We had a free public access gallery with exhibitions that changed every three weeks. Some shows were by the resident artists, most were outside exhibitions from around the world.

Local schools and education authorities liased with us-- we had school kids and older in for work experience, trainees and apprenticeships, school groups visited the centre regularily, and we hosted the Wales Arts Fair, a televised celebration of Welsh art. The artists all interacted, shared resources-

During the mid-nineties, David Roach and myself ran a studio out of The Old Library Art Centre in CARDIFF, Wales. In the complex were over a hundred artists of different disciplines: performance artists, painters, theatre groups, photographers, public arts groups, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, picture framers and a clown.

Through our studio doors came other comics and graphics artists- Pete Venters, Pete Burges, Steve Pini and Dylan Teague key amongst them. The two Petes went on to work for Wizards of the Coast and computer graphics companies, Steve Pini inked for Marvel UK and DC, Dylan stayed with us and has worked pretty much full time for Fleetway/Rebellion ever since. We aquired the name 'Freakhouse' along the way, and have just kept it ever since.

The Old Library centre got turned over to a lottery-funded trust, and all the artists got turfed out. Most stayed together and now have their own gallery and working space. David, Dylan and me have taken other studio space since, but the Old Library centre was one of the finest places I've had to work in. Several million pounds later it became an impressive centre with an expensive gallery. And no studios.

Due to cripplingly low attendence figures, the Centre for the Visual Arts closed. Maybe one idea for the future would be to turn the building into an art centre with artist and art organisations renting space and creating new links with schools, the general community and industry....it's previous model ...I'd be only too happy to be part of that again!