William Schaff Art Studio

William Schaff works out of a Victorian-era storefront in Warren, Rhode Island, where he’s built a career designing album covers for bands like Okkervil River, The Decemberists, and Modest Mouse. His pen-and-ink drawings are dense, obsessive, haunted by skeletal figures and intricate crosshatching. The building functions as both studio and residence, which sounds romantic until the mortgage becomes precarious. Schaff calls it Fort Foreclosure, a nickname that stuck among Warren locals who understand the math of making art for a living. The name is part joke, part defiance. Despite the financial tightrope, the fort has become an informal gathering spot for visiting artists, collaborators, and friends who drop by to talk shop, critique works in progress, or just sit in the kind of creative chaos that only a working studio can generate. One Victorian storefront. One artist who refuses to get a day job. One fort that keeps standing.