Arts center on tap for Elm City

A former industrial site on Henry Street in New Haven is before the Board of Zoning Appeals on Sept. 26 for special exceptions and variances to convert it to an arts center. A former industrial site on Henry Street in New Haven is before the Board of Zoning Appeals on Sept. 26 for special exceptions and variances to convert it to an arts center. Photo: MARY E. O’LEARY / HEARST CONNECTICUT MEDIA Photo: MARY E. O’LEARY / HEARST CONNECTICUT MEDIA Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Arts center on tap for Elm City 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

NEW HAVEN >> On the horizon for the city is an artist incubator near James Hillhouse High School, where award-winner Titus Kaphar and others plan to renovate an almost century-old industrial building into studios and a small number of apartments.

Kaphar and Jonathan Brand of Elm City PostMasters, both graduates of the Yale School of Art who split their time between here and York York City, saw the need to bring artists together in New Haven, who could then mentor younger talent by presenting the arts as a viable career path.

The mentoring will consist of a coordinated program in which master artists will foster the growth of recent graduates of master of fine arts programs. Those graduates, in turn, will mentor high school students.

The plan is to convert the first and second floors of the 1920 Macalaster Bicknell building at 169-181 Henry St. to offices, studios and a cafe, as retail and gallery space.

The second floor will contain three apartments, while there will be another apartment on a third-floor addition.

City zoning officials said the project in the Dixwell neighborhood has been in the planning for some time and has gotten the support of a $200,000 investment from the city, as well state brownfield loans.

It will also include a 2D/3D printing, fabrication lab and woodworking shop, “The Sandbox,” which they plan to run as a pilot that will serve other artists in the building.

The plan is to also provide apprenctice placements for high school students and job opportunities for local residents.

Part of the mission would be to advance professional development for artists that could include seminars on the legal, administrative and financial aspects of the art business.

The property was bought this spring for $260,000 by 169 Henry Street LLC. Three of the principals listed with the secretary of the state for the property are Kaphar, Brand and Jason Price.

A prospectus on the proposed art center said the purchase was made possible through the support of Lin Simon of the Risc Foundation.

The renovation is being designed by Deborah Berke Partners of New York. Berke is also the dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

One description of the proposal estimates the center will employ at least two full-time directors, a part-time project manager, a part-time bookkeeper, as well as security and maintence personnel in the first year.

Brand, who is a master sculptor, built his first 3D printer in 2010, according to the proposal, and then two more advanced printers. In 2014, he built a Fused Disposition Modeling printer and his first computer numeric control router in 2011.

“I’m extremely interested in the intersection of art and technology. It’s easy to get seduced by technology, but in the end I want my work to be art first. I want to be able to combine technology in a way where it fits seamlessly into the concept for the work, where your first recognition isn’t how something is made but why,” Brand commented in the proposal for Elm City PostMasters.

Kaphar is the founder and there are three co-founders. They include Brand, Price, a partner in Exaltare Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm, and Carrie Mackin, who is also the executive director.

In analyzing the need for such a complex, they said artists “often find their studios isolating and those working from home talk about the distractions of everyday life. Moving to an environment with other master artists can increase stimulation and focus.”

It said they determined that New York artists would consider coming to New Haven, while New Haven artists would be willing to pay some more for a studio to receive the extra perceived benefits of the center.

Pointing to sociological studies, “the mere presence of other people engaged in the same task as us can boost our motivation,” the prospectus said.

The proposed center will be before the Board of Zoning Appeals on Sept. 26 for several variances, as well as two special exceptions to allow a new nonconforming use (the art center ) for an existing nonconforming use (industrial) and to permit 13 on-site parking spaces where 48 spaces are required. The zoning staff has recommended that it be approved.

Kaphar has had multiple feature stories written about his work in major publications.

Bill Keller, editor of The Marshall Project, said Kaphar’s work “continues to explore the confluence of race, punishment and protest.”

Eloise Blondiau, in an article titled “Amending American History with Titus Kaphar,” wrote about him in the December 2016 publication Interiew Magazine.

“Kaphar’s ability to draw attention to moral crises that are at once modern and age-old is a clear strength of his practice (his 2014 series The Jerome Project, for example, set a keen eye on injustices in America’s criminal justice system), and one that is particularly patent in his latest exhibition, ‘Shifting Skies.’ ... His paintings and sculptures continually interrogate how narratives of American history either forget black people or malign them. While some works are direct responses to mass incarceration or police brutality, others plunge further into the past, focusing on the plight of the slaves owned by George Washington, a supposedly liberatory figure,” she wrote.