By SUSAN PARK

At the turn of the century when the Sisters of the Home of the Good Shepherd built their convent and school for girls in Wallingford, they probably never anticipated that the attic would someday become a sanctuary for starving artists. However, a planned remodel of a formerly unusable attic space will provide six live/work studios for visual artists. This is part of a growing trend in Seattle.

The Good Shepherd Center property was purchased by the City of Seattle in 1976 from the Sisters of the Home of the Good Shepherd who wanted to move to the Eastside. The city still owns the land and surrounding park, but granted ownership of the building to Historic Seattle, a nonprofit group, in 1977 for the purpose of developing and maintaining a community center.

John Chaney, executive director of Historic Seattle, says: "I believe that artists are integral in their community and part of successful community building."

Artists typically volunteer for service projects that require a creative touch. Communities such as Fremont have improved dramatically over the last few years in part due to creative philanthropists such as Peter Bevis, builder of the Fremont Fine Arts Foundry and dreamer of the someday-to-be-completed Kalakala floating museum.

Now that everyone wants to live in the neighborhoods of Fremont and Wallingford, the very artists that helped improve them can't afford to live there.

The unique characteristic of the six "apartments" at the Good Shepherd Center is that they will be unappealing for most possible tenants.

Chaney says the attic is in the southernmost part of the building that isn't served by elevators and is the most difficult part of the building to access.

The floor joists are not beefy enough to allow it to be used for heavy uses such as offices or contain multiple walls. The six dormer windows create a natural division for six large one-room apartments with 15-foot-high ceilings and lots of natural light.

Chaney says artist residences are probably the most appropriate use for it. "We will design it for artists and market it that way," he says.

Deep sinks and a storage loft will be added in each unit. "There will be no carpeting, so if they spill paint, we won't care," says Chaney.

Unlike other community centers that are open for public use, the Good Shepherd Center instead provides office and meeting space for a variety of low income and community organizations.

The SIDS Foundation, Green Peace, the Gray Panthers, and a Food Bank all rent affordable spaces. Artist groups such as the Blue Lantern Studio which publishes children's books and Neo Art for kids are some of the current tenants.

Past tenants include the Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

"That's what we wanted: a place where lots of different things are happening," says Chaney.

The growing trend in Seattle has been to increase the number of available low income housing. Low income isn't what the name implies - a single adult with no dependents qualifies in King County if they make less than an annual salary of about $31,000. However, Chaney says their maximum salary limit will probably be lower.

As the economy continues to improve for the rest of us in Seattle, we are fortunate enough to be able to turn our attention to the finer things in life.

One of the current trends is towards visual arts and housing the artists in a way where they can live off their art sales and not have to work a "real job" that won't afford them the infinite hours it takes to create masterpieces. The problem for most artists is there comes a time when they must choose to either eat or create.

City Councilman Nick Licata has been working feverishly to encourage art in the neighborhoods and is even holding a Neighborhood Arts Celebration on Feb. 13. Last summer, Licata also held an arts forum where he invited representatives from each of Seattle's neighborhoods to discuss forming more District Arts Councils for the purpose of creating more public art.

During the meeting, Licata announced his intentions of creating low income live/work spaces for artists in locations such as Sand Point and the RTA terminals. Licata's idea was that the artists would pay for their spaces in part by creating public art for the rest of us to enjoy.

The Good Shepherd Center currently has caretakers that are required to work 40 hours a month in exchange for qualifying for affordable housing. Many of these caretakers are already artists, says Chaney, who hopes some of them will apply for the new studio spaces.

Construction on the Good Shepherd Center Project will begin this summer. Chaney says Historic Seattle will develop a process to determine possible tenants.

A future related project in the Good Shepherd Center is to renovate the two-story chapel on the fourth floor into a performance/assembly space. "It would kind of complete the center. It's taken us 20 years." says Chaney.

The Good Shepherd Center is located at 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N. in Wallingford.