Project Row Houses

Project Row Houses is an artist organization founded by artist Rick Lowe and six other African-American artists in 1993 in the Northern Third Ward of Houston, Texas, one of the city’s oldest African-American communities. PRH transformed an abandoned one and a half blocks of 22 shotgun-style houses into a “social sculpture” that has become a community celebrating art, African-American history, and culture. In 2010, it expanded to 49 buildings including seven artist installation houses, seven houses for young single mothers, artist live/work spaces, office space, commercial spaces, a community gallery, a park and 34 low-income duplex units. Programs include artist installations and residencies, arts education, a Young Mothers Residential Program and restoration of the neighborhood’s legendary Eldorado Ballroom. PRH considers all of this “public art.” In 2003, PRH established the Row House Community Development Corporation (RHCDC) as a separate, affiliated corporation that has designed and built nine new low-income housing units and is in the process of building and acquiring additional property for rental and home ownership. Project Row Houses has become a sterling example of neighborhood revitalization. Artist Rick Lowe and six other African-American artists and residents wanted to develop a site where they could share their artwork with the community of Houston's Third Ward. Twenty-two dilapidated and abandoned shotgun-style houses were completely transformed in 1993 by volunteers as a site for public art, education, youth and community while celebrating African-American history and culture. Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times (2006) described the process: Seed money came from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. The director of the Menil Collection gave his staff Mondays off to help renovate. Chevron redid the outside of a dozen buildings. Hundreds of volunteers pitched in to clear trash and sweep up used needles, hang wallboard and fortify porches. A local church adopted a house, and so did people and families from the neighborhood. This “social sculpture” (after Joseph Beuys) has expanded to 49 buildings including seven artist installation houses, seven houses for young single mothers, artist live/work spaces, office space, commercial spaces, a community gallery, a park and 34 low-income duplex units. PRH considers all of this “public art.” In 1999, PRH received, as a gift, the legendary Eldorado Ballroom at Elgin and Dowling Streets, the historic Third Ward site of blues and jazz performances, weekly talent shows and sock-hops from 1939 until it closed in the early 1970s. Well-known artists B.B. King, Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins and other African-American singers and musicians of the day played the Eldorado; they were restricted from other clubs because of strict segregation laws. After four years of renovations, the Eldorado re-opened in May 2003, “reminding people of what this proud institution means to the community,” says PRH. PRH collaborated with Houston Community College on the 2003-2005 Eldorado Series, presenting and recording African-American jazz musicians that played at the Eldorado Ballroom in the 1940s to 1960s. Programs at PRH now include “Artist Rounds,” interactive installations in seven of the original row houses by artists from around the world. Each Round is four months long, focusing on a theme relating to and involving the Third Ward community. In 2010, Round 32, “eco, xiang, echo: meditations on the african, andean & asian diasporas,” curated by artist William Cordova, involved installations by eight artists addressing “the often-overlooked connections between distinct cultures.” The program is 15 years old and has hosted more than 200 regional, national and international artists of diverse artistic and cultural backgrounds. The Artist Studio Program offers space to three professional artists in exchange for their participation in the surrounding community. The PRH/Core Residency, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, makes a year-long residency available to a Glassell Core Fellow Artist, who can live onsite at PRH and conduct a community arts project. The five-year-old Summer Studio Program has invited 36 emerging artists from ten local colleges and universities to create and exhibit work that responds to, engages, and/or is reflective of the community. Arts education programs include an After School Program that serves more than 40 to 50 students in grades K-9 every year, and a Summer Program for 60 to 80 students in grades K-9, all taught by professional artists. The Education Program has maintained long-term, meaningful collaborations with a number of schools and organizations that include Houston Grand Opera, Houston Children’s Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Trinity Methodist Church and the Experiment in International Living Program. In response to a serious community need, PRH began the Young Mothers Residential Program (YMRP). This program has helped over 60 single mothers with onsite homes and rent subsidies, workshops, mentoring, counseling, and encouragement to graduate from college. After graduating from Penn State with a Ph.D. and teaching at the University of Pittsburg for three years, former MRP member Assata Richards returned to PRH to direct the YRMP program. Former YMRP member Terena Molo, now a lawyer, serves on PRH’s Board of Directors. In 2003, PRH established the Row House Community Development Corporation (RHCDC) as a separate, affiliated corporation that has designed and built nine new low-income housing units and is in the process of building and acquiring additional property for rental and home ownership. The “Street Scaping” program makes it possible for artists to create and install permanent public artworks around the PRH/Row House CDC campus. The New York Times has called PRH “the most impressive and visionary public art project in the country—a project that is miles away, geographically and philosophically, from Chelsea and Art Basel and the whole money-besotted paper-thin art scene.”