Mercury Studio: Durham, Working Together
Mercury Studio is not a traditional
coworking space. Our mission is to make Durham a better place by
- building community
- helping individuals make money doing what makes them happy
Here are some of the ways we've made these goals happen over the past year (click links to learn more):
Coworking: A shared office/workspace where anyone working on anything will feel comfortable, welcome, and focused. Our members range from oil painters to computer programmers and they all find a space to thrive.
Events: We love events. We rent our space out for events and also bring people together for our own events around all sorts of things to accomplish our goals (see above). Here just some of the events that we host every month:
Art Salon: Local artist gather to present their current work and receive earnest and specific feedback from other artists, patrons, and curators. These events are cohosted with Laura Ritchie, the Gallery Director at The Carrack.
Listening Room: We bring in local songwriters for an evening of music and conversation. The artists play one set of original music for a rapt crowd and then have the opportunity to talk about their craft and process as well as take questions from the audience. It's a unique and intimate event, enjoyed by all parties involved.
groundworkk: All attenders contribute $5 to a mason jar, listen to a few pitches from local groups or individuals who have a project idea, but need funds, ask questions, and then vote. Whichever project receives the most votes, gets the cash.
#CinemaSeries: With the help of movie-buff community members, we screen and discuss movies ranging from documentaries to mainstream favorites.
What we need.
With so much going on at Mercury Studio, the space needs some upgrades! These changes and additions will allow us to accommodate more coworkers and make us better-equipped to keep hosting community-building events.
Here is the breakdown of our upgrade goals and costs:
- $3,300 - A better kitchen. Right now, we have a sink, refrigerator, and shelf. We'd like counter space, a dishwasher, cabinets, etc.. Apart from being a better use of space, this would also allow us to host a wider variety of events!
- $900 - Two new desk spaces. Once we have a new kitchen, we'll be able to make more space in our coworking room for two new desks! These will allow us to accommodate more coworkers, and also help Mercury Studio become more sustainable.
- $3,600 - A new membership for working artists. By re-outfitting our art studio and raising funds to subsidize membership costs, we will introduce 10-15 new Working Artist Memberships. These members will utilize a collaborative meeting/workspace and participate in solo or group shows in our gallery. They will also be meeting once a month to set and report on professional goals and will be encouraged to teach public workshops in our space. The purpose of this membership is (like a lot of what we do) to help support people as they try to make a living doing what they love.
- $2,000 - A sound system and projector for our Back Room. This will not only allow us to more easily host film and live music events, but will also make our space more useful for other Durham businesses and organizations in need of meeting space.
- $1,000 - Gallery hanging system. This will allow us to show and change art more easily, help protect our walls, and create a more professional-looking space for our members and showing artists to display their work.
- $1,000 - General storage and furniture needs: A locking cabinet for new technology, art and furniture for bathrooms, and a nap area!
You might notice that this all adds up to $11,800, which is more than our goal. Well, we're hoping to smash our goal! We'll actually need almost $15000 raised here in order to have what we really need after fees and perk costs. That being said...
How you can help.
Obviously, making a contribution of your own is an awesome way to help us with this campaign, but there are other ways you can help us spread the word:
-
Social Media: Post the link to this page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, bulletin boards, or your forehead - whatever you use!
-
Personal emails: Email this campaign link to anyone who you think might be interested in participating. Friends, family, coworkers! We'll never know if they want to help unless someone asks them! Think about it. If you get two people to contribute what you contribute, you've tripled your contribution!
-
Listservs: Have a neighborhood listserv? A knitting listserv? An any kind of listserv? Send out the link!
-
Community Challenges: Really want to up the stakes? Issue a challenge to people in your community (office, neighborhood, etc.). Let them know what your contribution is and let them know how much you think your community should be able to raise. Also, let us know if you're doing this and we can come up with a prize for the community who, together, makes the greatest contribution!
Since Mercury Studio was just an idea in our brains, we've been blown away by the community support we have received. We wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for a successful IndieGoGo campaign a year ago. Let's do it again!
So much love,
Katie DeConto and Megan Jones
