BEN Clowes is buzzing and rightly so. After only ten weeks, Bar Lane Studios is established as the hub for York artists he had envisaged when opening the not-for-profit social enterprise.

“We had more than 200 people at last Sunday’s opening of the York Open Summer Exhibition, and there was the same number for the exhibition’s 3D work and photography at the New School House Gallery,” says Ben, Bar Lane’s creative director.

“It’s great to see so many people involved and the feedback has been fantastic. We’ve purposely not called it the Bar Lane Studios Open Exhibition, but the York Open Summer Exhibition, as we wanted to put the focus on the artists themselves, and to have the turn-out we had was brilliant.”

Funding from York St John University, Science City York and City of York Council had given Ben Clowes, an illustrator and lecturer, the essential impetus for converting the old York Sony Centre at the Bar end of Micklegate into a community artspace.

Now, all 22 studio spaces available for rent, some of them self-contained, others arranged around a “hotspace”, have been taken up. The print workshop is up and running; the community café is doing a steady trade (check out the spiced flapjack and the pink Bar Lane coffee mugs); the next round of courses will start up in the second week of September; and an Apple Mac suite with input from Fossgate enterprise Pulse continues to take shape.

Meanwhile, the showcase gallery that already has housed stellar-name exhibitions by Stone Roses guitarist John Squire, Salvador Dali and Matisse is playing host to the likes of Keiran Plows’s surrealist Laredo’s Missing Citizens No 10; Nigel D Moorpeth’s damning political commentary on Thatcher and Pinochet, Tea For Two; Dexter’s hand-written Dexter’s World Of Eighties; Yvonne Lynn’s Minster Rose, printed on metal; Rachel Baines’s startling hare, Augustus; and Brenda Sorrell Wright’s nude portraiture.

“For me, it’s always been about giving a focal point to local artists, and we feel justified when people come in and say, ‘Are they all York artists?’, and the answer is, ‘Yes, they are’,” says Ben.

“We attracted close to 300 entries and we have about 230 on show, chosen by the panel with curator Jo Rose, now spread over here and the New School House Gallery and for sale at £80 to £2,000.

“I would have liked to have seen more ceramic work, as we know there are a lot of ceramicists in York, so that was one of the things that surprised me, but on a positive note, there are artists on show who have never shown in public before.”

The next exhibition will feature 20th century English painter and printmaker John Piper from September 3, and the momentum will continue to build at the studios with the release online this week of the autumn courses in print-making, life drawing, creative digital art and photography.

“The courses will run through the educational year in six-week blocks at £66 each block from September,” says Ben.

“We’ve kept the cost as low as we can, and of course there’ll be access to the facilities here for artists, so they can pay a weekly, monthly or annual subscription to use the print-making room.”

Ben and his Bar Lane Studios team have been building ties with other creative enterprises in York: the peripatetic Revolving Gallery artists will hold a Friday night and Saturday exhibition on October 1 and 2; and the digital company Blink and York College are forming productive bonds too.

Above all, the not-for-profit remit is paying dividends.

“It means we have the flexibility to work with any organisation,” says Ben. “It allows us to work with other galleries and to give space to artists ranging from Chalky the Yorkie to Matisse; and it lets us build relations throughout York.

“We’re open to any pitches, any ideas, anyone who wants to collaborate in any way. We don’t have to say ‘No’!”

• The York Open Summer Exhibition runs at Bar Lane Studios and the New School House Gallery, York, until August 31.