CURRENT POSITION Arts Education Specialist, Spokane Public Library, WA DEGREE BA, English and Art, State University of New York at Albany, 1989 FAST FACT Silverstone traveled to Uzbekistan following her heart, but it was “a disaster”; she still has a box of pastels she bought in Moscow that she uses in art programs and turned the experience into a Pivot Story (Spokane’s version of the Moth Radio Hour). FOLLOW linkedin.com/in/evasilverstone; spokanelibrary.org/artist-residencies Photo by Ryan Dean Tucker

Hive Mind

The Hive® at Spokane Public Library (SPL) is an artist’s dream come true—a nontraditional library location centered around arts education and free public event space, and home to four Artist-In-Residence studios, where a rotating group of creators work, teach, and inspire each other and the public. Its success is largely the work of Eva Silverstone, who believes that art in libraries is for everyone—“No admission ticket, no prerequisite, almost no dress code (within reason).” 

When Silverstone and her husband landed in his hometown of Spokane more than 20 years ago, she immediately signed up for a library card and asked about job openings. She was hired as a part-time technical assistant, then became the Arts Education Specialist. In that role, she revamped underused gallery space at SPL’s Central Library and organized regular “Crafternoons,” where anyone—parents and children, disabled adults and their caregivers, people experiencing homelessness—could work on art projects. 

In 2018, Spokane voters passed a combined library/school district bond. The school district wanted to build a teacher training center, which would sit unused when trainings weren’t in progress; SPL suggested sharing a building where those spaces would be available as meeting rooms. Director Andrew Chanse approached Silverstone about running the Hive’s art studio program and asked what her wish list might look like. 

She surveyed artists and libraries with residence programs, and the number one request was for dedicated studio spaces where they would not have to put away their supplies every day for the rooms to be repurposed for programming. Chanse agreed, and Silverstone got the rest of her asks as well: north-facing windows, cement floors, plywood walls that could take nails or pushpins, air filtration systems venting each studio to the outside, a floor drain, and a large shop sink. Each space has a public-facing garage door, rolled up every Wednesday for open studio evenings for visitors to enter and talk to the artists. On drop-in nights people can draw, paint, knit, or stitch. Artists commit to teaching workshops during their one-to six-month residencies; SPL pays for programming supplies. 

Silverstone promotes the Hive, organizes programming, vets residency applications, scopes out gallery opportunities for the artists, and troubleshoots maintenance issues, all to create a free, vibrant hub that connects and inspires Spokane artists (more than 50 so far) and residents. “Art is often a very solitary activity, and it can be kind of lonely sometimes,” she says. “The Hive reduces that solitary aspect and helps create community.”