While Robert Linsley’s "Failed Regionalism" continues to generate groans from the local arts community, a recent event at the home of Lindsay Brown has had a more positive effect.

Hosted by The Or Gallery, the Brown salon featured gallery staff, board members, artists, curators, arts administrators and developers gathered together to discuss artist residencies in relation to future Or programming.

Most impressive about this evening was the range of contributors, not just those from what we have come to know as the “arts community”, but the presence of developers and landlords, those with the means to house visiting artists, as well as include them in schemes of their own.

Although artists have figured prominently in the gentrification process, I left the meeting hopeful that developers and landlords have come to see artists less as a temporary measure than as something more foundational, a keystone in the built environment, a collaborator as opposed to a condom.

Thanks to Lindsay Brown for opening her home to such an extraordinary meeting. Thanks also to Lorna Brown for her expert facilitation.