{"id":824522,"date":"2026-07-25T04:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/824522\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T04:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T04:16:16","slug":"when-theres-no-space-for-your-art-make-your-own-inside-a-fredericton-diy-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/824522\/","title":{"rendered":"When there\u2019s no space for your art, make your own: Inside a Fredericton DIY gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The entrance to the Mudroom gallery is a front porch.<\/p>\n

Not a lobby. Not a foyer. A front porch on Charlotte Street in downtown Fredericton, attached to the home of Sienna Ingham and Seger Dow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To walk in is to cross a threshold that feels, as Ingham puts it, like crashing someone\u2019s house. That\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not waiting for other people to do things,\u201d said Ingham, a textile artist. \u201cIt\u2019s about using what you have and not limiting yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in its second year, the Mudroom is hosting Buck \u2014 a group exhibition named after the July moon and featuring five Maritime artists working across painting, sculpture, textile and film.<\/p>\n

It’s been running weekends this July.<\/p>\n

\"ASienna Ingham says the Mudroom has no funding, and artists are paid through donation, but she believes artists should not have to wait for permission to show their work. (Jennifer William\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Ingham started the Mudroom because she believed something was missing. <\/p>\n

Not that Fredericton lacks arts spaces \u2014 the city has established institutions and commercial galleries that have served the arts community for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But those spaces, she said, tend to favour artists with long resum\u00e9s and established careers. Some of the most interesting and challenging work, she said, happens somewhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real work in subcultural and art settings \u2014 a lot of that happens in DIY spaces,\u201d she said. \u201cYou need both to have a healthy art scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mudroom costs nothing to attend. Artists are paid through donations. <\/p>\n

WATCH | \u2018You don\u2019t need permission for it,\u2019 artist says:\"\"<\/p>\n

When there\u2019s no space for your art, make your own: Inside Fredericton\u2019s Mudroom Gallery<\/p>\n

A front porch on Charlotte Street has become a home for local artists.<\/p>\n

There is no application process. Ingham hand picks the artists based not on prestige but on commitment to their practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily about the work you\u2019re making,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about your consistency and devotion to making things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ally Keane, a textile and visual artist who works with Craft New Brunswick, said the arts community already searches for the early works of celebrated artists \u2014 paintings made in their 20s that were never shown and spent decades hidden away. <\/p>\n

The Mudroom, she said, is a chance to see that work while it is still happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s even more exciting to see someone who is 25 and you see maybe their first show and then you follow their career forever,\u201d Keane said. \u201cLet\u2019s make a place for first works to find a really good home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheBuck features five Maritime artists working across painting, sculpture, textile and film. (Jennifer William\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The walls of the Mudroom porch are hung with paintings and sculpture. A found piece of wood drilled into the floor holds an old Apple monitor playing a short film on a continuous loop. A bar with flowers and exhibition catalogues sits at the back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It does not look like a gallery, and that is also the point.<\/p>\n

Ry O\u2019Toole is showing a short film in Buck called Poultice 0. It follows two fraternal twins who accidentally enter a code into a stone and get caught in a series of time loops. <\/p>\n

It is not the kind of work that finds its way easily into traditional gallery spaces. O\u2019Toole said this is part of why a space like the Mudroom matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAudiences in DIY spaces are much more open-minded,\u201d he said. \u201cIn traditional spaces, people have come to expect a certain level of familiarity with work. Here people approach it with a much more open mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opening night was packed, and people stayed and talked and asked questions about the work. For O\u2019Toole that was the proof.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real investment when you go see a show at a DIY space like Mudroom,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re speaking to somebody \u2014 not just a few people who are passingly interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ABenjamin Elder-Gomes\u2019s Adoration of the Marshi uses collaged maps and layered materials to explore colonization and Indigenous identity. (Jennifer William\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Jay Isaac knows what it looks like when a community does not have enough space for its artists. <\/p>\n

The Saint John-based multidisciplinary artist converted a dilapidated barn outside St. Martins into a contemporary art gallery called 13 Cedars. <\/p>\n

He and his partner renovated it over a year and a half \u2014 turning a rural fixer-upper into an exhibition space for emerging artists in New Brunswick. It ran until they sold the property in April.<\/p>\n

Isaac said that when he moved back to New Brunswick after years in Toronto, the gap was clear. Contemporary art infrastructure simply does not exist in New Brunswick the way it does in larger cities. The solution, he said, is not to wait for institutions to fix it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis form of autonomous organizing is in my mind the solution,\u201d Isaac said. \u201cIf you have work that you want to show \u2014 organize something and show it.<\/p>\n

“t\u2019s really as simple as that. If it\u2019s in a laundromat, if it\u2019s in a bar, if it\u2019s in a mudroom \u2014 this is really the answer. You don\u2019t need permission for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AcrylicWoodstock-based artist Alex Curtis shows his works in Buck exploring humour, beauty and meaning in rural Atlantic Canadian life. (Jennifer William\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Daniel Rumboldt has watched this happen across the country. <\/p>\n

As president of CARFAC. the national organization representing Canadian artists, he said investment in the arts has not kept pace with the number of artists making work.<\/p>\n

“And because of that artists are finding alternative spaces,” he said.<\/p>\n

Spaces like the Mudroom are both a solution and a signal \u2014 proof that communities want this and that artists will build it themselves if they have to.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmerging artists are the future,\u201d Rumboldt said. \u201cThe future of what the arts look like. The future of our culture and our tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AMaina\u2019s mixed media piece is among the works on display in the Buck exhibition. (Jennifer William\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Ingham is not interested in growth for its own sake and has no plans to move to a bigger space or scale up into something more institutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot keep looking in the same places for change,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you can find something in your heart that drives you to just keep doing it. Please do.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the last weekend for Buck, which runs Friday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 2 p.m. at 220 Charlotte St. in Fredericton. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The entrance to the Mudroom gallery is a front porch. Not a lobby. Not a foyer. A front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-824522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}