Sculpture at Community Caring & Sharing

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KIB’s IPL Project GreenSpace is a grassroots-driven effort that helps transform vacant lots and underused spaces into natural, beautiful and functional pocket parks.  As part of the 2017 initiative, public art will be incorporated into a pocket park planned for a vacant lot next to the Community Caring & Sharing Center in the Mars Hill neighborhood on the southwest side of Indianapolis. Artists Quincy Owens and Luke Crawley were selected by a panel of KIB and Arts Council staff, Mars Hill community members, and Community Caring & Sharing staff.

Community Caring and Sharing (CC&S) is a 30-year-old community service center for those in need.  Services were consolidated into the Holt Rd. building in 2002.  Programs serve more than 30,000 people annually and include a food pantry, clothing assistance, reading and GED instruction, youth programs, senior citizen fellowship, and more.

Through the KIB project, the currently empty space at 2830 S. Holt Rd. will become a place for the community to gather, garden, play, and learn.  The community and project group hopes for a space that is a combination of open spaces and partially closed and/or shade structures where visitors may sit or play.  CC&S plans to use the space as an outdoor classroom for their ongoing activities, such as adult health, literacy and GED classes, and to host a visiting mobile book center.  Owens and Crawley hope to reflect the neighborhood’s interesting history and longtime connection to varying technologies through their commissioned artwork, which will possibly be physically interactive. The project will be completed by November 2017.

The project site is situated in an industrial area with sources for recycled industrial materials available nearby. The site will be surrounded on at least two sides with fencing, and the other two sides may be partially fenced. Fencing may be able to be incorporated into the artwork. When complete, the park will serve as a resource not only for CC&S, but also for the adjacent residents.

Artists Quincy Owens and Luke Crawley have been paired with landscape architect, Jeff Mader of Mader Design LLC, and will participate in the design of the space in which the artwork will be situated.