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.