What's next for David Fogel?

A creative man stys busy

by Tamra Tomlinson

Since David Fogel’s sudden mid-July removal from the position of project director for south Silver Spring at Gateway Georgia Avenue Revitalization Corporation, he’s reinvented himself as a sort of independent creative contractor.

While the loss of that job hasn’t dampened Fogel’s enthusiasm for promoting and enhancing south Silver Spring as an arts destination, it has required him to find new outlets for it. He continues to be keen to find new opportunities to help cultivate the creative life of Silver Spring. “I would still love to do that. I think there’s still I great need for that in Silver Spring”

While he’s looking for those new opportunities, he said, he’ll continue to coordinate and curate exhibitions in the Washington metro area and work on independent projects.

The latest of those projects is a flexible office space that Fogel designed for creative entrepreneurs. “I wish I could say I’d thought of it, but it’s happening throughout the US if not the world,” Fogel said. “I’ve seen it in action in other places. As I talked to people in Silver Spring who were growing their businesses, I realized that this would be a really good opportunity and a necessary business model for entrepreneurs here.”

The idea has been received enthusiastically. He already has several potential tenants lined up, waiting to move in.

“Depending on where your business is, whether you’re ready for 10 or 20 hours a week, or full time, there’s an opportunity for you to be there. Everybody in the office space, while their work will be different, there’s great interest and hope that there will be a lot of synergy between the businesses so they can help each other grow.”

Fogel designed the office space unit to contain eight to 10 separate workspaces with flexible pricing based on usage. It will feature shared amenities like conference rooms and copy machines, but will provide dedicated voice and data lines for each business. The aesthetics, Fogel said, will be cutting-edge contemporary, or what he calls “professional-fun.”

All that’s missing, it seems, is a place for it all to happen. Fogel hopes to find a space for the venture in south Silver Spring. “I have the business plan and model, and the concept has been worked out. It’s just a matter of finding the place to execute it.”

While he’s looking for the right location for the office space project, Fogel is keeping busy at Montgomery College’s Arts Institute. He’s working on an upcoming exhibition titled “Portraits of Life II: Stories of Student Survival.”

“Portraits of Life II” will feature stories of current and former Montgomery College students and alumni from all over the world who overcame humanitarian crises, natural disasters, violence, political oppression or personal tragedies to pursue their educational goals at the college.

“My job is to find, contact, and interview students for what will eventually be a series of artistic panels that will depict their stories to the public.”

Despite the terms on which he left, Fogel wishes Gateway and, especially, Heliport Gallery well and hopes that it continues to be the active and vibrant community gathering place that he got to see it become.

“It’s not about me, Fogel said. “It’s about what’s next - what’s next for the community.”

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