With a flick of his wrist, Michael Ostaski turned a canvas right side up to reveal the design he created — of musician Jimi Hendrix — using glowing paint on a dark canvas.
The design was upside-down the whole time he worked. Singers and dancers entertained the audience as Ostaski worked at the Jasper Arts Center, grooving to a rendition of Fatboy Slim’s “Funk Soul Brother” before launching into Hendrix’s “Fire.” The audience cheered, and sang along with the performers on stage. Many people danced in the aisles, which was encouraged, stepping on bubble wrap and shining colored lights on the walls using the miniature lights they received during the show’s intermission.
That show, called “The Three Painters” was in January. It was one of many and varied artistic offerings presented every year at the arts center.
This year, Jasper Community Arts Commission is celebrating 40 years as an incorporated arts entity with the city. It is the only city-owned arts commission in the state.
Cloey Metzger of Jasper, 13, washed the excess clay off her wheel so she could begin shaping her piece during a pottery class for middle school students taught by Corie Eckerle of Huntingburg on July 7 at the Jasper Arts Center’s satellite space in Jasper. The class was part of center’s summer ARTventures program.
“A lot of this is small-town pride. People care about their community,” Arts Director Kit Miracle said. “They show up to our events. They participate. They volunteer. People are interested in the arts.”
The arts in Jasper is long in history, dating back to when early Irish, Scottish and eventually German settlers came to the area.
“They brought their instruments with them,” said Bob McCarty, one of the original people who helped get the community arts program established in Jasper. “Families had family orchestras. The kids wanted to play and the parents wanted their kids to have musical skills. At Christmas time and at different events, like weddings, families would get together to play music.”
After World War II, a group of people formed a theatrical troupe called the Kundek Players. They performed at Kundek Hall, which is now within the St. Joseph Parish Center, and did mostly religious plays. “But after a while, that got kind of boring,” McCarty said.
So another group formed the Jasper Little Theater, which also performed at Kundek Hall. “But it got to be the same people doing it over and over. So people started dropping out,” McCarty said.
A troupe of high school students and recent graduates performed musicals during the summer as the Jasper Summer Theater. The group performed in parks and then at the 4-H cow barn on a stage the group built. But during the 4-H Fair, the group had no place to perform.
And Kundek Hall was beginning to be used more by Tenth Street School. The need for a more permanent arts venue was evident.
“People started saying that we needed to consider a real theater building,” McCarty recalled. “The original idea was to have a pole barn. But the more we worked, it was decided that it should be bigger than a pole barn.”
In 1971, a group of people — including Stan Krempp, then president of Aristokraft, jewelry store owner Lenny Newman, and Jack Rumbach, then publisher of The Herald — started working on the idea of creating a permanent arts center. The Jasper Auditorium Corp. was formed as a nonprofit that existed for the sole purpose of collecting money for and building a community auditorium.
The group went door to door to seek donations.
“As we were knocking on doors, it became apparent that people didn’t really understand what we were trying to do,” McCarty said. “At about that time, the school corporation was looking to build a new school. People started thinking that, ‘Hey, we could use the auditorium as a gymnasium for the school.’ We had to tell them, ‘No, that’s not what this is.’ Someone suggested we have skating rink in the basement. And we had to say, ‘No that’s not what this is either.’ So people had a hard time understanding what we were doing.”
Part of getting the arts agency started in Jasper included education through meetings and discussions. As the plans for the auditorium formed, so did the idea of having a city arts department.
“As we approached people for money, we told them that the auditorium would be a good recruitment tool,” McCarty recalled. “One of the biggest expenses an employer has is recruiting, training and keeping employees. If you train an employee and that employee leaves, you’ve lost that investment. It’s gone.”
They convinced the public that an arts auditorium would help attract new people and keep them here. Their next step was to show that value to the Jasper Common Council.
“We wrote a statement of purpose and all kinds of guidelines and then went to the city council,” McCarty said. “We explained it as a business decision. It was good for the community. It was a good investment.”
The council agreed, and in 1975 the council passed a ordinance creating the department, the first of its kind in Indiana.
The center opened in January 1977. The Jasper Auditorium Corporation gave the facility’s keys to the city for ownership that March, then dissolved.
“We could see that the best way to do this, the most business-like way to do this is to make it part of the city,” McCarty said. “It’s the most efficient way of getting stuff done. It’s not constantly begging for support. It survives as a city department.”
So far, it has worked. The department has 10 employees, four of them full time. It has visual arts, education, programming and technical direction sectors.
Just comparing the offerings at the arts center in 2000 to today shows a huge increase. In 2000, there were two series of theatrical performances; now there are four. Besides the gallery shows, the visual arts sector conducted two workshops per year. Now there are 40 to 60 workshops each year and weeks of summer classes, gallery lectures and First Thursday artist receptions. The education department has increased from two school performances per child each year to performances for Jasper schools and schools in the region; the education department is also a partner with the Washington, D.C.-based Kennedy Center and holds brown bag events and canvas painting classes at the gallery.
“We keep adding things, trying new things out,” Miracle said. “If it works, we keep it. If it doesn’t work, we take it out. You have to be willing to try new things.”
This summer, the visual arts sector took to the grounds of the Riverwalk and Schaeffer Barn for a plein air art contest that had cash prizes. The special events committee spent several evenings over the summer building a birthday cake float for the Strassenfest parade. The education department will kick off its offerings next week with two performances Wednesday at the arts center by Dr. Kaboom!, who blends theater and science to teach and entertain students. The two shows, at 9 a.m. and 12:45 p.m., are already sold out.
“We are a great recruiting tool,” Miracle said of the arts. “Every year when we get our season guides printed, the Jasper Chamber sends out copies to people inquiring about the area. Memorial (Hospital) uses them when recruiting doctors. People are interested in the arts. People look at what art offerings an area has.”
While the arts department sticks with its annual offerings — exhibits in the Krempp Gallery that change monthly, seasonal classes for adults and children, programming in the Jasper schools and a variety of musical and theatrical shows in the 675-seat theater — the department staff looks for other avenues through which to promote the arts.
As a result, the offerings at the center have expanded over the last few years. More artists are encouraged to offer education classes for students either at the school or at the arts center. The center offers birthday party packages at which partygoers can either create artwork, act out a play or have a glamor show complete with makeup. For the last 12 years, the center has held the Chalk Walk Arts Festival, at which young artists use chalk to draw a design on a sidewalk square around the Square.
Shows for seniors have also been added — a music program through which musicians visit local nursing homes to perform; art classes have also been held at local assisted living facilities.
To appeal to young adults, a fourth performing arts series, called New Directions, was added to the center’s lineup
The center still has its Traditional Series, Family Series and Backstage Series, at which the audience actually sits on stage with the artist.
The community stays involved with the center.
“Jasper is small enough that it is cohesive,” Miracle said. “When you put out a call for volunteers, people show up.”
The center utilizes between 200 and 300 volunteers each year.
“We have people who volunteer once a year. And we have others who are always volunteering for whatever we need,” Miracle said. “They are the people you never see.”
The future is looking bright. The arts department is poised to expand into the downtown area. Plans are being considered for offices to move into the former Hoosier Desk building. A nonprofit group, Next Act, is working on purchasing and opening the former Astra movie theater as a venue for theatrical and artistic shows, which the Jasper Arts would manage. A committee is planning a mural for the side of a building in the city and will enlist the community’s help with the painting.
Public involvement is key, McCarty said.
“We wanted to make the arts available to everyone,” he said. “This is not something for just a certain segment of our community. There is something here for everyone to see and participate in.”
Just last week, visitors ate hors d’oeuvres and refreshments as they viewed regional artists’ paintings, drawings and sculptures hanging in Krempp Gallery. The exhibit is the annual juried show. A juror, Brian Knicely, judged the artwork a few days earlier to determine award winners. Viewers got to mingle with some of the artists and discuss their works.
This is not a scene in a metropolitan city. This is in Jasper.
And it’s been here for 40 years.