THE LONG ISLAND CITY ARTISTS organization 
grew out of a trio of Open Studios Exhibitions that
took place in 1986. It was spurred on by a positive 
public and arts organizational response.  The first 
Open Studios exhibition occurred in April, when 
LIC Artlofts celebrated the completion of its 
construction by inviting the public to visit its new 
studios and an exhibition of its artists’ works. Two 
more Open Studios followed in Fall, one created 
at Artlofts, again, and the other produced by a 
collaboration of IS 1, Artspace, various individual 
studios. and LaGuardia Community College, 
which produced the first catalogue. 

It was then suggested that for the next year, 1987, 
an integrated Second Open Studios Event would 
be a good idea. Margret Dreikausen and Jo 
Yarrington of LIC Artlofts agreed to organize it. 
They also approached the QCC Gallery at 
Queensborough Community College to seek an 
exhibition and a catalogue for ten artists selected 
by their colleagues from the participating studios. 
During the next two years, the Open Studios 
expanded to include bus tours from location to 
location, and related public programs, and 
eventually included 60 participating artists. The 
Annual Open Studios was becoming an 
established cultural event. 

The building of a working group to organize the 
Open Studios and to set up an artists’ network 
evolved into Long Island City Artists, Inc. by 1988, 
which in 1989 became a fully non-profit, federally 
tax-exempt charitable organization, thanks to the 
initiative and unflagging efforts of painter Margret 
Dreikausen and the hard work and expertise of 
dozens of artists.Since that auspicious beginning, 
Open Studios have been produced every year in 
the Fall season by Long Island City Artists, Inc., 
out of their headquarters at the LIC Artlofts. In 
1991 and 1992, the artists of Hunters Point 
collaborated to produce an additional exciting 
round of studio visits and special events for the 
public to enjoy in the Spring.      

Sensing a need among single-artist studios for a 
regular group exhibition space for those artists 
who wanted the artistic exposure that the Open 
Studios afforded, but did not want to open up 
their private spaces to the public, LIC Artlofts 
obtained permission from its landlord, the Romo 
Paper Company, to convert the wide, sunlit public 
corridor adjacent to their third floor complex into 
an additional gallery area during the Open 
Studios weekends, thus providing approximately 
600 square feet of white-wall hanging space for 
as many as twenty individual artists. This 
temporary exhibition space was soon dubbed 
"The Annex". 

For the next decade of our future, LIC Artists 
hopes to create an exhibition opportunity that 
will showcase a comprehensive group of artists 
in greater depth, and provide for the public a 
cultural context in which to gain an understanding 
of the dynamic role the arts play in the life of an 
urban community. 

Carol Crawford, Sept. 1995 

(excerpt from the catalog:Tenth Annual Long Island 
                                           City Open Studios 1995, 
"Long Island City Artists: A Decade of Success")