Tool & Die Arts Collective

Origin story

Fourteen artists took a five-year lease on an empty tool-and-die shop in 2015 to get studios they could afford. The gallery at the front began hosting memorials almost immediately, because two of the fourteen died in the first eighteen months.

Why families choose us

White walls, a concrete floor, a good sound system and forty feet of clear span. It is a gallery, so it is the easiest room in the city to turn into whatever a family needs — a screening, a wake with a band, an afternoon of people writing on the walls, which we allow and then repaint. Most of the memorials here are for artists, musicians and the people who worked around them, and they rarely look like a funeral. We will hang someone's work for the day if the family brings it, run a projector, mix live sound for a band, and take the whole thing down afterward. Members' families pay nothing. Everyone else pays a rate that keeps the lights on, and we will tell you honestly if a smaller room somewhere else would serve you better.

Ownership