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New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. Among the art pieces from the 79th Annual Salon Show is "My Gaia" from Rensselaer artist Bonnie Zimmer.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
MUNSTER — For nearly three decades, John Cain led the South Shore Arts organization that has worked to "to stimulate interest and appreciation of art in our region."
Known for his fundraising, curating, popular holiday readings and tireless advocacy for the arts, Cain steered South Shore Arts in its rise to cultural prominence in the Calumet Region, opening branch galleries and securing its role as a Regional Arts Partner of the Indiana Arts Commission.
Cain retired earlier this year, turning over the reins to a new leader with an ambitious vision for South Shore Arts. The new Executive Director, David Mika, now oversees South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
"I'm much bigger physically but his shoes are very hard to fill," Mika said. "He helped it transition from the Northern Indiana Arts Alliance and combined it with the symphony. He helped facilitate this fantastic building on Ridge Road when he first came in as director. His legacy is phenomenal in the arts. The foundation he built is incredibly strong. He gave the roadmap."
Mika is looking to make the arts more accessible in Northwest Indiana, reaching new audiences. He hopes to expand the reach of South Shore Arts, restore classes and exhibits in Hammond and Crown Point, and extend its footprint potentially to Gary and Porter County.
"I want to continue to expand South Shore Arts in our Region, serve every community throughout our Region," he said. "It should continue to provide quality arts services, performances, exhibits, gallery spaces and arts opportunities.
"We have the ability to champion the professional lives of artists, celebrate the creative professionals living as artists and foster opportunities and connect them with opportunities like the public art displays: the tulips around Munster, the murals in Chesterton or the murals in many communities. We do classes, outreach and incredibly high levels of musical performance with our Symphony Orchestra which consists of incredibly talented union professionals from across the Chicagoland area up into Michigan."
Mika is a retired market president of BMO Harris Bank who has served on the South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra Board since 2010. His bank long supported South Shore Arts and the symphony, for instance serving as the main sponsor of many exhibits.
"It's a good community asset," he said. "The board has been terrific. It's an engaged board with a passion for the community and the value for the arts. We understand there are needs more important such as food security, good education, affordable housing, good healthcare and those sort of foundational needs. But when you look beyond that at what's driving the quality of life, arts play a critical role."
Artists founded the Hammond District Art Association in 1936, staging its first exhibit in the millinery department of the Edward C. Minas Company Department Store in Hammond in the first instance of the ongoing annual exhibition known as the Salon Show. The group became known as the Northern Indiana Arts Association after it broadened beyond just artists in Hammond and Calumet City.
It's one of 13 Regional Arts Partners the Indiana Arts Commission has across the state, funneling grants to artists and arts groups across Northwest Indiana. It's the second largest region after only Marion County.
South Shore Arts routinely partners with other arts organizations like the Valpo Creative District, the Art Barn and the Chesterton Art Center.
It's furnished grant monies for arts classes for adults with disabilities at Opportunity Enterprises in Valparaiso or a Teena's Legacy class for women veterans on reupholstering furniture in Hammond.
South Shore Arts recently reopened its Substation No. 9 branch in downtown Hammond. It had been closed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It will now host South Shore Arts Teen Arts Board, exhibits, workshops and other programming.
It's also looking for a new home after in Crown Point after The Artful Garden closed the location where its Hub City branch was located.
"During the pandemic, we moved away from in-person classes and collapsed back to Munster," Mika said. "This facility also went dark and we did a lot of stuff online. But we've seen a pickup in activities. The gift shop is open. We've brought back the Makers' Market. Our organization is opening the programming back up."
South Shore Arts offers a wide array of arts classes for both students and adults, such as drawing, painting, jewelry making, digital photography, darkroom production and the ever-popular ceramics.
The public has the chance to learn from acclaimed artists such as Tom Torluemke, who has done sculptures at Centennial Park in Munster and Purdue University Northwest and murals in Indianapolis, West Lafayette and LaPorte.
"We provide instruction on foundation-level art skills," Mika said. "Those who come in and learn the foundation of art can get more creative and learn pretty advanced material from professional artists"
South Shore Arts also hosts many exhibits at the Center for Performing and Visual Arts at 1040 Ridge Road in Munster, including its juried 79th annual Salon Show that's now on display.
This year's Salon Show, juried by Chicago-based artist and American Academy of the Arts Professor Chris Cosnowski, is the largest with 68 pieces on display from 62 different artists.
In the spring, its annual Tri-County Jr/Sr High School Exhibition features the artwork of many students between sixth and 12th grades in schools across Northwest Indiana and neighboring Cook County. It provides scholarships to students heading off to study art in college.
It also hosts blockbuster summer exhibits like the recent Nature Lover's Artist Reception that displayed the work of Zbigniew Bzdak, Tony Fitzpatrick, Peggy Macnamara, Casey Roberts and others.
"We'd like to think we're a well-kept secret even though we've been around for more than 85 years," he said.
The Northwest Indiana Symphony Mika also now oversees also has deep roots in the community, performing its first concert just after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Now in its 81st season, the professional orchestra is still adjusting to the loss of its longtime home, the Star Plaza Theater.
"We've had more than 3,000 people for the holiday shows with a full choir and a lot of buzz and energy," Mika said. "It's hard to replace a venue of that size and sound quality with venues a third its size. It's a little more challenging now that we don't have a facility like that but we're still able to deliver those performances audiences enjoy."
The symphony went dark for a whole year during the start of the pandemic but has been bringing back programming, including chamber music, the choir and the popular Summer Music Festival.
This season, the symphony will play at Living Hope Church in Merrillville, Valparaiso High School and St. Thomas More Church in Munster. It also plays outdoor summer shows at venues such as the Indiana Dunes State Park, Wolf Lake, Whiting Lakefront Park and Central Park in Griffith.
"The new venues have been great partners. Living Hope works very well for us," Mika said. "We're rebuilding our connections with the community. We went dark for a while. Regular patrons couldn't enjoy our show and programming. We're investing time and energy and marketing dollars in bringing back people and reengaging in the arts."
The symphony will soon perform "West Side Story in Concert," looking to capitalize off the momentum of the recent Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg film reviving the classic musical.
"The movie just came out. There's a clear interest in it and popularity with the new generation," he said. "We hope to broaden the audience and draw people back out. People always come out for Holiday Pops but we want to get people in that mindset that we've come back and we're excited to kick off our 81st season."
South Shore Arts and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra can stimulate, engage and entertain with thought-provoking art, he said.
"Our organization is able to drive the quality of life and celebrate diversity, creativity, expression and individuality," Mika said. "That's where I see the future of our organization, driving the improvement of Northwest Indiana and showing the importance of the arts here. You can live a very full life in our Region and the arts play a very important role in that."
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Joseph S. Pete is a Lisagor Award-winning business reporter who covers steel, industry, unions, the ports, retail, banking and more. The Indiana University grad has been with The Times since 2013 and blogs about craft beer, culture and the military.
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New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra. Among the art pieces from the 79th Annual Salon Show is "My Gaia" from Rensselaer artist Bonnie Zimmer.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
New executive director David Mika took over South Shore Arts and Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
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