Lisa Frye Gave Artists a Home, Now Let’s Save Art Sanctuary for Good

By Alisha Proffitt Photos By Matt Johnson

If you know Lisa Frye, you already know this. She is art. Not because she’s a painter, photographer, and creator of beautiful things, but because she’s built something in Louisville that’s bigger than any one medium or performance or show. 

She built Art Sanctuary. She’s built a community. A wild, sparkly, paint-smeared community of people who just get it. And after 21 years, it’s in danger of disappearing. 

“As long as I can remember, I have always been drawn to all things ART,” Lisa says. “When I was a child, my aunt stated that if I was locked in a room with no windows or doors, I would find a way to draw myself out.” That image, a young Lisa sketching her way through impossible walls, now feels prophetic. 

That line stuck with me. It’s so her. Not just the drive to create, but the drive to get out. To find freedom, community, and joy, through art. She found it. And then she built it for the rest of us. So I’m writing this as a friend. Not just to Lisa, but to the space she created, and to all the people I’ve met inside it. 

The first spark happened in 2004, when Lisa’s friend Nancy asked her a big question: “What’s your life’s dream?” Lisa then described what would later become Art Sanctuary. 

“I graduated with a BFA in photography and painting in 1996 from U of L. Since then, I had mourned being in an artistic environment and craved to recreate a part of that world,” said Lisa. 

With Nancy, Erica Rucker, and Samantha McMahon, Lisa launched the first Art Soirée that November. It was bananas, in the best possible way. Over 70 local visual artists. Performers everywhere. Art lovers perusing. “It was a huge success,” she said. “It was the first of many incredible events over the years.” 

They didn’t stop. In 2005, they became a real nonprofit and started doing one-night-only pop-ups all over town. Local art hung on fence panels, fire dancers, burlesque, live music, even roller derby. “It was a feast for all senses.” 

Eventually, they needed a home. In 2012, they moved into a 26,000-square-foot warehouse that was basically just concrete and dreams. “It took YEARS of scratching and scraping, rezoning, fire marshal challenges, construction, donations, tears and struggles, patience, and a lot of dreaming to get it where it is today.” 

And what it became? It’s unreal. 

Studio space for local artists, the Va Va Vixens variety show troupe (legends), live music, theater groups, drag shows, weddings, goth dance nights, Radio Arcane streaming post-punk bangers into the void. It’s like a creative Narnia, tucked into an industrial building. 

What makes it so special, though, isn’t the stuff; it’s the people. Lisa said it best, “This community has become my whole life. It’s our whole world! We have created a family that is really here for one another, creatively, artistically, professionally, and even emotionally.” 

She meant it. You feel it the second you walk in. 

“There is a vibrant community of artists that have studios upstairs in our current space at Art Sanctuary. Having 24- hour access, they are creating all times of the day and night. Watching them grow and thrive has been such a beautiful and thrilling experience.  

I remember, long ago, when an artist came up to me at one of the soirées, just beaming, and said ‘I sold an ART!’ My life was changed forever,” she shared. 

Joe Mays, a local photographer, recalled “One of the significant moments of my life was when Lisa Frye told me she wanted to make the newly created photo studio space at Art Sanctuary available to me because, as she said, ‘I have seen the things you have been making, and if you have things you want to create I want you to have a place to create them.’ I still remember how rocked I was by her saying that. When you’re just starting to make art, and most of the things you are making are things that you are just bringing into existence because you feel the need for them to exist, it can almost feel like you are sailing against the wind no matter which way you steer your craft. Lisa knows that what artists need at the start is not just someone who believes in them, but someone who believes in them enough to clear the obstacles and help provide a path forward.” 

“She has created Art Sanctuary in that image as an organization that exists to help artists by providing space and a community conducive to making art, and then saying, ‘Go forth and create.’ And so I did, and so have many others who have gained from the work of Art Sanctuary. Value this. Do what you can to support it, because organizations like this are an aid to everybody in the community. And everybody benefits from them. And I think it’s important for people to support them. Otherwise, they go away and people don’t realize what they’ve lost until it’s gone,” he continued. 

That’s what she built. A place where you don’t have to ask permission to be yourself. You just are, and everyone around you claps for it. Alexandra Rumsey said it perfectly, “There is a sense of home here that I don’t think that every venue, in Louisville or anywhere else has.” 

Kevin Spalding added, “To find this community that not only tolerates me coming around and shooting, but gets behind me, supports me, celebrates my accomplishments along the way, that’s everything.” 

“Giving this platform to all artists, not just visual artists, has been the absolute joy of my life. This was how we realized that art begets art,” said Lisa. 

But now? That home is in trouble. Art Sanctuary is losing its building. Again. 

“To be blunt, we need capital,” Lisa says. “We need someone who can see how integral Art Sanctuary is to the community, who can help us into an amazing, affordable space where we can stay. This will be the place where we will become the best we can be. ” 

She’s not asking for pity. She’s asking for help, for action. For us. Because this space doesn’t belong to one person. It belongs to everyone who’s ever felt like a misfit and walked in the door and said, “Oh. I found my people.” 

So here Is how we help 

• Donate at art art-sanctuary.org. Even $20/month makes a real difference. 

• If you don’t have the moolah, sign up for Kroger Community Rewards (seriously, it takes two minutes). 

• Tell your people. Share this. Talk about it. Show up to shows. 

• Volunteer. They always need help, and you’ll make friends doing it! 

Lisa’s vision for the future is bold, “We need a space with tall ceilings (praise the aerial arts!), studio areas where artists can get messy, and performance halls that feel like home for creatives 18 to 80.” 

Let’s give that to her. Let’s give that to us. Because places like this don’t happen by accident, they happen because people care enough to keep t hem going. 

Or as Jen DeLeeuw put it, “It’s not just a nice thing to have, it’s essential.” 

Let’s make sure it’s still here 20 years from now.