Innovative arts center in the works for L.B.

Michael M. Simpson (l), vice president, and Douglas Ferrari, executive director, of the Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts, stand in front of the building the group hopes to acquire as the site for an innovative new arts center. At left, renovations to the abandoned industrial building will include a new facade.

By gloria stravelli

Staff Writer

A center for the contemporary arts, with studio space for artists and exhibits of new and innovative works, is taking shape in Long Branch as a result of an artist’s quest for an airy new studio.

"I was looking for a new studio, and I realized there are no sculpture facilities around here," explained West Long Branch sculptor Douglas Ferrari. "I got to thinking, ‘What if I start teaching sculpture classes? If I get an old warehouse, I could put in exhibition space, too. I’d just need to put some lights up.’ It just kept growing," he explained. "Then I started thinking I should do this as a nonprofit."

Ferrari’s ruminations caught the imagination of friends and colleagues, evolving into a group of arts advocates who envisioned an arts center where artists could create and exhibit works and where other people could experience and study contemporary art.

"I saw a major art institution that brings contemporary art to central New Jersey," explained Ferrari, who teaches sculpture as an adjunct member of the faculties at Brookdale and Ocean County community colleges. "There isn’t really any local center for all the visual arts from sculpture to video, painting, photography, performances and installation art.

"From talking to people it gradually grew. It’s been gathering support with people adding ideas and creative input," he explained. "It’s been a wonderful experience."

The group founded the nonprofit Shore Institute of the Contemporary Arts (SICA) in August 2000, to address what it perceived as a lack of local opportunities to experience contemporary visual arts.

SICA’s mission is to enhance public accessibility, awareness, appreciation and knowledge of contemporary art through classes, seminars, exhibitions, lectures and performances.

An educational component will augment art programs offered at local high schools and colleges and develop programs in cooperation with arts organizations like the Children’s Cultural Center at Red Bank and the Monmouth County Arts Council.

In addition to Ferrari, who serves as executive director, SICA’s board includes painter Julia DeVita, Little Silver, who serves as president; Michael Simpson, Red Bank architect, who is secretary/treasurer; and trustees Ronnie Gardstein, Little Silver, community arts director for the Monmouth County Arts Council; Michael Muscillo, assistant administrator, City of Long Branch; Edward O’Neill Jr., architecture program coordinator, Brookdale Community College; Dr. Martin Novelli, dean, humanities and fine arts, Ocean County College; Eric Clark, Asbury Park musician and artist; Howard Fallick, Elberon, retired engineer; and Judy Schaeffer, Belmar; and Karlyn Donohoe, Tinton Falls, artists and students.

Last year, the group began looking for a building to house the arts center, concentrating on shore towns slated for redevelopment.

When the members reached out to officials involved in the redevelopment plan for the city of Long Branch, the response was positive.

"We got an incredible reception; we were greeted with open arms," Ferrari recounted. "Everybody has been doing everything they can to help."

For the redevelopment planners, SICA represents a highly desirable addition to an emerging arts district on lower Broadway, an area targeted in the city’s Broadway Neighborhoods Revitalization Plan.

"One of the many elements in the plan has to do with creating an arts and entertainment hub for the region built on as many institutions as possible," explained Pratap Talwar, principal in Thompson Design Group, Boston, master planners for the City of Long Branch.

The core of the arts center, New Jersey Repertory Company, is thriving on lower Broadway, and Talwar saw SICA as the perfect fit for the redevelopment model.

"We had already identified this as a strategy for the area," he said, "and we were looking for a group and there they were."

SICA’s board looked at many buildings before settling on an abandoned industrial building with on-site parking at Third Avenue and Broadway, which the group hopes to acquire.

The 18,000-square-foot, two-story, concrete structure needs extensive renovation but has the requisite wide open floor plan, lofty ceilings and huge, 7-by-10-foot windows that will allow natural light to flood the studio spaces planned on the second story.

"When you went inside and saw the volume of space and the openness, you could picture a gallery there," Ferrari recalled, adding that the group envisions a contemporary gallery where artists known for their innovative work will exhibit, lecture and teach.

Once financing for the building is secured — discussions got under way last week with a consortium of local banks — the group will begin fund raising for renovations that will include a new facade, and lighting, plumbing and heating systems.

Upstairs, the open floor plan will be converted into studios averaging 150-500 square feet that will be available to artists, or groups of artists, for a monthly rental fee.

"We already have 4,000 square feet of reserved studio space," Ferrari noted, adding that artists interested in renting studios can contact him at www.info@sica-arts.com

SICA will become part of a strategy to do more than provide a new arts venue, Talwar commented.

"We are looking to create living and work opportunities for artists, not just a place where you show work, but a place where you actually make it," he observed. "We want this to be a place for the living arts, not just for exhibit. It’s unfortunate that many cities have used the arts in a very superficial way.

"We are definitely trying to make an urban campus here by looking to educational institutions that have art-related programs and tying them in by creating places and services for them like rehearsal studios or space to work in or to live in," he continued.

"We understand that the arts are fragile and they need constant mothering, and putting the resources together will certainly help strengthen their ability to thrive," he said.

With the acquisition of a site under way, SICA’s founders hope the new arts center will begin to fulfill its mission as early as the fall.

"It’s going to happen somehow, in some way," Ferrari promised, "very soon."