are popular with artists too. The areas are often perceived as cool so they become more popular/expensive.

I've never heard of an "arty" town before. I'm sure most coastal towns and some of the prettier parts of London would work. I want to move back to London from Yorkshire!

I went to CSM, mainly lived in Stokie, Dalston whilst in London. I now live somewhere very middle class/conservative but quite cosmopolitan and in close proximity to London to get my culture fix.

Your 100% right, artists, musicians, alternative types create a great community before gentrification comes along, price hikes pushes the creatives out to cheaper areas. This happened in Shoreditch/Hoxton/ spitalfields 10-15 years ago It’s was run down and very gritty. I remember going to some mad warehouse parties. Not a chain in sight. Then slowly the likes of Pret appeared, it’s was taken over by city boys and the artists, musicians, fashion types moved further north to Dalston, Clapton and beyond.

My cousin lives in Shoreditch

Yes! In fact, I lived in Shoreditch in the late 90s and it’s unrecognisable now (to be honest, so is Victoria Park to an extent).

jojo yes - I think that’s true! Where is that town, out of interest?

Op it depends if you need close proximity to London, but Brighton and Margate seem they’d be what your looking for in terms of an Art scene. I’ve not lived in either so I couldn’t comment in terms of specific areas.

The place I’m near to is Carshalton Village in the London suburbia. There are artists’ open houses, a community run theatre and a few other things.

Folkestone / Margate / Bristol / Brighton / Bethnal Green - those sort of places (I'm not sure about more northern locations)

I guess places like New Cross & Elephant might be considered up and coming and have cheap (ish) artist studios.

@Dugger57

"Arty Area" to me sounds like somewhere a with connections to artists (current figures and historical figures).

So, I think Bristol and Weston Supermare because of Banksy (Dismaland was in Weston Supermare).

Edinburgh is an "arty place" imo. I think of Edinburgh as a sort of "Athens of the North". Think J.K. Rowling writing in a cafe. Robert Burns, Arthur Conan Doyle and loads more.

London in general is an "arty area" imo. Loads of art galleries, museums, West End theatres, celebrity culture etc.

• Camden because I recall reading about all those famous folk in the arts who live there. Stephen Fry in West Hampstead part of Camden and Tim Burton (with Heena Bonham Carter?) living in Hampstead (I think?). Lots of famous people spotted in that part of NW London.
• Saint John's Wood I think of as arty too. Abbey Road Studios. Paul McCartney etc. Maida Vale down the road (makes me think of Radio 1 hosting there, the I used to listen to the station many moons ago!).
• Bloomsbury. Makes me think of the publishers (of Harry Potter etc.) and Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury Group etc.

Norwich is very arty. I would say that is the adjective that suits it most. It even has it's own art school!

@kezziethecat that makes sense. UEA has a leading department in creative writing...

Hay-On-Wye is another place I’d call “arty”. Maybe it’s places notable enough for literature and arts festivals. Add Cheltenham to that list too then.

chocotrio yes and it's a 'UNESCO city of literature', whatever that is!

I agree there are arty areas - but I went to art school and lived in Wimbledon, which one could hardly call ungentrified, and before that lived in Putney. I didn't work as an artist though, I did commercial design. My daughter is very creative and I think London is the place to be.

Frome / Totnes / Stroud. I went to art college and live in one of them...

Went to Wimbledon school of art- lived in Victoria Park/Bethnal Green for ten years and still pine for it sometimes; but when I go back, it’s exactly as you say; Not The Same.

Have been in Leytonstone for the past two years and feel settled now. Mainly because everyone’s from Hackney I’ve bumped into three people from my course/year who live here too

Three other friends have moved to Frome

Another few to Margate. I hate Margate.

I liked Hastings recently, but got talked out of a move on here

Ha Usernamenotavailabletryanother I think I read that Hastings thread!

Yeah most of my Victoria Park friends moved on to Leytonstone / Walthamstow! I am ready to move, but no idea where on earth to go.

I agree with you on liking Frome but not Margate!

I would say Peckham, goldsmith nearby and art schools and UAL

Some parts of Bristol. UWE has a campus at Bower Ashton. So Hotwells, parts of Clifton and DD said some friends were at Montpelier and I think it was Stokes Croft. Spike Island as there is a large print studio there but I think a lot of artists are priced out from there now as water side flats have been built. In the ten years since DDstarted Uni the prices have risen considerably. I was quite keen to buy a small flat but she liked one which would be hard to resell and I liked the apartments being created near SS Great Britain. She stayed down there so it would have been handy for us to stay. They have nearly doubled in price so I wish I had bought it for us.
It isn’t arty just because of Banksy it has been so for quite a long time. They do shut off streets for a few days for a street art/ graffiti weekend and have musicians playing in those streets. They have lots of unusual festivals- Balloon, vegan etc.
Walking around there are definitely some areas more arty than others so I agree with you. Opportunities to sell your work too in small galleries.
Some coastal villages, some areas of Scotland especially the coast and Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I went to LCF. I live in a very non-artsy, Tory- and Brexit-voting village in the East of England (it has other redeeming features!). Definitely no enclave of Arty Folk here!
It is a short-ish (but very expensive at current rail fares) trip into London for us to get an art fix, as nearby towns place an equal amount of importance on the arts as our village.

Ah, forgot to add where I'd like to live! In an ideal world Rickmansworth, Sarratt, the nicer parts of Bushey, or similar. Basically closer to London, in an area I know (with people I know nearby), that has an appreciation of arts and culture without being too urban.

I went to art college, and where I live in quite arty, but that's a coincidence (I think, maybe not, maybe I was drawn here), I have also lived in non-arty places.

For those of you who maybe aren’t ‘arty’, and don’t live in London (as most of the arty types on this thread seem to) Victoria Park is in Tower Hamlets, London. I did wonder for a moment how strange it was that you lived in Victoria Park because we have one of those in Glasgow too.

Truly arty places are usually the cheapest, scruffiest areas of a city/town where the artist can live cheek by jowl with the working classes. ‘Arty’ places now are the gentrified areas that sell artisanal shite and have lots of barbers and vegan bookshops. In Glasgow that’ll be Finnieston which was recently voted one of the ‘hippest’ places to live in the U.K. (surely it’s death knell!)

So OP you are not mad it is very much ‘a thing‘ and something that estate agents would speak of

(I imagine some of these areas will see a decided downturn following the pandemic unfortunately)

Tottenham is quite arty at the minute. A lot of younger artists who are priced out of Dalston and Stokey now moved into Tottenham. There are large warehouses converted into artists studios, and arty/hipster clubs and bars have been opening up over the last few years.

I went to Wimbledon too [waves]. I've lived in/spent time in Hackney, Clapton, Borough SE1, Peckham, Shoreditch. All following the typical cheap artists studios-gentrification-expensive route. It's classic across the world (Tribeca, Soho in NY etc).

Recently left town for quite un-'arty' (but beautiful) part of Kent, after ruling out the current classic arty persons leaving London retreats of Brighton, Margate, Whitstable, or the smaller little outriders like Dungeness (where you now can't throw a paintbrush without hitting an 'artist').

After having a couple of chats with friends who have left arty areas for more rural, you do tend to find like minds anywhere one way or another. Unfortunately none of those routes work in lockdown so I haven't yet found the arts community here having moved the week before lockdown :-(

Margate and Hastings are heaving with 30+ year olds making new communities outside of expensive London. Having lived in Peckham for 10 years where it's like living in a trendy magazine I had 'FOMO' burnout as there was simply so much art, music, open house, craft markets and workshops. All of which is 👌👏👏👏👏. I just felt I wasn't relishing or valuing it as much as I should have (guilt again). We moved with the idea that we would real REALLY enjoy commuting back into London for art and theatre. God I miss Art and Theatre. Fuck COVID

Of course there are loads of arty town s all over - not sure anyone's mentioned the original art community of St Ives?

Priced out Of Stoke Newington. I visited friends there back in the 80s and was there last year......what a change. And not all good tbh.