Harbor Shores Development

Pavilion permanent site of 32 tiles made by Fired Up! kids 

 By JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO H-P Features Writer 

BENTON HARBOR — It started as a simple idea.

A local nonprofit would be asked to create a series of art projects to be displayed in a public park.

But this wasn’t just another project. Not for Susan Wilczak, the former curator at the Krasl Art Center working as a consultant for Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment, Inc. And certainly not for Water Street Glassworks in Benton Harbor.

Six teenagers from Water Street’s Fired Up! after school program would painstakingly piece together 32 Italian glass tile mosaics to be installed in eight bands on four corner columns of Jean Klock Park’s renovated pavilion.

“This is the first public art commission for the Fired Up! program and these kids,” Wilczak says, “ and it’s the first piece of public art to go up in the park. Hopefully it will be a springboard for other things to happen in the community as well.”

Today, those mosaics designed by Tennessee artist Leslie Roberts and titled “Nature Surrounds Us,” will be among the public art works unveiled at the Benton Harbor park. The sculptures “Rubber Tipped Crane” by Christine Rojek and “Slowly Toward the North” by Richard Hunt also will be unveiled, but those pieces are only on loan for a year.

The mosaics, however, will be a permanent fixture in the community.

“It makes me feel accomplished in my art,” says 17-year-old Dionna Gray, who worked on the project. “I know everybody will see it, and that makes me happy as much as humanly possible.”

Wilczak, who spent 15 years as curator for the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph before becoming a full-time art consultant, was hired by Harbor Shores to find and commission pieces for public display at Jean Klock Park.

“We included public art in the plan because it’s something that everyone can participate in,” Wilczak says. “Whether it’s a mural or a fountain or mosaics, we thought it might provoke a curiosity and open doors for people who might not think about art in that way.”

When Wilczak read an article about glass mosaics in outdoor spaces, she contacted Water Street Glassworks in the Benton Harbor Arts District .

“When Susan came to us and asked if we wanted us to create a mosaic component to this project, we said, ‘Absolutely!’” Water Street Glassworks executive director Dorris Akers says. “We had worked with Leslie Roberts before, so we called her right away and she agreed to design 32 pieces for us.”

The project, funded by Harbor Shores, commissioned Roberts for the designs and artistic direction, while Gray, Mika Page, Derrick Atkins Jr., Eli Zilke and Emma Schaper, all of Benton Harbor, and Alex Greco of Coloma were charged with assembling and grouting the pieces for an hourly wage. Two of Roberts’ assistants, Angela Burks and Calvin Hildreth, spent 21 days in Benton Harbor helping the teens learn the techniques needed to complete the works.

Fired Up!, in its fifth year, is an outreach program for teenagers who learn glassblowing, fusing and bead making then market their art at area art fairs throughout the summer. Students receive 80 percent of their sales profits, with 20 percent going back into the program.

“I learned that I can branch out and do other things besides bead making in Fired Up!” 15-year-old Page says. “I also learned that I love art – period.”

The mosaic designs depict the natural elements of the pavilion’s environment from a yellow warbler and red wing blackbird to the waters, clouds and sky.

Wilczak designated the four columns in the pavilion as a starting point.

“It was significant for us because it’s one of our goals of the Fired Up! program to get students summer employment in the arts,” Akers says. “It’s an entrepreneurial experience, and it creates job skills. It’s the beginning of what we hope can be an annual experience for these students."