press

WEst Side Advance march 21, 2005
• A CIVIC ACTION: Studio breaks down barriers between art and audience
Nina Franz never knew where her art studies would lead her. Through a Grand Valley State University (GVSU) art course that places artists in the community, the studio experience took on a larger role for her and her section of Civic Studio participants."I feel much more attached, I am more in touch with the area than any other project could have," Franz, a former Civic Studio participant said. "Being a student, I could have gone through college and never gotten attached to the city. I feel I understand the city much better."Six years ago GVSU assistant art professor Paul Wittenbraker was looking for a way to break down the perceived obstacles between the artist and the public. He developed the Civic Studio concept in which art students moved out of the on-campus studios and into the community. "The course arouse out of two different sources the atrophying of public life, we don't do it so we, in time, forget how to do it, and the artist's problem that art is so insulated from the world," Wittenbraker said.With a grant from the Dorothy Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Wittenbraker opened the first Civic Studio, a pilot project for senior art students, in a storefront along Lyon Street in 1999. Subsequent studios have been located along Bridge Street in spring of 2003, in a warehouse space on Alabama Street during the following fall semester.Students, or "participants" as Wittenbraker describes them, spend a semester developing the studio space, volunteering with community organizations, and moving out of the studio space to investigate the neighborhood. From trying to figure out how to heat the large warehouse to how to bring neighbors into the studio, each space creates its own difficulties and opportunities say past participants of Civic Studio."You learn the amount of time it takes to establish yourself in the neighborhood, moving from an outsider to become trusted," said Suzanne Paulsen, a participant at the Bridge Street location. "People were hesitant because they didn't understand what was going on here."Now located at 1515 Plainfield Ave. in the Creston neighborhood, present Civic Studio students say they are encountering the similar challenges on the city's northeast side."There has been a perception of elitism around galleries that they're not as approachable as a storefront," GVSU senior and current Civic Studio participant Becky Siegwart said. "This is an opportunity to change how we make art. We have to learn about the neighborhood which makes each studio site specific it is something you can't from one to another"Senior art student Todd Freeman says the studio uses elements of sociology, anthropology, and civic studies to bring an accessible art experience to the area."Our goal is not to introduce people to something over their heads," he said. "Rather, we're want to bring something approachable and enriching to everyone."From researching the histories of residents and businesses in the district to exploring the streetscapes, senior Kate Aughey said the studio's projects are still very much in flux."We're trying to present our historical research in a tangible way," Aughey said. "It is a discovery of the space the equipment, the writings on the walls the traces of the people who have been year over the decades."The studio is a collaboration of the experiences that each participant brings to the project say the students involved. The variety of academic disciplines represented by the 16 students brings diverse perspectives to the projects underway."Coming from different backgrounds, we share a bucket of tools to use on this space," Aughey said.Whatever shape the final forms take as the semester concludes in a final discussion among the participants, Wittenbraker says he hopes the experience will help his students break down boundaries in the future."The most important outcome from Civic Studio is that people see we're artists and we're neighborly," Wittenbraker said. "We're not isolated eccentrics."