By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

New plan eyes changes

Change is definitely in the air. Whether on a national or local level, you can sense something afoot.

In these parts, a great deal of it stems from the recently unveiled new master plan for Mobile’s development. As far as the arts, aspects of the plan have a familiar ring.

The plan states goals such as formalizing boundaries for a LoDa arts district, providing incentives and design guidelines to draw arts businesses downtown.

We’ve heard similar things for a while, and we’ve seen mixed results. Some of the downtown galleries have struggled and shuttered. Others have moved.

Alabama Contemporary Dance left a large hole in the LoDa arts backdrop when they evaporated in the last couple of years.

The Saenger Theatre and Space 301 are resounding success stories but they have been driven by the largesse of one of Mobile’s wealthiest and most powerful families.

If the Crescent Theatre can hold its own, it can only help things but that story has yet to be written.

The monthly Artwalks are persevering but the fervor that was seen with some of the first Arts!Alive events has somewhat subsided. Seems to me a number of the folks in LoDa on those monthly second Fridays are there as much to “see and be seen” as to partake in art.

Well, whatever it takes. Mobile is a town that prizes social events utmost so I guess we have to turn it to our advantage any way we can.

There are also plans to begin a weekend concert series that might be well received if they stick with a couple of proven and widely popular musical genres and don’t stray too far afield.

There are also plans for renovating the decaying hulk of Barton Academy and transforming it into a culinary or performing arts school. This column first tackled that subject back in 2004 when the county school system purchased the dilapidated Gayfer’s Building on Bienville Square and then quickly backed away from plans to fashion it into a performing arts institution.

I have to say, I’m reserving hope on this until something more concrete than a pipe dream arises.

More exciting is the plan’s focus on the African-American aspects of our culture and history. The crowded African-American Archives on the north perimeter of the Henry Aaron Loop has long needed bigger environs. While it has been disheartening to see the more successful members of the community not step up and alleviate this problem previously, perhaps the city’s focus on the project can loosen some private pocketbooks toward that end.

Eventually, they hope for something called the African-American Heritage Trail. It will be reflected both in the archives’ expansion and through historically relevant public art.

This is the first long-term, wide scale effort in this writer’s memory to concentrate on a portion of our culture that has seemed overlooked in the past. I can’t help but wonder how much leverage our mayor’s ethnicity played in these efforts and hope that is indicative of brighter days ahead for the city.

However, we’ve seen slow and steady progress in that regard. The Mobile Arts Council was once viewed by many in our community as bearing a type of hoity-toity stodginess but has shown much more inclusiveness in recent years. They have sought involvement from the African-American realm (and some other “outsider” groups) and African-Americans have sat on the Board of Directors.

The Greater Mobile Art Awards recipients have included notables from the African-American community such as Dr. Joseph Mitchell and Lil Greenwood. Slowly but surely, the spotlight grows wider.

However all of this reminds me it will be up to us as individuals to make this plan a reality. The city can ballyhoo the “String of Pearls” and commissions all it wants but little downtown would have been realized without the fortitude of private business owners.

Without Mead Miller, Wendell Quimby, Jim and Woody Walker, Hayley Maulsby and Par Bennstrom, downtown would likely have remained a shadow of its current self. They drew a generation downtown, week after week, and inured them to the rumors of danger. Around their businesses, other activity sprang.

They put feet on those new sidewalks and bodies under all those new streetlamps.

Next thing you knew, politicians were smiling and cameras were flashing.

Those same customers frequenting those bars and restaurants have now aged and are bringing their families into LoDa. They are as responsible for downtown renaissance as any name on a plaque and it will take similar action to realize future progress.

Maybe instead of merely lamenting what we don’t have, we should work toward what we want, rewards be damned.

I think of people like Zach DePolo, a local artisan and artist shouldering the responsibility of fostering a burgeoning arts center at the Blind Mule on the block north of The Temple. DePolo and others will host an all-day arts festival on Nov. 22 billed to last from 10 a.m. until whenever things wind down. The event not only features art for sale, live music and food but is also soliciting contributions of canned food and clothing for area shelters.

And here’s a secret: it didn’t take an agency or a commission of highly visible politicos to get it done.

All it took was a few dedicated souls making a change within, just someone willing to believe, “Yes, I can.”

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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