10:16 AM EDT on Sunday, July 10, 2005

I first encountered AS220 when I played with my first rock band in the arts spot's second location, on Richmond Street in Providence, in the summer of 1986. I kept performing there in various groups, and attending as an audience member, for several years. Then in 1991, I moved in.

Extra

A parade of posters helps tell the story of AS220, Providence's unjuried, uncensored arts space.

AS220 is 20

Slideshow: Look at a parade of posters that helps tell the story of AS220.

Interact: Share your memories of AS220.

Currently, AS220 has 12 residential studios on its third floor, which are made available through an application process. Criteria include documented income and one's body of work (judged more for the artist's commitment than subjective ideas about quality).

In 1991, when AS220 was on Richmond Street, it was a little less formal. I asked artistic director Bert Crenca if I could move into a soon-to-be-vacated studio and he said: "OK."

I stayed in the space when AS220 moved to Empire Street in 1993, before eventually moving out in 1998.

The new location was better in many ways -- most obviously, it was legal to live there; you didn't have to be coy about "having a studio" at AS220 that you just happened to spend an incredible amount of time in. Also, the new building had heat -- a real advantage on those 10-degree nights, unless you like the smell of kerosene all over your clothes.

I learned a lot in those years. The first important thing I learned was how to sleep through anything.

In the Richmond Street spot, my bed was about 50 feet from the stage (others were closer, though we all had walls) and directly upstairs from what was then Club Babyhead. So if you wanted to get to sleep before 1 or 2 in the morning, you learned to sleep heavy.

This means that I not only listened to but fell asleep to some pretty great music. In 1991, I fell asleep while lying on my bed and listening to a pretty good punk band playing at AS220 called Green Day. In 1992, a band at Babyhead was so loud they shook some dishes off our counter. I listened for a while, but I wasn't particularly impressed, so I went to bed. It was called Nirvana.

'Open and unjuried'

Eventually, I learned more aesthetically useful lessons at AS220. As a musician, living dormitory-style with a revolving cast of characters, including singer-songwriters, electronic musicians, rappers and accordionists, was influential.

And while formal collaborations among AS220 resident artists certainly happened, perhaps more importantly, you couldn't help but learn from everyone around you -- painters, sculptors, filmmakers, writers and actors -- no matter what their art form.

You heard music, saw art, read words you never would have encountered anywhere else. And that helped you see your work, and the problems you were facing, in a new light.

And you learned discipline, since no one wanted to be the one who got in a lot of practice at the pool table because they weren't creating anything.

Most importantly, though, living at AS220 was an immersion in the space's "open and unjuried" ("but not unmanaged," Bert Crenca would hasten to add) policy, to the point where it became an ethos.

Most of the times I performed there were in my by-then-comfortable role as a musician -- with The Smoking Jackets, the in-house Neo-'90s Dance Band, Space Heater, Winston's Diary, Sinker, Subject to Change, Cousin Doppler, Carrot Bread, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

But I also got to act in a live improv soap opera, perform monologues I had written, and act as co-MC (with Keith Munslow) of a variety show that included such acts as Gerry Heroux's Sing-Along with No Pants and The Dirt Capades. No establishment would've let me get within a block of their stage to do any of that if they weren't committed to letting everyone have their chance.

A lot of people didn't understand the principle behind the policy. At first glance, it can seem like the easy way out of having artistic convictions and sticking by them. But that's only if you focus on what AS220 doesn't do, rather than what it does. "Open and unjuried" is an ethos that requires as much energy, commitment and strength of belief as it takes to see one's own aesthetic through.

You can't write anyone off. Ever. If there's a more valuable lesson to learn in art or life I don't know what it is.

Freedom isn't free

Did (and does) AS220's open-and-unjuried policy provide cover for charlatans to foist rubbish on a crowd and pretend it's art? Did (and does) AS220's "avant-garde" cachet let some folks pretend that they are commercial failures because they're visionaries rather than hacks?

Sure, sometimes, but not often.

For anyone with a trace of an aesthetic conscience, the freedom AS220 gives you comes with a daunting responsibility -- this better be good. The freedom to create and present whatever you want does not come with the freedom to bore. And you feel that when you're on any stage, but particularly on AS220's.

Or, at least, you'd better. Because while you're guaranteed a spot on AS220's stage, the flip side is that anyone out in the audience could be up there instead of you. And it's up to you to prove that you belong.

The other thing I learned at AS220 was that whatever you do, it doesn't mean anything if you don't keep on doing it.

Back in May, when Bill Van Siclen and I were discussing his writing a story on AS220 turning 20, he was surprised that AS220's two-month hiatus for renovations didn't start with a big, well-hyped last show.

"I thought they'd go out with a bang," Bill said.

I agreed at the time, but then I realized: In 20 years, through three homes and the ups and downs of being an arts group in the Renaissance City, AS220 has had many chances to go out with a bang -- the kind of bang that makes you a Providence barroom legend for years. But going out, in style or not, isn't AS220's thing.

Rick Massimo and other Journal arts writers share the At Large column. Reach him by e-mail at rmassimo [at] projo.com.