Cannery Works provides a springboard to launch the next wave of vital 21st century artists. Offering customized support for signature projects, Cannery Works nurtures early career artists and introduces their work to a wider audience. 

Cannery Works was established in 2002 by Spencer Chandler and Andrew Aaron as a way to give local artists a community oriented, simplified forum for the purposes of developing and debuting new work.  A key part of the founding platform was an emphasis on ease of access, with events and fundraising tied to support of the wider community, hence the name Cannery Works (named for the offer to donate a can of food at events).    

From 2002 to early 2004, Cannery Works was responsible for the production of premiere works for theater, and the hosting of community events that featured live music, film screenings, and visual artists displaying their work.  Part arts organization, part networking organization (much like a "society"), Cannery Works brought artists and audiences together for the purpose of cross-fertilization, collaboration, and making new friends.   

From 2004 to 2006, Cannery Works ran a midtown office that served as a support center for dozens of artists in all media, in various stages of their process, helping them get the right information, guidance, funding, and support required to advance or complete their projects.   

From 2007 to the present, Cannery Works has served as a back-end support organization to individually selected artists taking on ambitious projects in theater, photography, and mixed media.  Largely through individual consultations during project development, and right up through the time of the public debut, Cannery Works provides administrative and financial oversight, project management, and personally tailored guidance to well-qualified early career artists whose lack of organizational affiliation or endorsement creates a void that Cannery Works seeks to fill, and whose project size stretches their capacity to handle details, contracts, financial issues, administrative and secretarial communication alone.   

Cannery Works provides this crucial sheltering and guidance to ensure that projects come to fruition in a way in which artists grow and accomplish something unique, while offering audiences and the larger community something of value.  Cannery Works thus becomes a partner in successful and timely completion, and a guide for the creative process. 

Cannery Works is proud to support artists as they explore “how to fish” - so that future projects, after time spent with Cannery Works, can be built on a secure foundation.