Maybe you have walked past a gallery a hundred times and never gone in. I have done exactly that. For years, art felt like a club I was never invited to, a room where everyone seemed to know the rules except me. If that is you, this episode is the fix you did not know you needed.
In this conversation I sit down with Ashara Shapiro of ArtWRKD, the founder, curator, and published poet who built one of the most talked-about creative spaces in our area in under four years. She moved here from the Bay Area and decided Bucks County deserved a home for the kind of art most galleries leave out.
Here is why you should hear me out. I have been a licensed Realtor in Bucks County for 20 years, and I host Bucks Co Living to tell the real stories of the people behind this county. I am not an art person. I can draw a stick figure and not much more. That is exactly why this conversation landed the way it did, because Ashara talks to beginners like me without a hint of judgment.
Here is what you will walk away with:
Why a gallery built for outsider artists belongs right here in Bucks County
How meeting the artist in person changes the way you see the work
What working by hand teaches you about patience and process
How one storefront grew into a community engine for Newtown
The single piece of advice that makes art stop feeling intimidating
Check out the highlights here:
Why I Had This Conversation With Ashara Shapiro of ArtWRKD
I will admit something up front. I had walked past her gallery on State Street more times than I can count, and I never stepped inside, because art intimidated me. And apparently, I am not the only one who has felt that quiet hesitation. NEA’s 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that only 17.7% of U.S. adults visited an art museum or gallery in 2022, down from 23.7% in 2017. So that “I keep walking past but never go in” feeling is not just personal, but a real drop in gallery participation.
That feeling is the whole problem Ashara set out to solve, and I think most people carry some version of it.
That is the reason I do Bucks Co Living, to tell the stories of the people quietly building things that matter right here in our backyard. Ashara is exactly that kind of person. In under four years she built ArtWRKD, a gallery and creative hub in Newtown that people in this community cannot stop talking about.
To understand why it works, you have to start with the gap she saw when she got here.
Watch the full conversation here:
Why I Built a Home for Artists Who Never Fit the Mold
Bucks County has always celebrated traditional, landscape-driven art. When I asked Ashara what felt missing, she described a whole population of non-traditional artists in Bucks County who had no real home, makers doing work she recognized from her nine years in New York but could not find anywhere local.
She did not wait for permission or a perfect plan. ArtWRKD is, in her own words, 15 iterations of an idea she kept reshaping around what the community actually needed.
I think that what I saw in Bucks County is there was a need for a place for artists that didn’t work in a traditional way, in a traditional form that is really supported and celebrated in Bucks County. And I started to see there was a lot of artists that didn’t fit that mold but were making amazing work. And it was the things that you would see, I saw in New York City for the nine years I lived there. So I thought, if I can bring that to Bucks County and people don’t have to leave, they don’t have to go to New York, they don’t have to go to Philly to have that experience, that would be amazing." - Ashara Shapiro, Gallerist & Curator, ArtWRKD
That decision opened the door to outsider artists, the self-taught makers whose work she finds raw, honest, and unusually close to their own story, because they never inherited someone else’s rules. Here is the contrast that made it click for me.
| Traditional Gallery | ArtWRKD | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you meet | The work on the wall, and that is it | The artist, in person |
| Atmosphere | Quiet, sterile, hands-off | Welcoming, relaxed, conversational |
| Who is welcome | People who already know art | Everyone, beginners included |
| What is celebrated | Established, traditional work | Non-traditional and outsider work |
That openness is not only good for artists. As Ashara explained next, it solves a problem the rest of us feel too.
The Lesson That Stuck With Me: Art Is Really About Human Connection
I came in thinking the value of a space like hers was helping artists get seen. But that is only one part of what a local arts space can do. Americans for the Arts found that 89% of attendees said the arts activity or venue they were attending was a source of neighborhood pride. That is the bigger value Ashara is building: not just visibility for artists, but pride of place for the people around them.
Ashara reframed it for me as something bigger, a fix for how disconnected we have all become.
"I think it’s more just about human connection. I think that this world right now is becoming more and more disconnected and disjointed because we have all this technology. Some people are feeling closer to people they’ll never meet, online in a completely different part of the world, which is a cool part about social media. But also the problem is we’re forgetting how to look at one another. You used to know all your neighbors on your block when you were a kid." - Ashara Shapiro, Gallerist & Curator, ArtWRKD
At ArtWRKD you actually meet the artist. You can ask what they were thinking and where their head was when they made the piece. The story and the face make the work mean more, and you leave feeling like you met a neighbor instead of a price tag.
Her point landed because it is local. The people worth investing in are the ones in your own town. That is the same instinct that makes a place feel like home, whether you are putting down roots for the first time or starting to search homes for sale in Bucks County, PA and Monmouth County, NJ. Connection is what turns an address into a community.
That belief in doing things up close shows up in how she makes her own work, too.
What Her Creative Process Taught Me About Doing the Work by Hand
Ashara is self-taught in nearly every medium except performing arts. She learned welding from a friend, picked up woodworking from watching her father, and made wearable art the hardest possible way long before she ever took a single class.
She treats raw material like a conversation. With repurposed metal she cannot predict the result, so she works with it instead of against it, the same way you work with the grain of a piece of wood. You do not force it. You listen to it.
That patience traces back to her method-acting roots. She digs into each artist’s story and toolbox the way she once dug into a character, and that same instinct feeds the immersive art experiences she builds around their work. Her own path runs through a lot of mediums:
Performing arts and teaching
Woodworking, learned from her father
Leather
Repurposed metal
Wearable art
Curating other people’s work
The slow, methodical part is the point. Her most celebrated piece was a draped, armor-like tunic she made in 10 hours, when, as she put it, time did not exist. The lesson for the rest of us is simple. The work that means the most rarely happens fast, and it rarely happens by shortcut.
That same hands-on instinct is what turned a single storefront into something much larger.
How One Gallery Became a Community Engine
ArtWRKD grew well beyond its walls. The artist in residence program, currently hosting artist Oleg, is funded by a private donor, and Ashara deliberately introduces the donor and the artist to each other. She is breaking the old structure where the money and the maker never meet.
She represents 10 artists out of the space and has shown well over 300, and she vets each one as both a strong maker and a genuinely good person. As she told me, she is letting these people into her home, so character matters as much as craft.
The bigger picture is civic. She co-founded the Newtown Experience nonprofit, is planning a reimagined studio tour, and is working with the mayor and council on a creative arts district for Newtown. Here is how the whole thing fits together:
Gallery and exhibitions
Artist residencies
Wearable art and workshops
Community and nonprofit work
The lesson underneath all of it is one I respect. Do not build a space that excludes. The whole model only works because it is welcoming first. I see the same principle in my own work, where trust is local and reputation is earned one neighbor at a time. It is a big part of why homeowners in Bucks County choose to list with Bucks Co Living when it is time to sell.
By the end of our conversation, the way I thought about all of this had shifted.
What Changed for Me After This Conversation
"It’s not that you have to know something about art to appreciate art or to feel like you’re connected to the artist community. It’s just someone else that’s part of our society and how they see the world. You see the world in one way, they see the world in this other way, so that’s so different. It’s just a way of expressing. So I think just follow your curiosity." - Ashara Shapiro, Gallerist & Curator, ArtWRKD
I always believed I had to understand art before I belonged in a gallery. Ashara took that belief apart in about a sentence. Appreciation is just curiosity plus a willingness to look at how someone else sees the world.
So I told her I am holding her to it. Now that I know where she is, I am walking in, asking the dumb questions, and meeting the artists. That is the invitation she is extending to everyone in this county.
It is the same way I approach my own clients, where showing up and starting a real conversation beats a polished pitch every time. If you are on the other side of that and ready to move, good Monmouth County home selling resources for motivated sellers start the same way, with a person who actually listens.
Working with Ashara and the team at ArtWRKD changed what I thought a gallery could be, and what a community can build when one person decides it should exist. If this sparked something for you, here are the questions people ask me most.
Questions People Always Ask
Where Is ArtWRKD Located?
The ArtWRKD gallery in Newtown, PA sits on 126 South State Street, with a dual workshop and exhibition space under one roof.
Do I Need to Have Shown My Work Somewhere to Submit as an Artist?
No. Ashara’s answer was refreshingly simple: just submit. You can apply through the artist submissions page on her website for a solo show, a group show, or the residency.
I Don’t Know Anything About Art. Is the Gallery Still for Me?
Yes. The entire point is that it is inclusive and welcoming. Ashara is usually there in person to walk you through the work and the artists behind it, so you never have to pretend you already know the answers.
Keep the Conversation Going
If you want to connect with a curator, artist, and community builder supporting non-traditional artists and immersive art experiences, reach out to Ashara Shapiro:
Website → https://www.artwrkd.com/
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashara-shapiro-215325172
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/Artwrkd/
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/art.wrkd/
If something in this episode made you think, question, or laugh, don’t let it stop here.
Follow Anthony Paul Pinto and stay part of the conversation:
Website → https://www.buckscoliving.com/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/anthonypaulpinto/
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/anthonyppinto
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyppinto/
Apply as a Guest on the Bucks County Living Podcast
Bucks County is full of people quietly building something that matters, in real estate, in the arts, and in community. The best stories are the ones happening right in our own backyard.
If you are creating, leading, or solving real problems here in Bucks County, I would love to hear from you.
