Over 10 years after CELLspace closed, the huge metal mural from the art warehouse’s facade is celebrated with a gallery at The Midway
By Allie Skalnik, for MissionLocal (Aug. 26, 2025)
When an artists’ warehouse in the Mission closed its doors for the last time in 2012, almost everything was accounted for.
The artists who had made the space at 18th and Bryant streets their safe haven since 1996 hauled out their supplies, equipment and art pieces. All that was left at the end of their slow goodbye was a massive metal installation: A set of eight 10-foot-tall panels covering the facade of the warehouse.
Jane Verma, one of the creators of the piece, calls it a “metal mural.” She said it was important to her that it didn’t gather dust in a storage container because of what it represented.
“Because it was on the facade, it was a signal to anyone walking by that there was something interesting going on here,” said Verma. The metal mural on the former CELLspace building facade. Photo courtesy of Jane Verma.
That warehouse at 2050 Bryant St. was called CELLspace (the prefix stood for Collectively Explorative Learning Labs), and it embodied a dream that’s been dying in San Francisco, said CELLspace co-founder Jonathan Youtt.
CELLspace, he said, was “an open call to anyone and everyone that wanted to come together to create a spot where all arts could exist under one roof.”
In its heyday, the warehouse was a place of boundless creativity. Former CELLspace artists speak of the building reverently. The front entrance led into a gallery before opening up into a 4,000-square-foot main hall. High ceilings and a main stage for performances made it like a “cathedral” for Youtt.
In this grand warehouse, anything could be brought to fruition. More than 50 artists paid a monthly fee of around $75 for unlimited access to glassblowing, sewing machines, metalworking, a wood shop and an audio-visual studio.
Nestled amid studio spaces and machinery was a community kitchen, and a few CELLspace employees rented space to live in the warehouse, in a small loft soundproofed against the din of the active makerspace.
But rather than a siloed artist community, CELLspace was intricately embedded in the community. The warehouse hosted everything from an after-school program to raves. It served as neutral ground between rival Mission gangs, and hosted weekly roller-skating and B-boy/B-girl events.
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