One of Grand Center’s major corners—Grand and Olive—is getting a makeover and is poised to become its own little “intersection of art and life”
By Stefene Russell
Photograph by Peter Newcomb
Grand Center’s come a long way since the days when the Fox lay moldering, B-grade kung fu movies flickering across its screen. The theater’s renovation in 1982 sparked a number of redevelopment projects, including the renovation of the Sheldon and the construction of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts; as of the early aughts, you could not call it anything but a flourishing arts district. However, the building that’s sometimes been considered the district’s entry point—the spectacular (but decaying) Streamline Deco Woolworth Building—has sat. And sat. And sat.
As you read this, though, Trivers Associates Architects has already redesigned the space, and S.M. Wilson & Co. is busily reconstructing the interior so that Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri (whose headquarters will take up two-thirds of the building—it’s been rechristened the Big Brothers Big Sisters Building) can host the national BBBS conference here in June. And in August or thereabouts, the Kranzberg Cultural Arts Center will open; there are plans for a bistro restaurant, a bit of retail, two theaters (cabaret and black box) and a 6,000-square-foot satellite office for Craft Alliance.
“We’ll have an exhibition space on the street level, looking out over the corner of Grand and Olive, just south of the Fox Theatre,” says Craft Alliance director Boo McLaughlin. “The gateway of the Grand Center cultural area will be Craft Alliance’s exhibition windows.”
McLaughlin is quick to add that this is an expansion of her organization’s Delmar location, not a replacement. “It’s going to allow us to do things we can’t do on Delmar,” she says. That includes doubling the numbers of kids it serves through its outreach program, widening its summer camp offerings and enriching them by partnering with nearby arts orgs like the Contemporary and hosting crafts artists for 3- to 12-month residencies. Because artists will work on-site 20 hours a week, folks can wander in off the street to see potters throwing bowls or metalsmiths making jewelry.
“We’ll have a big clay studio, a big metal studio and a fiber studio,” McLaughlin says. “The fiber studio is in a space that can double as a multipurpose room, so we will be able to screen films, host lectures and hold a lot of our outreach programs there. We’ll also have a graphics studio—a lot of the cutting-edge work in craft medium involves photography and Photoshopped images on clay or on glass, on fabric certainly, so that will allow us to teach some of those techniques.”
McLaughlin says she’s excited about the potentials for synergy, not just with Big Brothers Big Sisters but with nearby Saint Louis University; she also feels that Craft Alliance has a very important niche to fill here, beyond being a gallery: “It’s going to bring something that’s interactive to the cultural center.”
She’s also psyched at the opportunity to “show the city what craft art can be. There’s a lot of people who think it’s something other than fine art. What we’ll be doing in our exhibition space will be bigger solo exhibitions, more installations, not unlike the Maya Lin show at the Contemporary. Essentially, that’s crafted, it’s 3-D, it’s wood and fiber—it’s something you might see from someone who considers themselves a contemporary craft artist. Craft is not just a beautiful pot … it’s lots of things.”
Craft Alliance’s satellite location will be housed at 501 N. Grand. For a current list of exhibitions and classes at its Delmar location, visit craftalliance.org. For more information on Grand Center, visit grandcenter.org.
