Nola Ahola shares a studio with two other artists in the basement of the historic Curtiss Building on Leary Way. She has worked in a series of old Ballard buildings since the 1970s, many of which have since been gentrified.

"I saw one of the old buildings I use to work in has been all tarted up," she said. "I think it's an architectural office or something now."

The gentrification of the once-industrial Ballard is creating changes for the art community here, and causing many artists, including Ahola, to worry about its future. But, in the face of an uncertain tomorrow, art in Ballard is experiencing a small golden age.

Jim Stoccardo, who has lived and worked in and out of Ballard for the past 12 years, said artists, himself included, were drawn to the cheapness and the industrial feeling of Ballard.

"Ballard used to be a space with a sense of community and a lot of industrial activity, especially in the historic area," Ahola said. "Therefore, it had space artists could use."

Painter Carole d'Inverno has a studio in Building C, a Ballard warehouse that is home to more than 30 artists' work spaces. She said it was the artistic core of the Tractor Tavern, Conor Byrne and the Sunset Tavern that drew people and activity to the neighborhood, attracting artists.

Now there seems to be more people in the art community in Ballard than ever before, said Jeff Mihalyo, a 17-year Ballard artist and resident.

D'Inverno estimates there are more than 100 visual artists in Ballard working out of group studios, such as Shev Shoon and Ballard Works, and houses.

Not only is there an abundance of artists in Ballard right now, but they have also coalesced into more of a community than they had been before, said Virginia Howlett, who has a studio in Building C and runs its Web site.

Howlett said the Ballard Art Walk deserves much of the credit for that because it gets artists out of their individual studios and forces them to meet each other.

Nancy Reithaar, who has lived and painted in Ballard for 15 years, said the closeness of the art community in Ballard has not hampered the creativity of the artists at all.

"You have a substantial number of people that are very hard-working, and even though we share the same space, we have unique styles and vision," Reithaar said.

Stoccardo said one of the aspects of Ballard that has definitely changed for the better for artists in the area is that it is now possible to sell artwork, as well as create it, in the neighborhood.

Artist C.L. Utley said there were no galleries in Ballard for several years when he moved to the neighborhood in 1989, but some started to pop up in the mid-1990s.

Gallery 63 Eleven on 24th Avenue opened in 2001 and mostly shows Ballard artists, co-owner Steve Angell said.

"There's so many artists in Ballard, you don't really need to go any further," he said.

Though there still are not many fine art galleries in Ballard, painter Martha Brouwer, who works out of her Ballard home, said, thanks to events like the Art Walk, galleries are not even necessary to sell work.

Brouwer said she recently sold three pieces at Ella Mon clothing store on Ballard Avenue.

Howlett said at the moment the neighborhood has a great mix of residential, commercial and industrial components.

"We're at this cool point in Ballard where we have a little bit of everything," she said.

But, many local artists feel like the scale is tipping away from the art community.

"I have a fair amount of fear about how long we're going to last," Howlett said.

Artists move into a community, which makes the neighborhood more vibrant, which then leads to gentrification and an increase in rents and loss of cheap workspace, she said.

Ahola said that is a problem because artists seem to use the same spaces that are the first to succumb to gentrification.

The cultural side of a city is something that needs to be cultivated, Ahola said, and the Seattle government has not been earning the arts reputation the city enjoys, especially in Ballard.

Mihalyo said he is not optimistic about where the art community in Ballard is going because of the influx of condominiums and increasing rent.

"The rest of Seattle's communities are an example of where this community is going," he said. "They're going to be forced out."

D'Inverno said she is holding out hope that the area is saturated in terms of new development, giving the neighborhood a chance to settle down and for the art community to rebound from the loss of affordable workspace.

"It would be a shame to destroy what attracted people here in the first place," D'Inverno said.

Though he isn't sure how much longer many of the studio spaces can last, Mihalyo said there is at least a rosy hue to the immediate future.

"People in the condos will need art and will be happy to have local artists in the neighborhood," he said. "For the short term at least, it should be very fruitful for the artists."

Michael Harthorne can be reached at 783-1244 or michaelh@robinsonnews.com.