When ArtHouse, a new artistic and culinary gallery, opens across from the U.S. Steel Yard ballpark in 2017, Isis Ferguson sees it as a way to take one of the city’s vacant buildings and see how it can help the city economically.
Ferguson, program manager of an arts incubator at the University of Chicago, and others argued during a luncheon Tuesday that more art projects like ArtHouse can increase the economic development in both Gary and Northwest Indiana.
“The region is now on the map nationally,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson, along with Karren Lee, a board member with the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District, and John Cain, executive director of South Shore Arts, spoke as part of Indiana University Northwest’s Chancellor’s Commission for Community Engagement series, which focused Tuesday on how the arts can help economic development.
Lee pointed to how the MBACD actually started because of an economic loss in response to the closing in 2011 of a beloved restaurant.
Members of the local community wanted to do something to help restore Lake Street in the Miller neighborhood and focused on creating the arts district. Since then, the arts district has focused on providing a variety of artistic and cultural experiences, from opera to car shows to sandcastle competitions, and Lake Street has since seen 12 new businesses open, she said.
“It’s sort of a sun spot out of this chaos,” she said of the group.
Ferguson said that part of the purpose of ArtHouse, which will be located at 411 E. 5th Ave., was to bring public art to Gary, vs. the traditional idea of pictures hanging in a gallery. One of the first projects planned is a light installation, she said.
“Public art instigates in a different manner than art hung on a wall,” she said.
Ferguson praised the city’s leadership in focusing on the arts, noting that she became involved because Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson contacted the University of Chicago about ways they could help Gary.
Cain argued that other cities, such as Bilbao, Spain, were able to revitalize themselves through art. He noted that Northwest Indiana is unlikely to have a government fund a large museum such as the Basque government did for Bilbao, but he pointed to efforts by Michigan City and Valparaiso to create smaller arts districts in their communities. Individuals are also making a push, he said, such as the program Community Supported Art in Valparaiso, which acts like a community supported agriculture program where people pay a fee and receive a box of works from local artists.
“The arts can make a tremendously large impact in our region, perhaps even becoming the new steel,” he said.
David Klamen, professor of fine arts and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at IUN, pointed to the university’s new Arts and Sciences building, which will include two theaters and gallery space when it’s finished next year.
“It expands our connections to our neighbors,” he said, calling it a visual presence along Broadway.
Chancellor William Lowe noted that IUN already exhibits works by local students and teachers but that the new building will expand on this even further.
