The happy coincidences that make the Brooklyn Art Library’s existence possible, stretch back 11 years, beginning when Steven and Sara Peterman first met on a cruise at the tender age of 16. Steven, who is originally from New Jersey, attended art college in Georgia to be closer to his childhood sweetheart, where he ultimately met fellow student and future collaborator Shane Zucker. Steven and Shane happened to look enough alike that they both heard about each other long before they were actually introduced. An early art project brought them together, and their talents were complementary enough for the partnership to continue. Their initial efforts triggered an idea for a more collaborative form of creating and exhibiting art tat would change all of their lives: The Sketchbook Project.
The idea for The Sketchbook Project came from Steven’s experiences in art school. “I didn’t know how to approach galleries when I had an idea for a show,” he said. “The process was so formal, you have to present and think – it’s something you never learn in art school, how to interact with the galleries.” Further inspiration for The Sketchbook Project could also be found within Steven’s proclivity for collaborative art projects. “I always liked creating pieces that the public can interact with. The singular artist is not as strong as the community together.”
A lot of people seem to have agreed. Over 25,000 crowd-sourced sketchbooks later, what was originally conceived of as a one-time effort surprised its originators and became renowned enough to require a permanent home. In 2009, the timing was right for The Sketchbook Project’s brick and mortar evolution into the Brooklyn Art Library (BAL). Settling on Brooklyn as a home seemed an obvious choice to Steven and Sara.
“A lot of the stores on our street are destinations,” says Sara, Steven’s wife and BAL manager. “Williamsburg has this feel to it where everyone is taking charge of their lives and deciding to do what makes them happy and making it work. It became hard for us to see ourselves anywhere else.”
BAL may function as a store, with t-shirts and handmade sketchbooks for sale, but it is also a working library. One can get a free BAL library card from the Brooklyn flagship or from the touring bookmobile that Steven and Sara take around the country once a year to promote the library’s collections. But the cost of following one’s dream to open the artistic process to the masses is paid for with intense outlays of time and effort.
“This is this huge labor of love,” the couple agrees, and has defined much of their post-college lives. Embodying the plucky spirit of entrepreneurship, most of BAL’s revenue is plowed back into the library. “We definitely struggle but I never wanted to run a business where I was in dept to a bank or an investor,” says Steven.
“Then other people are dependent on you to make them money where it’s hard enough to make yourself money. They [investors] probably could have helped us scale up, but it’s exciting to not owe anyone….If you believe in something enough you gotta just keep ging. We started so young, we never had much to lose apart form the time we put into this.”