Hartford resident Gabbie Barnes started Free HART Closet because ‘art is an inherent human right’

When Hartford resident Gabbie Barnes attended a talk at the Wadsworth Atheneum in 2015 to listen to acclaimed artists Mark Bradford and Ruben Ochoa, she didn’t realize that conversation would lead her on a meaningful path to giving back.

“Both artists talked about how they found materials for their art. They used materials from hardware stores and in dumpsters. They didn’t choose these materials as “found objects” — it was what each of them could afford,” Barnes said. “There I was, listening to acclaimed artists call out the inaccessibility of making art. As someone who has always felt the need to create, but I hasn’t always the disposable income to do so, this resonated.”

Fast forward five years later amid a global pandemic, Barnes stumbled on a TikTok video posted by the Sacramento artist collective known as Broad Room. The founder, Claire, was showing viewers their free art supply closet.

“A lightbulb went off for me — we could do this in Connecticut,” Barnes said.

Barns said that she began to think about the concept of distributive justice and the importance of pushing back against individualistic consumption and excessive materialism.

“A lot of folks have excess materials just sitting around when they could be living a new life with a new creator,” Barnes said. “We live in a massively consumptive culture and I see this project as both a way of questioning our consumption and interrogating that need of having the newest things or having ownership over things.”

Barnes opened Free HART Closet last year through Mutual Aid Hartford, an organization that began in 2020 as a community response to the crisis faced in Hartford during the Covid-19 pandemic ensuring food and vital supplies to residents in the city.

Free HART Closet allows anyone including non-Hartford residents to either donate or pick up professional art supplies.

“Quality art supplies are expensive,” Barnes said. “Supplies in the hobby can be hundreds of dollars depending on the type of craft. So I wanted to create a space for anyone who felt compelled to create things where they can access the material they need instead of having to trade off art supplies to pay a bill or buy groceries.”

Barnes said that there is a false belief that mutual aid can only be crisis work or only exist to meet basic survival needs such as food, water and shelter.

“It made a lot of sense to put the project under the umbrella of mutual aid because I think that art is an inherent human right,” Barnes said. “Think about a world without music, art, poetry, or books. If we didn’t have that, we would have no culture. So access to art has to be available to people or otherwise what are we left with?”

Last October, Barnes opened the doors to her free art supply closet to the community with a space inside Free Center Hartford, a community space located at 460 New Britain Ave.

“The word implies it’s a really small space, but it’s actually pretty large,” Barnes said. “People are often surprised by just how much stuff we have here.”

Barns said that so far the community has embraced the free art supply closet.

“Every day I open, a new person comes in,” Barnes said. “To date, we’ve been opened 50 hours and we’ve served 51 artists. So it’s about one person an hour.”

Barnes, who works as a librarian, said that her schedule currently only allows the free art supply to be open on weekends but that she is open to building on that in the future.

“Word of mouth is strong,” Barnes said. “We did a holiday art supply drive and I reached out to a bunch of businesses. We had 12 businesses who contributed and we completely stocked our shelves. So I’ve been very surprised. Who knows what this can turn into? Right now this is just an exchange of material but I’m not opposed to it turning into something more down the road.”

Free HART Closet accepts both monetary and supply donations.

For anyone looking to donate, a complete list of art supplies accepted can be found on the website, freehart.org/support.

The free art supply closet is open each Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment.

Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com