An artists’ incubator, a roiling pot pushing up works of creative, fevered genius, a pallet dropping deep purples, reds, blues and greens over pieces in public and private places, brightening walls and buildings, here, there, up, down.

Could happen in Auburn.

So runs the dream of the folks who make up Auburn Valley Creative Arts (AVCA), a nonprofit organization for artists of all stripes and gifts.

While AVCA is happy to have the space it now rents in the downtown Auburn Arcade — last year a ceiling collapse forced the organization out of its previous digs in the old Gambini building on South Division — the sort of soul-feeding enterprise its new board of directors is talking about needs room.

It must have it.

Space for potters to spin their wheels, sculptors to shape, carvers to incise, for artists to support one another — and perhaps most important of all — for teachers to teach. And of space for such things, well, the 400 square feet offered by the current locale doesn’t allow a body to do much more than swing an elbow without hitting something, or someone.

“There’s just no space to do anything here,” said Zachary Tanner, president of AVCA, retired filmmaker and stay-at-home dad, looking around a room about the size of a modest barbershop, its walls covered with paintings. “We teach classes once a month. I want to make that more so we can actually have 30 people taking a class at the same time.

“We can afford this place for the time being, but it’s too expensive for what it is. We’re just trying to find a new location where we can have a little more,” Tanner said.

And so, expect to see AVCA members out and about, checking out buildings that have been sitting vacant and unused for years. Tanner estimates AVCA will need at least 800 square feet of space, though more would certainly be welcomed.

“I’ll approach a building’s owner with a business plan that says, ‘Let us use your space, we’ll keep it up for you,'” Tanner said. “Look, if we have to move quickly, we can do that, we’ve done that. But in the meantime, we’ll have space for a gallery, space for studios, so that if we want to have classes for pottery, we can have a couple spinning wheels. It gives us more opportunities, especially for education.”

“We have (local artist) Greg Watson, who is really ready to teach, and we want him to teach how to carve Native American paddles” said AVCA member Lela Brugger. “He’s really open to teaching classes and is knowledgeable about Salish art. But we can’t do a woodcarving class in here right now. We want artists like him who have a passion for art and teaching.”

“For matting and framing, we don’t need a lot,” Tanner said. “But as far as a gallery and studio, there’s no place for our artists to do any work going forward here. We’re able to do very few three-dimensional works. We can’t do any artist installations, that is, having something large, something cool in the window to draw the eye, which is fairly key to attracting attention and getting people in. It’s no easy task, however, to find such a place when your organization has only $450 in the kitty for rent each month and owners are asking for $1,200.

“As far as asking people for money, one of the things that’s exciting is that after years, we finally have our 501-C3. It takes a lot of work to get that. And people can use it as a write-off,” Brugger said.

“I was going to approach some of these building owners with the message that, ‘Hey, we can’t pay you $1,200 a month in rent, but we can pay you $450, and you can take the rest off as a donation, and you’re not using the space”, Tanner said.

Yes, they know owners may need a bit of creative convincing, but ultimately they know that what art brings to a community transcends dollars and cents.

“I think art is the passion of the soul,” Brugger said. “We’re always so intent on getting other things done, cleaning the house, but we need passion. And art is about such a wide variety of passions. It brings out stuff inside. And when people see art, they’re engaged.”

To learn more, visit auburnvalleycreativearts.com.