An Artist’s Most Dynamic Creation Is a Place

Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times The yard outside a warehouse in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, that has been transformed into housing and work space for artists.

Kellam Clark did not set out to build an artist colony. He set out to build a boat.

Mr. Clark was just out of college and filled with ambition when he planned to buy a dilapidated sailboat with five friends, find a warehouse big enough to repair it in, then become a famous artist, sail around the world, and teach schoolchildren philosophy and art via a satellite transmission along the way. That was supposed to happen in the span of a couple of months between 1999 and 2000.

Mr. Clark never became a famous artist, or sailed around the world, but he did manage to find a warehouse.

For the past 13 years he has poured his passion and ambition into a sprawling complex on Dean Street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, transforming it from a moldy abandoned assembly shop into a hot spot for creativity.

“Everyone just assumed I knew how to build a loft, which I didn’t,” he said. “So it took forever, and I just lived in it.”

The industrial space Mr. Clark now calls home became a piece of art in itself, providing inspiration to the dozens of transient musicians, writers and creative types who drift through its vast and varied spaces every day.

Dean Street, as the building is called, is not a legal residence, according to city regulations, but that has not stopped its four bedrooms from filling up each night with friends and acquaintances of Mr. Clark, as well as a number of artists and travelers passing through New York.

On a recent Monday a small contingent gathered around the long, home-built wood kitchen table, smoking cigarettes, drinking gin and tonics and listening to 1920s-era jazz.

Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times Roommates in the kitchen of the warehouse that has become an artist colony.

“The nature of most of the things I do are creative, and there’s something about being in four white walls that really puts a huge damper on trying to get in that mind-set,” said Tim Young, a 26-year-old songwriter who frequents the space. “Here you’re living in exactly the frame of mind you try to get to when you need to create something.”

The frame of mind cultivated at Dean Street did not come easily. Mr. Clark spent years living without heat and water, slowly fixing up the rented space. What he lacked in knowledge, he made up for in resourcefulness.

After landing a job as an exhibition installer at the Guggenheim Museum 12 years ago, Mr. Clark figured out a way to source many of the materials that now make up Dean Street: With a little finesse and a few free cups of coffee, he persuaded museum workers to help divert the museum’s trash to rental trucks he hired.

Now, many of the walls and shelves at Dean Street are made from the museum’s discarded wood pedestals. Mr. Clark’s most prized possession from the Guggenheim is the mesh wall separating the bathroom from the kitchen - it was part of a Frank Gehry sculpture that the museum parted with after an exhibition closed.

Dean Street toes a fine line between an artist’s and a hoarder’s paradise. One room is made entirely from the contents of a Dumpster Mr. Clark found down the street a few years ago. But according to its residents and frequent guests, the messiness of the space is what makes it so remarkable.

“We’re in a place with the inside of an artist’s brain across each wall,” said Foster Mickley, 27, a writer and photographer.

As Mr. Clark and his friends transformed the industrial space over the years, a transformation happened outside its walls as well. Crown Heights went from a crime-ridden, industrial neighborhood to a rapidly gentrifying area. Several similar warehouses on the same block as Mr. Clark’s have been converted into condominiums and offices, and now Mr. Clark predicts he will be evicted in the next few years.

But no one seems worried about leaving. To those who live in and pass through the complex, Dean Street has become more a state of mind than an actual space.

“No one can stay in one place forever, but this will be something I’ll never lose,” Mr. Young said. “I’ll be able to take a piece of Dean Street with me and keep that inside.”

Mr. Clark is less sentimental about his seemingly inevitable departure. He believes that with all the skills he learned from rehabilitating the warehouse, he will simply create a new Dean Street somewhere else.

“I’m a very project-oriented guy,” he said. “And I’ll be able to do the work faster next time.”

Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times Kellam Clark has spent 13 years transforming the building into a haven for creative people.