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Indianapolis Art Center Celebrates 75 Years
(posted May 11)
The Indianapolis Art Center's 75th Anniversary celebration will be a community hands-on mosaic art project
that will last throughout the summer at Indianapolis Marion County Public
Library branches.
Laura Alvarado of the IAC said the project will be a community mosaic art
project that reminiscent of the days of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression.
Alvarado said "The American Scene' is a term used and developed by
representatives of the U.S. Treasury Department during the Great Depression.
In the early 1930s, the Treasury Department formed an advisory council
to commission artists to create murals, paintings and other artwork for
public buildings. With help from the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor
to the WPA, the advisory council paid a group of artists to document the
people, landscapes and events that comprised the "American scene"
at that difficult time in history. The works reflected the hardships faced
by people across the country as a direct result of the Great Depression."
According to Alvarado, Indianapolis artist William Kaeser was hired in
1934 by the Civil Works Administration to teach an art class at the Kirschbaum
Center. Several of Kaeser's students later formed the Indianapolis Art
League, the forerunner of today's Indianapolis Art Center.
Kaeser and some other artists were hired to capture the Haughville area
by painting what they saw.
She said this summer's project will teach participants about the WPA during
two hour workshops at various library sites. The artists will record their
visualization of today's society through a ceramic tile medium. All of
the sections created will be returned to IAC for final assembly in August.
The mosaic mural will travel to various library locations starting next
March.
Tami Edminister, IMCPL children's program specialist, said Alvarado contacted
the IMCPL in February with the idea of fitting the project into a summer
program. Library registration is required to participate in the Mosaic
Message Artwork.
Children age 8 and up are invited to participate on June 11, 2:30 pm at
the Haughville Library, 275-4420, or at the Wayne Township Library, 275-4530,
on June 20 at 1 pm.
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