CHAPTER 2The Arts Center

All photos in this chapter are © by Joe Konz 

Both the front and back sides of the Garfield Park Arts Center (the backside shown in the first photo below, the front side in the second photo below) always struck me as being picture-worthy. The backside is especially so when highlighted with patches of “golden hour” lighting as shown in the first photo below. 

For those unfamiliar, the “golden hour” is a term used to describe dramatic lighting cast by the sun within an hour or so of rising or setting each day. It’s a period that photography enthusiasts enjoy exploiting in pursuit of dramatic lighting for their compositions. (A chapter later in this series is devoted to my golden hour photos in the park.)

The building now serving as the arts center was called the Community House when it opened in 1922. It evolved into a recreation center, housing a gymnasium as well as a bath house for users of the park’s former Olympic-sized swimming pool, which opened in 1930 on land that now serves as the arts center parking lot. The original pool closed when the then-newly constructed aquatic center opened adjacent to the Burrello Family Center in 1998.

In 2006, Indy Parks used a $2.7 million grant to remodel and enlarge the facility to encompass 8,000 square feet of space. GPAC houses practice rooms for the performing arts, an exhibition hall, an upper-level meeting area, classrooms, several crafts work rooms, rehearsal rooms, a recording studio and a modest literary arts library.

In its upstairs exhibition hall, GPAC displays the works of a different artist every month. Displays have included paintings, chalk and pencil drawings, photographs, wood carvings and etchings, pottery, textile creations, other crafts items, and even antique goods and clothing.    

Since 2008, the Garfield Shakespeare Company all-volunteer theater troupe (read more about this organization in a later chapter) has used GPAC’s exhibition hall to stage its annual spring theater productions. 

Members of the Indiana Photographic Society photography club meet weekly in one of the arts center rooms on the second floor. Each spring, the club presents its members’ annual Through the Lens photography exhibit in the main third-floor exhibit hall. 

Below are more pictures of the center’s exterior, including three taken during an overnight snowstorm March 24-25, 2013, a storm many in Indianapolis referred to at the time as Snowmageddon.

Below are some photos of the arts center's main exhibit hall being used for gatherings, starting with several photos of the Garfield Shakespeare Company's first-ever open house in May 2014. That is followed by some photos of the photography club’s 2012 Through the Lens exhibit opening reception; an undated crafts fair; a 2016 exhibit saluting costumes, sketches, artwork and photos from the Indiana Repertory Theatre; and photos of classrooms and practice rooms on GPAC’s second level. 

The photos above and the first eight below were from an autumn 2016 display, "From the Stage to the Park: Costumes, Props & More," in GPAC's main exhibit hall. The show took a look at the art of theatrical design from the Indiana Repertory Theatre, using costumes, early sketch designs and photographs from 11 of its productions from 2011-16.

Above and first three below: Some of meeting, crafts and performance art practice rooms in GPAC. 

In 1905, the city opened a modest zoo on the Garfield Park grounds and in winter, animals were sheltered in a portion of what is now the arts center. In November 2009, Lesley Meier, then the arts center's assistant manager (but later its manager), gave me a tour of the building's three levels, during which I asked her if she knew what caused the musty smell I often detected in the building's lower floors. 

She attributed it to the boiler room and its ventilation system. She then led me to the boiler room to show me something she didn't think I’d seen before, and she was right. It was a tunnel extending north from the boiler room, a tunnel zoo operators had used to shuttle animals back and forth from the park’s open animal display areas. That's Lesley standing in the tunnel in the photo above. 

The image below is a shot of the rest of the tunnel, extending to its current terminus, marked by a large door. She said that's the point, on the other side, where the tunnel eventually collapsed.

Coming tomorrow, Chapter 3: Bean Creek and Pleasant Run

Previously in the Garfield Park in Pictures series:

Introduction

Chapter 1: “America, We Remember”