This article was published in The Huntington News: Local art center faces closure as lease deadline looms ahead
After only a year and a half in business, the Boston Figure Art Center, or BFAC, in Somerville is teetering on the edge of closure — but many community members are hoping to keep it alive.
In December 2023, Damon Lehrer, founder of the BFAC, invested all his financial resources to open a roughly 4,000 square foot community-based art studio in Union Square. Despite its packed event schedule and monthly membership programs, Lehrer has been spending thousands of dollars out of pocket to stay afloat in the high-rent area, he told The Huntington News. With the studio’s lease renewal deadline Sept. 1, Lehrer must decide whether the space is worth keeping.
Lehrer, a professional artist who has worked as an art teacher at universities such as Boston University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Rhode Island School of Design, imagined the BFAC as a space for non-creative professionals and art specialists alike.
“[Non-creative professionals] are making a living, but they need some art in their lives. [Artists] are not making a living, but we have tons of art in our lives,” Lehrer said. “So if we could just bring these two classes of people together, we could benefit [from] each other enormously.”
Having worked toward his goal of bringing people together for nearly two years, Lehrer still believes in what artists can provide, especially at the BFAC.
“I would prefer to think of the arts as a resource for the community and for the world, which people really, really need,” Lehrer said. “I wanted to see if we could prove that an arts business like this could survive and thrive in a market-rate situation, just like a lawyer or a biotech company could.”
Keara Flynn, the managing director of the BFAC, said business is better than it’s ever been. Flynn said around 200 people currently pay for the BFAC’s monthly membership and more than 20 volunteers help with everything from social media marketing to hosting events.
Flynn is the only full-time employee at the BFAC, and she works constantly to help promote, facilitate and run the center.
“I just want to keep the pattern going as it is, people getting involved, feeling passionate about it, finding purpose in this place and contributing toward it,” Flynn said. “We’ve become part of people’s everyday lives, almost like a home.”
While the BFAC is gaining members, the center still isn’t making enough to keep up with Somerville’s rising rent. A 2025 credit survey by the Federal Reserve System discovered many small businesses, like the BFAC, are facing a similar struggle with the increased cost of living. Of 295 responses from small businesses in Boston, Cambridge and Newton, 59% said “paying operational expenses,” such as rent, was a financial challenge in 2024.
However, even in the digital age, one of the biggest challenges for the BFAC and other small businesses is customer outreach. While the BFAC has over 7,500 followers on Instagram and posts almost every day, the center still struggles with recruiting enough paying members to stay open.
“It’s taken us a year and a half to get to 200-ish members. If we could get another 100 this summer, we would absolutely sign the lease,” Lehrer said. “We have created the thing. We need people to know about it.”
In 2024, 60% of 288 of businesses in Boston, Cambridge and Newton agreed that “reaching customers/growing sales” was a challenge, according to the Federal Reserve System survey. In fact, it was the most pressing challenge of the year.
Despite the possibility of the center’s closure, the BFAC community shows no signs of abandoning it. In July, the center will be offering 45 live model figure drawing sessions, eight visual and 3D art workshops and eight community social events. In recent months, it has hosted everything from art markets to musical festivals to international art retreats.
To many members, the BFAC fills a hole in their lives that nowhere else does: a space for connection and art.
“Creativity and connection and community are vital. You have to make space for it. You have to make time for it,” Flynn said. “It’s literally like water or food or working out or taking care of your body. You need to practice the mind like that and have those social interactions that feel good.”
Rosie Bailey, the associate director for services at Craftsman Technology Group, has only recently incorporated art into her routine. Before becoming a BFAC member and volunteer, Bailey had no creative outlet and often invested more time into work than anything else.
“I’m in my late 30s now, [and] I was like, ‘When did I stop having fun?’” Bailey said. “I stopped having curiosity in my life, [stopped] doing things that don’t really have a purpose necessarily, but are there because they’re beautiful and they’re interesting and enriching in that way.”
Now, after joining the BFAC, she notices that people are becoming disconnected from each other and their surroundings in an increasingly digital world.
“I think that we all need people and creativity so much more than we realize we do … I think that we’re going to find out, over time, that we are really missing something vital to have healthy, fulfilled lives. And [BFAC] is a space that is doing that,” Bailey said. “They have built something that so many people love, so many people want to sustain it and to move it now, to lose that space, would be to cut that community off from everything that they’ve built …We can’t afford that.”
Sydney Woogerd 