Becoming HomeWorks: Bronzeville
HomeWorks: Bronzeville is a development initiative based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Titled by its namesake, the Bronzeville Cultural and Entertainment District, this initiative emphasizes community development in its physical, economic, and social form by way of authentic arts and culture applications. At the foundation of this initiative lies co-owners Vedale Hill, Sara Daleiden, and Mikal Floyd-Pruitt, who are all active members of the arts community. Their collective experiences in navigating real estate for their professional, communal, and personal creative practices have helped them form an effective ideology on placemaking and developing community holistically.
Vedale, Sara, and Mikal, all come from different backgrounds in both their upbringing and the creative scene. However, it is their need for space that solidified their partnership and a tempestuous rollercoaster to find welcoming places to practice their crafts, cultivate community, and actively participate in culture. It wouldn’t be until they were displaced from their creative space at Jazale’s art Studio [a non-profit creative space that Vedale started with his brother Darren Hill] that they would come up with the idea for HomeWorks: Bronzeville.
Vedale & Mikal met in 2013 when both were featured in the 30 Americans | Wisconsin 30 exhibit. With coaxing from some highly respected members of the arts community, Cynthia Henry and Sandy Robinson, Mikal visited Jazale’s Art Studio [then located at 731 E. Center St.] to see Vedale’s creative workspace. Vedale had taken the raw industrial upper level of the building and refined it into defined workspaces, performative community space, and areas for youth programming. However, it was his implementation of two functioning bathrooms, two usable egresses, an HVAC system, and an electrical overhaul with no support from the building's owner that made it a property that could actually be inhabited. Understanding the need for space to create, the value of each other's creative practices, and the nuances that come with being men of color in the Milwaukee art scene, the two hit it off. Mikal then became a resident of the studio and their collaborative journey would begin.
Beyond their personal practices, they would use the space to curate shows that included multi-faceted parts of the Black arts community, including visual arts, music, and poetry. They were also inviting other organizations into the space, like Still Waters Collective, Riverwest Artist Association, AWE, and African American Art Alliance, engaging in community identity and celebrating culture. Be that as it may, their existence in that space was actively questioned by way of continuous complaints. Complaints were characterized as neighborhood nuisances that would be delivered by police officers as tickets, claiming that Jazale’s Art Studio’s patrons looked “threatening” and were scaring off a very nearby business's customers. The young Black men and women, youth, and community stakeholders who were attendees of Jazale’s programming and gatherings were being racially profiled. With no ownership rights and citations coming in consistently for no real offense, Vedale and Darren were forced to remove Jazale’s Art Studio from the building. Leaving Vedale, Mikal, and their growing community without a place to create.
Throughout this time Sara had been providing project, programming, and residential opportunities within the creative network that both Mikal & Vedale were a part of. Mikal had been a live-in resident at the Plum Dragon [an artist housing facility that Sara rented in Milwaukee]. Vedale had worked with Sara on the Beerline Trail [then known as The ARTery]. Participating with boards and leadership groups, involved in several city projects, and more, Sara would become an aligning resource for them all. After being displaced from Jazale’s original location there were continuous conversations with community artists, including Sara, vocalizing that there was still a need and a want for space to create, network, collaborate, vend, and hold programmatic experiences. Many were so adamant about the need that they pre-committed to renting artist residency space once a new location to house Jazale’s was procured.
In 2014, a new space for Jazale’s was activated [at 2201 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive]. For almost three years they would continue the legacy that they had started on Center Street. They would facilitate authentic community impact, operating as a hub for creatives, youth arts, and housing residencies like Sara’s initiative, MKE<->LAX, and Mikal’s brand, I AM MILWAUKEE. In this space, they would continue to have conversations about developing multi-use space, with residential components that could be owned by an arts organization or an individual artist to create sustainable anchors in what seemed to be a transient art ecosystem. Mikal, Sara, and Vedale would document their collective values as creatives, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders on how development done holistically could elevate placemaking, celebrate culture, and expand opportunities to the arts community. This living document is now known as the HomeWorks: Bronzeville Charter.
The first attempt at developing a full facility based on that idea was piloted during the redevelopment of the Kindred Building [the old Reader’s Choice bookstore located at 1950 N. Martin L King Jr Dr.]. Vedale & Darren as founders of Jazale’s would enter a developmental rental agreement to build out the space to fit the non-profit’s programmatic needs, with a future option of a residential unit on the upper level. However, because of unforeseen conditions, the Kindred Building did not pan out as an ownership opportunity, an efficient home for the organization, nor its values.
At last, with a desperate need for spaces to live, work, and collaborate Mikal, Sara, and Vedale dug deeper. They noticed a trend of artist displacement, signs of gentrification, and minimal infrastructure that supports the creative economy. They would research the community, engage in urban planning conversation at the City level, and even helped create an initiative to support artists in acquiring City-owned tax-foreclosed properties that will be used for art-related spaces called the Arts Resource and Community Hub (ARCH) Program. Throughout this process they built strong relationships with a nationally renowned architect, an urban interior designer, multiple minority developers, and members of City agencies to ensure that their ideas were genuinely guided by professionals who participate in the spatial industries. They would use their ideologies to find a location in the heart of Bronzeville with a three-property cluster that they could turn into the anchor they had all envisioned [located at the corner of W. Meinecke Ave & Vel R. Phillips Ave]. This would be a place that could hold all the programmatic elements of their respective organizations and businesses, residential property for artist housing, rental studios, and community space. “HomeWorks” would become a reality.
As of 2018, HomeWorks: Bronzeville has completed its first property. It is a fully gutted duplex turned two-story live-work space designed for Vedale Hill, featuring a public gallery space on the lower level. The other two buildings in the cluster have been programmatically designed and are slated for full procurement and development in 2022. Always learning from the world around them, challenging the systems before them, and advocating for authentic progression in placemaking HomeWorks: Bronzeville believes “Community thrives on cultures.”