Photo of Hatch workshop courtesy of Elazar Abraham
Entering downtown Stockton; art can be seen everywhere you look. On condemned buildings, storefront displays, and street corners. From murals and paintings, to graffiti and performance art. The city has a long, rich history with artists of all types.
Whether you practice visual or audio, digital or analog, live or isolated, there is a makerspace that offers more than just a floor to create.
Welcome to Hatch Workshop, located downtown at 40 S. Union St, Stockton CA.
Hatch is a place where artists can come together to indulge in the arts, support each other, and even collaborate. Hosting live shows and introductory classes, there’s something here for every artist at all levels from any medium.
“We can hold it down for the artists [you] know, the weird ones and the punks and the funks.
Stockton’s got a character that needs to be defended and I don’t know what other institutions are able to stand for the weird ones,” said Elazar Abraham, co-founder and executive director of Hatch Workshop.
The Hatch Workshop began in July 2017, when Malachi Trent signed a free one-year lease in downtown Stockton. The building came furnished with all the equipment to start.
“Then he [Malachi] started calling everybody and we got together and formed a non-profit [in Nov 2017],” Abraham said.
The project was originally started with a development company called Ten Space Developers.
A Downtown Stockton developer and chief brand officer for Ten Space Developers by the name of Tim Egkan, worked closely with a few of the people later involved with Hatch. Tragedy struck for friends and family of Egkan, when he was murdered in September 2015. The crime remains unsolved.
“With Tim, one of the last things that he had done [for Hatch] actually, was establish the contract for all the equipment [and] get the building together,” Abraham goes on to name some of the people involved with Hatch and the Ten Space deal; all friends and partners that worked with Egkan.
After Egkan’s death, the building that would later be the first housing for Hatch, sat vacant for two years.
“The first major grant that we got, there [were] six of us on the team at that point. And out of those folks, one of them is still on our board. And then I’m around, but everyone else just kind of floated along.”
Elazar Abraham shares that everything with Ten Space had quickly fallen apart after Egkan’s death. Because of the effects, the Hatch moved across the train tracks to its current operating space.
The current location for Hatch was found on Craigslist by Hannah Craig, one of the original founders that remains working with Hatch today.
“Once we got into this new building, then we were able to open-up. Everything with that old building and Tim, that’s our backstory. A lot of people in our community feel very very passionately still, about what Tim was doing and what happened,” Abraham continued and explained the first ideas for the workshop.
“The initial conception was a live-work. What we wanted to do was infill shop classes being taken out of schools, we wanted to set up contracts where buses of kids could come to Hatch and do woodshop and metal-shop. Then we would have teaching-artists that were able to live there [on-site].
That’s a f**king expensive dream. We didn’t know, we were all young” Abraham explained.
While looking back on the dream they all shared, Abraham expressed a passion for helping artists thrive. He mentioned the importance of “dollars staying local” and “leveraging the growth of the organization to draw more resources into the community.”
Abraham got involved with the Stockton Arts League and other foundations to help better serve the artists in need, especially during the pandemic.
“It’s like our riverbed is dry,” he stated. One way these organizations helped was to distribute $100,000 to 100 local artists each receiving $1,000 during the pandemic.
“Our vision is an artistically vibrant and independently wealthy Stockton, owned by its residents,” Abraham proclaimed.
Hatch workshop currently offers monthly memberships with full access to all equipment, as well as basic memberships to artists that just need the space. Available seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. If you are interested or would like to get involved check out their webpage at www.hatchworkshop.org.
“One place is not going to change everything,” Abraham said just before the end of the interview, recognizing there is always work to be done within the community.