Since 2017, Willow Goldstein has spent her time cooking up the Bakery Atlanta. But the result isn’t pastries or sweets like the name suggests. Instead, the Bakery Atlanta is a haven for the city’s art scene: a collective of artists, curators and administrators that host and produce galleries and events.
Goldstein, the founder, owner, operator, and creative director of the Bakery grew up in Atlanta before heading to Boston to study co-op experiential education at Northeastern University. From Boston, she moved to New York and continued working in arts administration and education.
In 2016, she returned to Atlanta, drawn to the city’s “constant juxtaposition.” By then, her hometown had become a beacon for people who didn’t fit into the South, which reminded Goldstein of her time in Brooklyn.
“It’s a puzzle I can’t solve,” Goldstein said about the city. “As long as I can’t solve it, which will probably be forever, I’m going to continue engaging with it.”
But she saw a need for better arts and culture connectivity in Atlanta. At the time, Goldstein said the art scene was “very siloed.” Goldstein wanted a space to create art platforms and collaboration between artists. Then, in 2017, she found a 23,000-square-foot warehouse set for demolition on Warner Street in southwest Atlanta.
Soon, the Bakery Atlanta was born. Artists flocked to the space immediately, Goldstein said, ready to volunteer to revitalize the warehouse and put together programming and events.
Amanda Norris, the assistant director of the Bakery Atlanta’s nonprofit and executive assistant to Goldstein, was one of those early attendees. She grew up in a small town in Georgia before heading to Georgia College, a public liberal arts university in Milledgeville. Norris moved to Atlanta on New Year’s Day 2017 and got involved in the art scene through DIY magazines.
She went to the Bakery on its opening day in the fall of 2017 and said it was…
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