Who we are
Our Mission
ArtBuilt is a solutions-focused nonprofit that builds new systems of support for artists based on access to affordable real estate, asset building and deeply reciprocal relationships with local communities.
ArtBuilt supports arts and culture with programs serving artists, arts organizations, and the public. ArtBuilt focuses on financial stability and access to opportunity for artists, arts businesses, and organizations, and broader access to arts and culture for the public, particularly in immigrant communities, communities of color and low/moderate income neighborhoods. ArtBuilt creates affordable space rental and ownership opportunities for artists and cultural producers of all disciplines.
ArtBuilt activates under-used public spaces with arts programming, collaborating with local government agencies and non-profit partners to create arts and culture programming in the public sphere. ArtBuilt focuses on innovative, adaptive use of existing public spaces, particularly in underserved or disadvantaged communities with limited access to arts and cultural programming and infrastructure.
Our Team
Esther Robinson
Artopolis Founder, Executive Director
From 1999-2006, Esther was the Director of Film/Video and Performing Arts for the Creative Capital Foundation, and was one of the principal architects of their innovative grant-making system. Her close collaboration nationally with funders and artists and her annual adjudication of thousands of grant proposals led her to question whether traditional grantmaking was the only way to support the culture sector in America.
Recognizing the crucial role that financial literacy, home ownership, and small business skills played in the lives of economically stable artists, Esther became convinced that asset building and financial literacy should be vital components of a new support system for the arts.
This led to the creation of ArtHome, which Esther founded in 2007 as an independent non-profit (now incorporated as an operating program of ArtBuilt).
ArtHome helped artists and their communities build assets and equity through financial literacy, credit access, home ownership and micro-enterprise support. ArtHome’s programs were supported by funders as diverse and esteemed as The Rockefeller Foundation, Leveraging Investments in Creativity/Ford Foundation, ArtPlace, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2016, ArtHome merged with Artopolis Development to create ArtBuilt.
Esther is also an award-winning filmmaker and producer. Her critically acclaimed directorial debut A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory took top prizes at The Berlin, Tribeca and Chicago film festivals. It is currently scheduled to be re-released digitally in 2024. Recent producer titles include (among others): The Velvet Underground by Todd Haynes, the Academy Award Nominated film Strong Island by Yance Ford, and the PBS/POV broadcast Through The Night by Loira Limbal. Additionally, She is also an active board member of Women Make Movies and a mom to Otis who is an all-things-motor and skateboarding obsessed middle-schooler.
Guy Buckles
Artopolis Founder, Board Member
Guy has spent over 25 years supporting the Arts in New York, nationally and internationally.
As a founding director of NYC non-profit The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA), he engineered and administered groundbreaking programs aimed at creating stability and self-sufficiency for individual working artists.
From 1991 to 2004, he built and directed EFA’s Grants for Individuals in the Visual Arts (GIVA) program, an international cash grant award for working artists of exceptional merit.
He also oversaw the acquisition, design and development of EFA’s flagship studio center, an 87,000 square foot artist workspace complex providing one hundred and ten subsidized workspaces to NYC-based professional artists, as well as a fine-art printmaking facility and a gallery space.
Guy was responsible for every phase of the Studio Center project, from initial concept to full tenancy, including design and architectural liaison, engineering and mechanical systems/contractor selection, and marketing feasibility; he also acted as general contractor for the conversion of the former garment factory building which houses the Studio Center complex.
He designed and ran the Studio Center’s artist selection/tenancy administration program, and his eleven years’ experience managing the center on a day-to-day basis leaves him uniquely situated to deal with all aspects of artists’ space needs.
In 2009, Guy left EFA to pursue his vision of supporting creative sector workers through real-estate initiatives as Executive Director of Artopolis Development. In 2016, Artopolis Development merged with ArtHome to create ArtBuilt.
Trained in England as a fine-art painter and fine woodworker, Guy has deep connections within the world of artisanal craftsmanship, and has for many years operated a small business specializing fine furniture and bespoke carpentry.
This background underpins ArtBuilt Brooklyn’s mandate to create aggregated workspace for artists and artisans, synergizing the creative.
Crys Yin
Strategic Projects and Community Specialist
Crys is a New York–based artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, and sculpture. She began working with ArtBuilt in 2021 as a Community Outreach Coordinator and officially joined the team in 2023 as a Strategic Projects and Community Specialist. She has a longstanding connection to ArtBuilt’s homebase in Sunset Park, Brooklyn – as a resident, a studio tenant, and a community organizer with South Brooklyn Mutual Aid. Crys assists with public programming initiatives, supports artist and community engagement, and fosters tenant relations at ArtBuilt Brooklyn. She also contributes to studio operations, providing support in both administrative and design capacities.
Matt Rubendall
Facilities Coordinator
Matt has been making and restoring classical guitars for 25 years, and making kitchen knives for 10 years. He has been a tenant at ArtBuilt Brooklyn since 2018 and joined the team in 2025 as a Facilities Coordinator. Matt manages the day-to-day upkeep and oversees all repairs of the ArtBuilt Brooklyn studios, located at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
Arts FMS
Financial Management Services
As a financial management firm that integrates with nonprofit arts organizations, Arts FMS empowers organizations to focus on their mission while they focus on the long-term fiscal health and sustainability of the organization. By providing a comprehensive scope of full financial management services, Arts FMS is able to bring stability, efficiency, and reliability to an organizations’ financial operations. Principals, Andrea Nellis and Lucy Mallett, bring decades of nonprofit financial experience and believe art is vital to our society and core to the Arts FMS mission. As practitioners and advisors in the nonprofit arts field, their focus is to strengthen the sector and secure the present and future of their clients.
Our Beloved Partners
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See Change
See Change is a financial coaching & advocacy community for creators of color with a mission to help creatives, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, and educators create a financial legacy.
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Entertainment Community Fund / Housing Development Corporation
Entertainment Community Fund / Housing Development Corporation was created to develop new affordable housing for the performing arts and entertainment community. They bring together educational programming, advocacy, marketing and real estate development with the goal of increasing access to affordable housing opportunities for our constituents.
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Abode Alliance
Abode Alliance is a nonprofit collaboration of financial institutions and community housing agencies focused on expanding the opportunity for responsible and sustainable homeownership to minority, and low and moderate income individuals and families in the five boroughs of New York City, as well as surrounding counties. Abode supports its neighborhood-based nonprofit members in their pre-purchase counseling, post-purchase education, and financial literacy programs.
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The Kensington Cultural Council
The Kensington Cultural Council is a neighborhood alliance of artists and organizations who are coordinating and promoting a year-long calendar of programming, sharing resources and trainings, and activating Avenue C Plaza in Kensington, Brooklyn as a cultural hub in one of the most diverse immigrant communities in NYC. The council includes Arts & Democracy, Bangladesh Institute of Performing Arts (BIPA), Casa Cultural, The Singing Winds, NOCD-NY and partners regularly with ArtBuilt.
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Casa Cultural
Casa Cultural strives to celebrate their heritage, culture, lore and conserve its history while working with their community to foster an appreciation of its relevance. Casa Cultural hopes to build an understanding and appreciation of the many cultures within the Latin American community by sharing our story and traditions through poetry, music, storytelling and folk art.
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Rev. Dr. Charles Butler of Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement
Rev. Dr. Charles Butler of HCCI has more than 18 years of experience in case management, job development, management of social service programs. As VP of Equitable Development, Rev. Butler manages HCCI's homebuyer education seminar, provides housing counseling and counsels small businesses and sits on numerous boards related to economic empowerment.
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South Brooklyn Mutual Aid
SBKMA is a mutual aid group based in Sunset Park with over 1,000+ volunteers. They organize together to support their neighbors in South Brooklyn and have provided over 70,000+ free grocery deliveries through their mass distribution program, neighbors to neighbors food delivery program, and partnerships with local orgs and schools. With their warehouse at ArtBuilt Brooklyn, they also organize projects from back to school support, free community stores, diaper distributions and more. They believe in solidarity not charity.