Englewood Arts Center 2024 artist-in-residence Karen Griffin regularly visited the Ben Franklin near the new Arts Center as a child with her seamstress mother, who got sewing supplies there and inspired her daughter to become a quilter. (photo by Jim Barcus)
Fired by a unique vision, the western Independence arts hub is supporting artists, improving lives and fostering home ownership
In the diverse and determined Englewood neighborhood of western Independence, home is where the art is.
Embodying that ethos since 2022 is the Englewood Arts Center, a progressively growing hub of art learning, artmaking, art exhibiting and a host of art-driven public events attracting neighborhood residents and visitors from both sides of the state line.
But Englewood isn’t just about helping artists and their art. It’s ultimately about artists and their art helping Englewood, too.
The 30,000-square-foot arts center at 10901 E. Winner Road is a beacon for what can be accomplished in Englewood. The center itself occupies what was once a blighted medical building, next door to the historic and long-closed Englewood Theater, which is next door to the nostalgic and long-closed Ben Franklin five-and-ten-cent store. The several-block stretch of mid-20th-century downtown strip is characterized by time-soaked storefronts and other small businesses whose sheer persistence beckons a better future to emerge.
“We lead with the arts,” says Michael Baxley, executive director of Englewood Arts, the nonprofit organization tasked with operating the arts center. “But I’m more interested in community-building and the arts at the same time.”
ROOTS AND PROGRESS
Formed in 2019, Englewood Arts undertook a $4 million fundraising campaign to create the arts center, led by Kansas City philanthropists and art mavens Joan and Steve Israelite. Baxley, a former artist in the West Bottoms, was still managing Belger Crane Yard Studios when he was invited by the Israelites to meet with Englewood community members about the arts, which he did initially as a volunteer.
“I saw something I’d never seen before,” Baxley still recalls with some wonder. “I saw people that know nothing about art, but understand how powerful it is, people that live in the community, that are warm and welcoming and are asking for artists to come live next to them as neighbors.
“I’d never seen a community say, ‘We want artists,’ because the community sees the vision. Artists are incremental developers. They see a vision. They improve an area. And when I saw the 1950s business district, of course, you fall in love immediately and go, ‘This place has to be saved.’”
So Baxley took on what he considered the two-armed mission of Englewood Arts, first working to produce a highly functioning community arts center not only for Englewood residents but also for anyone with art on their mind in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
“The second arm was to create a toolbox of various opportunities for existing homeowners and renters, and potential homeowners and renters, to access affordable housing in Englewood,” Baxley says. “And that’s a bigger thing that we do than this arts center.
“We tackle affordable housing. We use arts as a catalyst for community improvement through housing and a community arts center. We work on zoning. We (facilitate) mortgages for artists and teachers and first responders through our banking partners. Most of them are underpaid and underappreciated and they need affordable housing.”
BANKING ON COMMUNITY
As the first person to buy a home in Englewood with the help of Englewood Arts, artist GK Callahan is more than grateful. He’s also impressed by what’s happened since.
“In the last three years there’ve been over 22 other families that have gotten to buy homes, because of Englewood Arts,” Callahan says. “They found me a real estate agent, they helped me navigate the banks and an anonymous donor helped to pay part of the down payment. My husband and I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford a home otherwise.
“That’s because I was just a guy looking for money, and the banks didn’t really want to listen to me. And they (Englewood Arts) had some connected people on their board, who were able to contact presidents of some of the banks and say, ‘Hey, you should look at this guy’s research and help move some of this along.’ They just got people to listen.”
When not making and sharing his art — as in his current multimedia show at the arts center addressing the effects of climate change, “Where Have All the Pheasants Gone?” — Callahan works as an engagement specialist for the University of Missouri Extension at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
“I do community arts and community development for a living,” Callahan says. “And to find a neighborhood and an organization that was doing the same work that I’m so passionate about was a dream. It was the ability to buy a house, of course, but it was also the ability to be part of the bigger picture. The neighborhood is lively and extremely diverse, which is not always easy to find. Our neighbors are Latin, they’re Black, they’re Samoan, they’re from all over.”
Callahan has meshed with his Englewood neighbors on a personal level, but also as a relatable organizer. He’s headed community mural painting efforts and beading circles, in which people with disabilities create beaded products that are assembled in a patchwork quilt to show what they can accomplish. He also co-founded the Englewood Beautification Committee, which received a grant fund from the University of Missouri Extension for community members to create concrete planters for the downtown strip.
“I’m very involved,” Callahan says. “I don’t have a key to the arts center, but I keep telling them they should make me one, because I’m there all the time. What’s important to really know is that this is community driven by community.”
BACK TO THE BEN FRANKLIN
Art quilter and storyteller Karen E. Griffin came to the arts center through its artist residency program. Although a native of Kansas City, where she still keeps a home studio, she fondly recalls her time as an arts-and-crafts devotee at the once-bustling Ben Franklin store in Englewood.
“I grew up in that store in the ’70s and ’80s,” Griffin says. “My mom was a seamstress in the garment district of Kansas City, and that was our spot pretty much every Saturday. We would take the bus. We did not own a car. And that’s where she would buy her fabric. But while she was in the fabric part, I was in the craft part. I think they were probably wondering, ‘Who is this little brown girl that keeps coming in here every Saturday?’ I was infatuated to see something and turn it into something.”
When Griffin was accepted into the art center’s residency program in 2023, “the beauty of it was I was not expecting to get in there,” she says. “Just no way. But then they were, ‘Yes, we would love to have you.’ I realized that I’m back where I started. Back in 1974, I didn’t even see that building when I was going past it as a kid. Never once. But it’s great to go in there now and see just how they cleaned it up to make it accessible for artists to come in who might not necessarily fit into today’s creative world.
“I’ve been told that my work’s not good enough,” Griffin says. “I’ve been told, ‘I don’t like your work.’ I’ve been told it doesn’t fit. At Englewood Arts I have the respect and the opportunity to create historical and educational pieces about my ancestors. (See our review of her recent show at kcstudio.org.) My grandmother picked cotton. My mother measured cotton. And now I’m sewing seams to create stories with cotton. It’s so awesome.”
Something else would be pretty nice, too, Griffin suggests. Bring back the Ben Franklin.
“At least, just light the (neon) sign up again,” she says. “Put in a storefront or make it a museum.”
A HAND UP
Executive director Baxley doesn’t want to rule anything out. But he does have a vision for a community that currently has 200 vacant lots, 49-percent rentals and a 51-percent minority population, of which 28 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino.
“The point is we have a diverse, struggling community that needs a hand up,” Baxley says. “And they’re harmonious, they’re getting along. We’ve got welders next to artists next to car mechanics. And they’re all saying, ‘How do we make this area better?’”
In 10 years, Baxley envisions the Englewood Arts Center further expanding its cultural and community reach: The Glenwood Theater reopened with artistic performances in-person and on screen, the Ben Franklin renovated into shops and folks partaking of affordable living throughout.
“I see a mixture of races and religions and backgrounds all playing together, because they’re already here,” Baxley says. “We’re just trying to grow that and put a shine back on.”
