The Black Arts Cultural Center: A Building Community

Intended publication: The Index

Walking into the Black Arts Cultural Center in downtown Kalamazoo, I entered its gallery space for the first time, where African American artists displayed their artwork. It was the first Friday of May and the city’s monthly event, the Art Hop, brought in many visitors to the center.

I cruised around the gallery with my classmates of our Interrogating Contemporary Art course. Our professor had us attend the event and select an artwork to write an art review to publish on our class website. With over twenty people in the small gallery and bodies moving at a fast pace, I couldn’t observe the art for more than twenty seconds. Overwhelmed, I walked out with a promise to return another time. The Art Hop poster on the center’s glass window read “Open Hours, Weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.”

On my second visit to the BACC on the second floor of the Epic Center the following Tuesday, the center was completely empty. I noticed an office at the back I failed to see the first time.

The office has been occupied by the BACC’s executive director, Mr. Sidney Ellis, and the center’s receptionist, Mrs. Joan Jones for the past five years.

Mr. Ellis has been a volunteer of the BACC for twenty years before becoming the executive director.

“Because we are a part of the monthly Art Hop, there are a lot of people who know us for that. You have a group of people who are a little diverse who frequent the Art Hop,” Mr. Ellis said.

Since the center’s very first event in 1985, known as the Black Arts Festival, part of the goal of the BACC was to bring diversity within the Kalamazoo community through art.

The organization has worked to promote art by black artists and created and established a space for the African American community to interact and connect with other cultural communities within Kalamazoo.

“Art is essential to every culture. Art connects us in a variety of different ways yet essentially it shows us that universally we are all the same, we hate, we cry, we laugh and we love,” said Mr. Ellis.

I began to develop an interest on the BACC so I visited their website, www.blackartskalamazoo.org.

Under “What We Do” it read Art Exhibitions, Black Writers, Theatre, Community Linkage, and Yearly Special Events, including the Black Arts Festival. Their descriptions promoted education, art appreciation, community interactions, and opportunities for networking, career development, and success of African American artists of all ages.

“We are hoping to build bridges culturally within the community to create conversation and create an understanding. When you experience art from a different cultural perspective you can get an understanding of what that culture is,” said Mr. Ellis.

The BACC has provided art mentoring programs in elementary and high schools to encourage exhibitions within their facilities. The center also has collaborated with Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College.

I became more aware of the BACC’s collaboration with our college community as well. I saw Mr. Ellis one morning as I walked into the library. From Biggby’s, he greeted me with a smile and wave, professionally dressed in a full charcoal suit and soft pink dress-shirt.

Completely surprised with the encounter, I stopped to greet back and ask about his visit to our campus.

“I’m here for a presentation from the marketing class,” he said. During our next encounter at the BACC the following day, Mr. Ellis said the class presented how they would market the Black Arts Festival. They talked about how to utilize social media to advertise the event.

The BACC’s first Black Arts Festival (1985) was co-sponsored by the City of Kalamazoo Parks and Recreation Department who helped advertise the annual event.

The center also has been well advertised through different types of media: online website, flyers of on-going and up-coming programs and events, and posters. The Kalamazoo Gazette has contributed articles to the BACC, mostly promoting the Black Arts Festival since 1985.

“Although our name is out there and we’re doing things people don’t necessarily connect those things together always. They may see us out doing a program with some students at New Genesis or at the Douglas Community Association, and for some odd reason they don’t connect that with the BACC who they know run the Black Arts Festival,” Mr. Ellis said.

Executive director of Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, D. Neil Bremer, commented on the BACC.

“I think BACC is a critical organization that needs to find the way that it can thrive. It’s a small organization and Sid is an almost one man organization. It’s a struggle for the competing sense of priorities his group can have. It’s a struggle for them to reach their own African American audience in this town,” Mr. Bremer said.

On Friday, June 1^st, the Art Hop once again took place in the downtown area of Kalamazoo. I was excited to hear what visitors and members of the art community thought about the Black Arts Cultural Center.

Near the entrance of the Epic center on the strip of Kalamazoo Mall, I saw a woman in her forties with long blonde hair walking out with her two little daughters. When I stopped her to ask if she had entered the BACC during her evening out at the Art Hop, the woman gladly stated positive feedback of the center’s native feature of African American art.

A group of three college students went to the second floor of the Epic Center but didn’t think there was anything at the back end of the hallway.

Walking into the BACC, the gallery was occupied with handcrafted pieces on pedestals in the center of the room. Vibrant colored, gold paintings and wood-carved pieces hung on the walls.

“We have a good range of Art Hop people who consistently come. It’s going great. People are very much enjoying the art. Several people went out and brought people back with them,” Mr. Ellis said.