More hands-on at South Bend Museum of Art. Seeking wider reach for 75th anniversary.

SOUTH BEND — As it marks its 75th anniversary, the South Bend Museum of Art is without a director — its most recent one departed after less than six months — but that isn’t stopping the museum from implementing efforts to engage with more artists and more visitors.

Case in point: The first-time “Around the Bend” exhibit started with a simple and rather broad call this winter for artists across eight counties to submit works they had made since 2020. 

It opened a floodgate. The museum’s Warner Gallery easily filled with works by more than 220 artists. Many hadn’t ever exhibited in the museum. Some were fairly new to their craft. But the opening reception on May 6 drew them and friends in for a full house, a crowd of 625 visitors. 

Now the museum is dangling more enticements to get the public to enter its doors and have a more meaningful experience — here, where admission is free thanks to the non-profit's mix of property tax revenue and private dollars.  

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The number of summer camps for youths has doubled. Their prices have been cut in half, too. And plans are in the works to transform the former gift shop into a space where you might interact with a digital wall or dabble on an easel so you can see what goes into making art. 

“Despite having a need for staff, the museum is still doing the work — all these things are still happening,” Kelly Bellinger, the director of mission advancement, said. “We are still doing amazing work. We have amazing staff who are very dedicated. And I think we are taking it to the next step.” 

Meanwhile, the permanent exhibit has been completely remade with works that were pulled out of storage — among more than 1,100 pieces in its holdings — to represent each year of the museum’s life, from the first six paintings acquired to creations by Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. 

Now hiring

Philip Nadasdy moved here from the Seattle area to begin the director’s job last November. He most recently had directed public engagement and education programs at the Seattle Art Museum and was credited with furthering diversity and equity initiatives. He’d been selected after the South Bend museum’s board reviewed nearly 100 résumés, did a half dozen Zoom interviews and then brought two finalists in to visit, board President David Matthews said. 

Nadasdy was out of the office for a few weeks until, by May, he resigned. Matthews said that was Nadasdy’s choice and that it was for personal reasons, though he couldn’t be more specific.  

“He left on good terms,” Matthews said, noting that the board hadn’t yet done a performance review. “The board was happy with him.” 

Now, the board is in the midst of seeking a new director. 

It also has gone several months without a marketing director, yet to be hired, to get the word out about the new offerings.  

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Susan Visser had served as executive director for about 34 years until 2021. She reflected on major changes during her tenure in an essay in the new permanent exhibit: She recalled that a museum’s focus must “flow from the community” rather than just a single leader — a lesson she’d learned at a month-long museum institute where the theme was “We don’t need another hero.” 

In 1989, Visser writes, she delayed her own wedding so she could advocate for an amendment to state law after a glitch caused the museum to lose property tax funding.  

Other highlights, she noted: Meet Me on the Island concerts began in 1990 with WVPE Public Radio. A 1996 renovation added 6,000 square feet, including a permanent gallery and entrance rotunda. And in 2012, after 25 years of hosting the Scholastic Art Awards, the museum became its regional affiliate — now an ever-growing show of student art that put 1,124 pieces on display early this year.  

The museum itself had started in 1947 as the South Bend Art Association with a handful of Hoosier paintings and some classes in Tippecanoe Place's carriage house on Washington Street. After a fire in 1962, the renamed South Bend Art Center moved to a building on Lafayette Boulevard in downtown until the 1970s, when Century Center was built, its current home. 

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Upping the legacy

In the past two years, Matthews said, the board and staff have more than tripled the museum’s endowment from $794,000 to $2.5 million while they have tried new fundraisers, focused on local giving and raised money for art class scholarships.  

“We’re looking in the future to get more engagement and relevance,” he said. 

The board created Bellinger’s role as director of mission advancement, which she began last fall. Her job, she said, is “to raise awareness of SBMA's impact locally and regionally, raise financial support and to explore new resources to help SBMA further its mission. Art has always played an important role in my life, as well as for my children.” 

Bellinger, an artist who’d taken classes here as a kid and worked as an attorney for several years, comes from a family that has been major supporters of the arts in South Bend. Her dad is Chris Murphy, the long-time chairman and CEO of 1st Source Bank. Her grandmother is Ernestine Raclin. Murphy's and Raclin's names will go on the new art museum that the University of Notre Dame is building.

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And Bellinger's great grandparents, the Morrises, donated the first six pieces of art that launched the South Bend museum.

“I was drawn to SBMA because of the importance of having an art museum accessible to all,” Bellinger said. “And now that I am here, I am amazed at what we do and our potential.” 

Hands-on learning

Like an invite to learn, a couple of easels, some tables and chairs stand in the museum’s former gift shop, now a “family gallery” space with newly acquired paintings on the walls — yet to be transformed.  

Last fall, the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County awarded the museum a $103,000 grant over three years to make this a more interactive space, including a digital wall that, for example, could follow your movements. Staff say the most critical part is that, with the grant, the museum also hopes to soon hire a “visitor experience coordinator” to direct activities where visitors will get their hands on art and see how it connects to art on the walls.  

“When you try to do a still life, you look at that work in a much deeper way,” Mark Rospenda, curator of exhibitions and collections, said. “You look at how they painted the shadows.” 

“It’s going to be more directed,” Bellinger said, hoping that visitors will “see the path” to becoming an artist. 

She sees it as an extension, too, of the museum’s array of art classes and summer camps.  

The number of youth camps will double this summer. And, per the request of board members, the one-week camp prices have been cut in half, so that families will now pay $85 to $110, depending on the child’s age, Casey Smallwood, the curator of education, said. Scholarships are still available for those who can’t afford it. And all supplies are included. 

Free, three-day summer camps have been added for members of certain local youth organizations, too.

“This is an opportunity they wouldn’t have in the school year,” Bellinger said. 

Overall, the number of adult art classes has increased to almost 40, which is about what it was before the pandemic reductions, Smallwood said. The extra classes also expand the kinds of art that will be taught, like fabric dyeing and pinhole camera photography, as well as the instructors.   

Widening the reach

The discounts and expanded classes aim to reach a wider representation of the community, staff said. No demographics are kept on visitors, at an average of 2,000 per month, which is about what it was before the pandemic. 

“We can do better,” Rospenda said, noting that the collections have predominantly been by white or male artists.

Still, a noted Black sculptor and museum board member, Jake Webster of Elkhart, said he could have gone on to live and work in Europe but remained here for people who welcomed his art, including the museum.  

Smallwood said the local Lighthouse Autism Center came last year to train the entire staff and volunteer docents on the sensitivities of people with autism.  

This fall, she said, staff will visit 10 Title I schools across northern Indiana and southwest Michigan to talk about the Scholastic Art Awards, focused on reaching more students of color.  

The museum started its Teen Forum advisory council three years ago to cultivate young participants. 

In another effort to reach deeper into the community, Bellinger said, the museum will gather five muralists to talk about innovation in South Bend, then have them paint on the Warner Gallery’s walls — an exhibit titled “Visualizing Innovation” that will open July 23. It's somewhat inspired by the new Mural Mania festival in downtown July 6-10 that local muralist Alex Ann Allen is coordinating. 

A downtown space like this should be a hub for important dialogue, Bellinger said, adding, “Art invites conversations among people that may not be accessible in a quiet museum.” 

Email South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits at jdits@sbtinfo.com. Follow him on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures.