The building began life around 1935 as Rockwood Furniture Co., a family-owned and operated company that eventually fell to competitive pressure in a globalizing economy. An enormous, empty shell in the heart of Salt Lake City's Sugar House district, it would take big business with big volume to fill Rockwood's thousands of square feet of floor space, or perhaps a lot of viable little businesses might do it.

Rockwood's painters are all working, professional artists. It was the community, the location, and the affordability of Rockwood Studios that enabled a score of artists to move out of their basements, garages, and storage units into professional workspaces.

"There is nothing else like Rockwood in Utah," said artist Shirley McKay. "There are a couple of other buildings with studio space to rent, but no where is there a community of successful painters, working so close together. Everyone here is extremely supportive of one another. The effect on everyone's work is remarkable."

"You just come here and don't think about anything else but art," said Rockwood painter Dottie Miles, who shares her studio with her son, painter Chris Miles. "We worry about losing Rockwood, though. When Granite Furniture closed next door, we thought the whole block would go to a big developer. If that happened, we'd all have to go back to our garages."

Marion Johnson owns the Rockwood building with her son David. "When stiff competition closed our furniture store, we had this big, empty building," she said. "A couple of art teachers from the University rented some of the space, but we really had no idea what we were going to do with the building. Soon, friends of those teachers started asking about studio space, so we decided to make it all studios."

The studio spaces filled up as renovation was done. The artist-tenants effectively screened who would have spaces in the building by bringing working artists they knew, respected, and trusted to the Johnsons whenever a space became vacant.

"It seems artists want to be together," Johnson said. "We've never had an empty studio and always have a waiting list. We have a very compact group of important, productive artists at Rockwood. We have artists who are successful, and we have, young, up-and-coming artists, too. As property owners, we're as happy as we can be. Everybody's happy."

"It's a great place," said painter/teacher Susan N. Campbell. "There is a good art rapport. Everyone here is a working, selling artist. When someone gets stuck on a painting, they just go down the hall and grab some help."

The studio environment is conducive to artistic production, because art is created by determination, discipline, and working on a schedule. That can be very difficult to do in a contrived space at home.

"We are all independent of each other," said Rockwood framer Travis Tanner of Tanner Frames. "But we all work together, too. We're a close community and that helps make everyone successful. It was a genius idea to take this much square footage, divide it for use by private people, and to make it affordable. It was a great idea that has been really good for Utah art."