Normal Coffee is an arts-centric public coffee shop inside Tube Factory artspace owned and operated by Big Car and founded, managed, and staffed today by people from the neighborhood. Open since August of 2019, we created Normal to support neighborliness and socializing. So it’s ideal for coffee, conversation, and connecting with friends and colleagues — or just reading a book or getting some work done.
Normal features delicious Indianapolis-based Tinker Coffee as its primary beans and sells a variety of drinks, including with flavored syrups, a variety of dairy and non-dairy milk options, and other specialties. Normal also offers a few different fancy (but affordable) toasts for breakfast, lunch or snack time – using special croissant toast. Toasts include avocado, cheese, peanut butter, cinnamon, and little French jellies.
We offer free wifi and plenty of spots to hang out both inside and outside of Tube Factory. There, the art galleries and sculpture park are also open to visit. Well behaved pets are allowed inside.
Our hours are:
Wednesday – Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Open till 10 p.m. the First Friday of every month.
Closed on New Year’s Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
Big Car Collaborative artists work every day with neighbors to support a stronger community on the south side of Indianapolis from our home base, Tube Factory. And we know from experience that one of the best ways to bring people together is with food and drink.
“A coffee shop is always a great gathering venue. Coffee shops always have a relaxing atmosphere and stimulate great conversation. A coffee shop in Bean Creek will give our area a more neighborly feel as well as more exposure,” says Bernie Price President of the Bean Creek Neighborhood Association and Normal’s first customer on opening day. “Tube Factory has had such a positive impact on our community and now a coffee shop. We are very fortunate and now it is up to the residents in our area to support this most recent business venture in Bean Creek.”
“The Garfield Park neighbors are overjoyed with the opening of Normal Coffee at the Tube,” said Cheryl Dillenback, past president of the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association. “This neighborhood has asked for a near-by coffee shop for many years, and after many disappointments, we finally have one! The Tube is such a central location for community events, neighborhood meetings, and city meetings. We appreciate the new opening.”
We gathered input from the community to determine the desire for the shop and for details like its hours and offerings. “We know from experience that one of the best ways to bring people together is with food and drink,” says Jim Walker, executive director of Big Car. “That’s why we’re boosting our offerings at Tube with a new coffee shop as a third space for people to gather.”
Are you a numbers person and great communicator who excels with Excel? We’re seeking a Business and Administrative Manager who is observant and detail oriented with a passion for the arts, nonprofits, and philanthropy. In this collaborative role with room for growth, you’ll play a crucial part in our bringing art to people across our neighborhood and city. Learn more and apply here.
Are you a detail-oriented collaborator with writing and editing skills and a passion for art and community? We’re hiring a Grants Coordinator. In this important role with room for growth, you’ll be a key part of the team at Big Car Collaborative that raises funds and tracks and shares about our impactful work supporting community through art. Learn more and apply here.
Would you like to help us build community by making welcoming and creative spaces, places, exhibitions, and various public art projects? We’re hiring a Lead Builder and Facilities Manager to support work on our growing Tube Factory campus and in public places like Monument Circle. If you have art install, woodworking, and facility repair skills, learn more and apply here.
We’d love your help during this holiday season as we transform an overlooked spot along Bean Creek on our Tube Factory campus into a place for peaceful reflection, socializing, and learning about nature — a perfect gift for the ecosystem and humans alike!
From Dec. 13 through Jan. 13, we at Big Car Collaborative are raising $50,000 matched — dollar for dollar — through CreatINg Places, a program of the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) that utilizes funds from the State of Indiana.
With this project called Water World: Creekside Social and Educational Space, artists at Big Car are teaming up with experts in landscape design and horticulture, neighbors, and other partners to restore and reconnect a section of Bean Creek behind Tube Factory as a beautiful and natural public asset.
Please donate online at www.patronicity.com/waterworld. All of these tax-deductible donations will be matched by IHCDA through Jan. 13. We can also accept offline donations via check sent to Big Car at 1125 Cruft Street, 46203. And we give back fun and artistic thank you gifts for your donations!
With your support, we’ll:
• Remove a section of asphalt along Bean Creek and relocate dumpsters and parking to create a green outdoor classroom and gathering area. This intimate space will feature landscaped paths surrounding native pollinator plants.
• Add stone steps down to Bean Creek, allowing visitors access to this year-round waterway enjoyed by fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals like muskrats and mink.
• Clean up trash in the section of Bean Creek that borders our campus. Program the area on First Fridays and with special small events to bring social and educational activities, conversations, and performances from commissioned artists.
• Collaborate with our neighborhood organizations (Bean Creek and Garfield Park) and Reconnecting to Our Waterways on social, educational, and arts-focused gatherings.
• Repair the parking lot adjacent to the new restorative space and paint murals on the pavement. This improved lot will also be easily closed to cars and used for events.
How else can you help? Share the word about this opportunity with friends and family and through social media using the link www.patronicity.com/waterworld
And join us for a donation-optional art opening and fundraiser celebration as part of our Jan. 5 First Friday at Tube Factory artspace. All proceeds and in-person donations from that day will go toward this campaign. As always, we thank our friends at Sun King or their ongoing support.
Big Car Collaborative started in 2004 as a way to support artists and the Fountain Square neighborhood where two of our co-founders, Shauta Marsh and Jim Walker, then lived. In 2011, Walker and Marsh found themselves priced out of Fountain Square when they needed a bigger house for their growing family. Fortunately, they found just the right home in Garfield Park — one neighborhood south of where they’d lived since 2000.
Welcomed by neighbors already leading important work in multiple associations (Garfield North, Garfield South, and Garfield East), Big Car began in 2011 utilizing its tools, experience, and network to support addressing things like:
• Identity and wayfinding signage for the neighborhood (these include a community gateway mural, the logo currently used by the Garfield Park Neighborhood Association and other murals),
• Cultural and community programming like Normal Coffee and hosting neighborhood meetings at our Tube Factory campus, and lots more.
Since 2011, we’ve joined neighborhood leaders like Bean Creek’s Bernie Price in advocating for safer streets here for those who walk and bike. This teamwork and the support of our elected officials has led to improvements like the hawk crosswalk flasher at Cruft and Shelby Street, better signals at Shelby and Southern intersection (which had no crosswalks just a few years ago), and speed bumps on Nelson Ave. We even worked with neighborhood artists and volunteers to paint street murals to make crossing safer in the park and at new stop signs in the blocks north of the park.
Another key outcome of neighbors working together on the Better Blocks in 2013 and 2014 was the Garfield North and Garfield South associations collaborated to each do a Better Block on each end of the neighborhood — volunteering to help each other as they tested out ideas for safer streets and temporarily filled vacant storefronts and lots with positive activity.
Neighbors soon realized it made little sense to be separate and formed a single association, the Garfield Park Neighbors Association, which our staff helped establish as a nonprofit with longtime neighborhood leaders like Jim Simmons and Ed Mahern. These things happened, also, with lots of leadership from current neighbor Aryn Schounce, a Big Car staff member at that time.
Along the way, we’ve been happy to support getting things started and see small businesses continue the work. For example, in 2018 Big Car also applied for and received a sizable grant to pilot the sunken beer garden for a summer in the Garfield Park Conservatory, paving the way for this ongoing favorite now operated by the Garfield Brewery. We’ve also enjoyed supporting impactful projects and programs in our neighborhood like the Garfield Park Farmers Market (with which we’ve partnered in multiple ways and often provided the mobile parklet to sit on under the shade sails since the market started in 2016).
People often ask how Big Car Collaborative landed with its home base in the Garfield Park neighborhood. Back in 2011, we had left our small gallery in Fountain Square and operated out of a pop-up for a few years we called Service Center for Culture and Community in the Lafayette Square area with a community space and large parking lot garden at an abandoned tire shop outside the mall. When that project ended in 2014 — and with us already having worked for four years in Garfield Park — we were fortunate to soon find both a great location and a fantastic partner in Tube Processing, who ended up donating much of the property they had on the block between Cruft Street and Nelson Avenue.
This work on the block, which began in 2015 based out of our Listen Hear space on Shelby (home of WQRT FM and once a place where we did an art show when it was an appliance store), now includes 21 buildings — including 18 long-term affordable homes for artists who are now vital and dedicated members of our community. One of these houses — fixed up by and named after neighbors Steve and Cari Guichelaar — includes a gallery that features artists from the neighborhood and two apartments for hosting visiting artists from around the world. Check out this video that shows what our campus looks like now.
While we have much more to come, Big Car has already brought several millions of dollars of investment to our neighborhood (mostly through foundation grants and donations). We employ 13 people on an ongoing basis — more than half of them neighborhood residents or people who grew up in Garfield Park.
All of our properties are owned by the nonprofit organization, Big Car Collaborative (other than some homes that are co-owned between Big Car and the artist residents as a way to ensure long-term affordability). That means none of these properties are owned or controlled by individuals or for-profit developers — insuring the long-term affordability for artists and use of these facilities as community assets.
At this time of transition in our neighborhood, it’s important to differentiate between mission-driven, non-profit-owned cultural spaces and properties owned by for-profit developers who may use the arts and artists as a way to increase traffic to their buildings and temporarily fill empty space — boosting the attractiveness and value of the property. While for-profit owners understandably want to make money and build value, we believe it’s problematic to use the arts and artists without really sharing wealth or opportunities for ownership. This move — experienced in cities around the world — is sometimes called art washing. And it is often a step in the process of gentrification and displacement.
We anticipated this cycle would eventually come to Garfield Park as we teamed up over the years with other neighbors to improve the quality of life for residents — making the neighborhood more attractive and valuable. So we designed and invested in an approach to have our nonprofit and artists own and preserve much of our block as a long-term place for art and artists.
This strategy is central, also, to our next project — taking the 46,000-square-foot long-vacant factory building behind the current Tube Factory and bringing it to life with museum-quality galleries, artist studios, a performing arts and event space, small business incubator storefronts, and a restaurant and culinary center that offers learning and workforce development opportunities.
This project alone will be a $7 million investment in the arts, our community, and our neighborhood. And this building is a long-term investment in artists and small business people who won’t have to worry about their rents skyrocketing under a for-profit building owner. And the artists in our building will know this owner won’t be cashing in and selling the place to someone else who wants to turn the studios and galleries into something more lucrative — resulting in their displacement once again.
At Big Car, we’re proud of our deep connection to both the Garfield Park and Bean Creek neighborhoods. We feel lucky our campus is located in an area where both boundaries overlap. We work tirelessly, as neighbors ourselves, to support this place we call home. And — with the long-term help of so many neighbors, artists and partners — we’re excited about so much more to come!
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Arline T. Geronimus, author of “Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society” and professor in the School of Public Health and research professor in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Hosted by Women on a Mission and facilitated by John Krull with an introduction by Tamara Winfrey-Harris, the evening will provide an opportunity to learn about the physiological effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the brunt of racial, ethnic, religious and class discrimination to better understand the causes of health inequities in Indiana.
Dr. Geronimus will discuss her groundbreaking book and the decades of research that led to the term “weathering” and all that it entails. The conversation will take place at Indiana Landmarks Center, located at 1201 Central Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana. Reservations are required. Admission is free.
About Dr. Arline T. Geronimus
Dr. Arline T. Geronimus is a public health researcher and professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, where she also is affiliated with the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.
About Women on a Mission
Recognizing that systemic stress can lead to poor physical and mental health, we seek to engage allies and partners in identifying and addressing the root causes and impact of stress, build experiences that lift and heal us, and improve access to physical and mental health care in Indiana.
The first event of the yearlong series adopts “Weathering: Extraordinary Stress in Ordinary People in an Unjust Society” and its author Dr. Arline T. Geronimus to learn about the physiological and mental effects of living in marginalized communities that bear the runt of racial, ethnic, religious, and class discrimination and to understand causes of population health inequities.
Big Car Collaborative and our community radio station, 99.1 WQRT FM, are pleased to support this important community event.
Big Car
Collaborative, has regranted a total of $60,000 to artists living and working in the
Indianapolis area. These Power Plant Grants — made possible by The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts based in New York — fund visual artists and
collectives producing public-facing work that’s experimental and brings new energy to
the city’s arts community.
Big Car is one of 32 regional regranting organizations across the United States working to
support artists via funds from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “We are grateful
to our Regional Regranting Program partners at Big Car Collaborative for their ongoing
dedication to supporting artists in the Indianapolis area,” says Khadija Nia Adell, Regional
Regranting Program Manager, “The Warhol Foundation is excited to see the projects awarded in
this cycle come to fruition and to continue to help artists thrive and make thoughtful and exciting
contributions to their communities.”
This is the third round of Power Plant Grants in Indianapolis. The program started here
in 2020 as emergency grants distributed during the height of the pandemic. Big Car also
awarded $60,000 in project grants to artists and artist-run spaces in 2021 and 2022.
“Power Plant Grants energize the Indianapolis arts community and support visual artists
by encouraging them to grow by taking chances, realizing untapped potential, trying
experimental projects, collaborating with each other, and bringing work to unusual
places,” said Big Car program director Shauta Marsh. “We’re excited by the quality,
dedication, and innovation we see in the work of these artists in our city. We’re so glad
to be able to support them and what they’re bringing to audiences in Indianapolis.”
Power Plant grants support visual artists who live, work, or run spaces in Indianapolis
with six project grants of $10,000. This year’s awardees were selected by past Power
Plant winner Andrea Jandernoa, Indiana-based artist Kelvin Burzon, and Cierra
Rembert of SPACES in Cleveland, Ohio.
These are the funded projects for 2023:
Zola Lamothe “Ransom Place: Unveiling a Forgotten Legacy.” This project will center
around recreating household and community scenes on the Indiana University
Indianapolis campus where people’s homes, churches, and livelihoods once stood.
Lamothe’s goal is that viewers will be able to not only witness the juxtaposition of what
the land housed then and now but also bear witness to what was lost and wonder what
could have been. The work will be released and shared with the community along with
information about Indiana laws and future reform to avoid gentrification and
displacement. In addition to the public gallery exhibition, Lamothe also plans to donate
prints to the Through 2 Eyes organization that offers Indianapolis walking tours on the
city’s history.
Lamothe hopes to release a photo book of the project that includes quotes and
interviews from those who used to live in Ransom Place and their descendants. Her
goal is for the book to be available in public libraries, the Indiana University Indianapolis
bookstore, and the Indiana State Museum gallery shop.
Lauren Daughtery: Transformal Textiles
Textile Transformations will focus on themes of grief and loss, transformation, and
empowerment through textile work. Using textiles related to a late child (crib sheets,
clothing, colors associated with the nursery, etc), mothers will create their own textile
work to memorialize their child and to provide a process-based approach for containing
and transforming thoughts and emotions.
Textile work has been found to be beneficial in trauma work, allowing women to cope
with grief, depression, and other physical ailments. Working in textiles provides sensory
stimulation, promotes a feeling of centeredness or grounding, and can be used as a
coping mechanism that can improve mood. This grant will support two iterations of
Textile Transformations. Any mother who has experienced loss of a child due to
miscarriage, birth trauma, post-birth complications, or any other means will be invited to
participate. Sessions will be led by an art therapist and practicing artist alongside a
licensed mental health counselor. There will be an optional exhibition for the
participants.
Kelsey Simpson: Railroad City Bookmobile
Railroad City Bookmobile is an extension of the work that the locally based Gluestick
group does within the Indianapolis community including teaching workshops, distributing
free art supplies, publishing collaborative zines, and hosting an annual festival. As the
digital world takes over, books and zine making are becoming more like art objects. Our
plan is to fill a small vehicle with zines, comic books, and general interest books and
distribute them across Indianapolis. In the long run we would love to make connections
with community representatives and make return visits to certain locations. We envision
ourselves having an item for everyone. We would love to connect with Hoosiers and ask
what they would like to read or share with others. We want to see the bookmobile
become a collaborative project with all who encounter it.
The Power Plant Grant will be used to purchase a vehicle and transform it into the
Railroad City Bookmobile. This mobile workshop will make its public debut at a Read-in
event with workshops and other creative opportunities for visitors at the Major Taylor
Skatepark on the near westside of Indianapolis. Gluestick plans to document the
Read-in experience and publish it as a zine to promote the Railroad City Bookmobile.
Bryn Jackson and April Knauber: Markings of Remembrance. This collaboration engages a form of Filipino storytelling through abstract patterns found
in ancestral body art, or tatak. By engaging stateside practitioners, ancestral objects,
colonial-era manuscripts and contemporary texts, Jackson and Knauber see their
ultimate goal to be creating space for collective remembrance and understanding of an
artform nearly lost to hundreds of years of religious and political subjugation of the
indigenous peoples of the islands now known as the Philippines.
Prior to the creation of new sculptural and video works, the project will consist of the
formation of a cohort of Filipinos interested in researching their lineage and sharing their
findings and personal experiences, continuing a long tradition of cultivating collective
memory through oral history, which will inform a tailored curriculum through which the
group will learn about the archetypal symbols central to various Filipino tattoo traditions.
Jackson and Knauber will research and share individual histories, the islands from
which their families migrated, the languages spoken within their families, and the roles
family members held within their communities.
Carlos Sosa: “Reflexiónes de Los Júziers: A New Visual Ethnonym and A New
Consciousness Portrait Series”
Sosa will produce and exhibit a dozen multimedia artworks — portraits, dioramas, and
textile pieces — with accompanying text in Spanish and English. The work is based on
decades-old photos of Hispanic individuals and families with roots in Latin America who
chose to call Indiana their home. The artworks will be displayed in high-traffic areas in
multiple parts of Indiana. Also, during scheduled discussions and public meetings, these
images will foster dialogue to address issues of identity and immigration, migration and
borders in our own lives.
Sosa’s goal is for these works to help us think more about identity, survival, energy, and
movement. Today’s Júziers will hopefully connect with “their” origin stories: a collection
of faces and narratives that is easy to explore and make their own. His approach is
focused on the belief that images will reflect or provide access to a period’s views and
actively participate in acknowledging those views de vida in the first place. A history of
images has an impact on remaking, which itself constitutes a valuable record and
purpose of people’s lived lives.
Evren Wilder Elliott: Imagining Home: Liberatory Theatre and Speculative
Solutions for Housing Justice”
Elliot’s social practice and performance art project, “Imagining Home: Liberatory Theatre
and Speculative Solutions for Housing Justice” aims to utilize critical dialogue, art and
liberatory theater to examine the housing crisis in Indianapolis, specifically among the
experiences of Black, Latine, Indigenous, LGBTQ2S+, and other historically
marginalized communities.
By gathering community members affected by housing insecurity, as well as partnering
with local organizations within the Indianapolis Housing Continuum of Care, we will
engage in play, improvisation, imagination, and storytelling practices to collectively
envision solutions and policies that can drive meaningful change. This project will
employ a participatory approach, inviting individuals to become co-creators and active
agents in the exploration of housing issues. Through a series of workshops, participants
will be encouraged to develop their narratives through story circles, written accounts,
performance, image-making, and other creative mediums.
In October 2017, our Indianapolis Spark Placemaking crew teamed up with CitiMark and Gershman Partners to bring short-term public programming to the Lockerbie Marketplace small park area between Alabama, New York, New Jersey, and Vermont streets in the heart of Downtown. This previously underutilized green space is surrounded by a grocery store and other office and retail spaces and is located just off of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Due to successful events and programming, we were invited back – Look out for the following events in 2022!
Lunch at Lockerbie Marketplace
Spend your lunchtime with us at Lockerbie Marketplace every Thursday. Stop by to enjoy the various activities that this hidden downtown green space has to offer along with a soundtrack provided by live musicians from right here in your city. Challenge a friend to a game of ping pong or foosball, play giant Jenga, and find your new favorite musician. At Lockerbie Marketplace green space, food truck from 11:30 am-1:30 pm and live music 12-1 pm.
Make sure to pop in each week for varied activities like pilates, numerology readings, collaborative knitting projects, and creative activities with various local artists.
MAY 2023 SCHEDULE
May 4: Live music by Jay Elliott, indie folk. Community knitting project by artist Mary Jo Bayliss. Food by Weiner Dreams Hot Dogs, a mobile hot dog cart serving up the finest Casper Dogs.
May 11: WQRT DJ Mix and Food by Taste of Manila, authentic Filipino comfort food.
May 18: Live music by Kristen Bales, alt-rock. Numerology readings by artist Ellen Robinson. Food by Guacho Fire. Guacho’s wood-fired grill serves great cuts of meat, poultry, seafood & vegetables.
June 1: Live music by percussionist, Rob Funkhouser. Community knitting project by artist Mary Jo Bayliss. Food by Tortas Mexican food truck with an eclectic menu of tortas, tacos, and tamales.
We want to thank our individual donors who helped us with a successful campaign to raise funds matched by the IHCDA CreatINg Places program with the State of Indiana. This campaign — which brought in $50,000 from donors matched by $50,000 from IHCDA — is supporting improvements underway to our Cruft Street Commons campus and adjacent block. Many donated anonymously and we aren’t listing their names.
Indianapolis Foundation, PNC Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Buckingham Foundation, Jenifer Brown, Diana Mutz, Ed Mahern, Ursula David, Marianne Glick, Katie Clements, Frank and Katrina Basile, Anne Laker and Joe Merrick, Jane Henegar, Emily Masengale, Russell Clemens, David Yosha, Stephen B Gates, Ben & Connie Berg, Janet Fry, Connie Christofanelli, Martha Steele, James C Kelly, Kurt Bokelman, Carlie Foreman, Steve Guichelaar, Thomas Batista, David Anderson, Chelsea DuKate, Daniel E. Marquis, Alex Tourney, Jim Walker, Katie Carlson, Bethany N Bak, Georgia Mason, Molly Martin, Iris L. Williamson, Mali Jeffers, Paul J Hinton, Joan Wyand, Sarah Spiewak, Sarah J Stiles, Felix Medina
With your help, our staff and many artists will team up to further beautify our block for people to celebrate art, poetry, and each other at a welcoming public place filled with color, light, and nature.
All of this work – centered around community collaboration – continues to develop social infrastructure that helps make places inclusive, equitable, and comfortable. Thank you for your investment in Big Car Collaborative and for sharing our belief that art and vibrant public spaces are crucial to the quality of life for everyone!
Today through Dec. 22, each dollar you give in support is matched by Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority (IHCDA)’s CreatINg Places program.
Please donate today. Your tax-deductible support will help us further beautify our block on the near southside for people to celebrate art, poetry, and each other at our welcoming public place filled with color, light, and nature. You can also help us by sharing the word about this opportunity that also comes with fun rewards for donating.
With this project on our contemporary art campus (now with 16 artist homes and three cultural and community buildings) we’ll improve the streetscape by bringing the artist’s homes alive with color, light, and plantings. And we’ll add commissioned public art around the block (including poets and musicians as well as visual artists) as we launch a seasonal art walk series that will include the resident artists as it becomes a regular celebration for the public.
What we’ll do with your support (often working with and paying commissioned, neighborhood, and other locally based artists):
Paint artist houses on the block with vibrant and welcoming colors.
Add light elements to homes and streets for night-time art walks and year-round beauty.
Utilize a projector to show bright and colorful digital art on the side of our soon-to-be-renovated big building — visible from much of the block.
Bring public art to surprising places on the block — like the chain-link fence around our parking lot (colorful flower mural), street sign poles (a perfect place for poems), and the dead-end barrier at the end of Cruft Street (kinetic sculpture).
Add benches around existing trees along Cruft Street and install attractive planters for residents to use for growing food in spring.
Install wayfinding and informational signage around the block.
Start the first of an ongoing tradition of seasonal art walks around the entire block (winter, spring, summer, and fall) that include galleries, installations, and performances at the different artist’s homes and yards.
We hope you can join us for a donation-optional art openings and fundraiser celebration during First Friday on Dec. 2 from 6-10 p.m. at Tube Factory artspace.
Proceeds from that night will go toward this campaign. As always, we thank our friends at Sun King for their ongoing support.
Sat & Sun, October 22-23 1-5 PM on Monument Circle
Big Car Collaborative in partnership with Downtown Indy, Inc. are bringing Circle Spark Fest on Monument Circle and are seeking artists to participate.
Location: SW Quad of Monument Circle (in front of Emmis)
Parking: Provided (1 vehicle per artist) on Monument Circle on the SE and NW quad curb lane.
Schedule
Event Time: 1:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Load-in Time: 11 am
Load-out Completion: 9 pm
Artist Requirements:
We will require a $50 refundable deposit for artists to participate once accepted. Artisan vendors will be refunded their full deposit upon attendance.
Artists must provide their own setup (which could include a 10×10 tent, table, chairs, signage, etc.)
A signed Services Agreement that Downtown Indy, Inc. will need returned at least 48 hours prior to event
Big Car Collaborative and Downtown Indy, Inc. will provide:
1- (12×12) space along the curb lane or the inner part of the SW quad of The Circle
Access to electrical outlet for $10 fee (limited number available)
Overall logistics/event management
Police officers to close the SW quad of the Circle
Overnight security of vendor booths
Port-o-lets and handwashing stations
1 parking space per artist
Liability insurance for vendors
Marketing and promotion of event (vendors will be required to market their participation of the event, Big Car and Downtown Indy will NOT promote any single vendor)
Live music, games, and artist-led activities
Eligibility
Circle Spark Fest is open to all individual artists and artisans over 18 years of age living in central Indiana, but preference will be given to those living in downtown Indianapolis. All artwork must be original art or fine craft and made by the artist/s and/or artisan/s present at the event. We define “fine craft” as functional objects such as unique one of a kind ceramics, jewelry, etc. and also include creative functional non-art objects such as artisan made soaps, clothing, etc. Imported or commercially made objects will not be accepted.
All 2D and 3D media are welcome. However, due to the nature and timing of the event, it is recommended that all items are offered in an accessible size and priced relative to the environment ranging from the low end of $5 to a median $50 and higher end between $150 and $250.
Selection Process:
Artists/Artisans will be selected based upon the quality and uniqueness of their work as well as its appropriateness for a variety of downtown audiences.
This form will take 5-10 minutes to fill out if you have your upload materials ready.
Via the online form, applicants are to submit 5 images depicting examples of the artwork/fine craft they intend to sell at Circle Spark Fest as well as an (optional) photo of their booth set up.
You will be notified by October 3 if you’ve been selected to be a featured artist/artisan for the Fest.
Timeline:
Wednesday, September 29th by noon: Application Deadline
October 3: All artists/artisans are notified whether or not they have been accepted into Circle Spark Fest. Those accepted will receive further instruction on load in that they have been chosen and will be given further instruction on load-in and parking.
By Friday, October 14th: All required documents must be returned.
More information about the organizers of Circle Spark Fest:
With SPARK on the Circle in 2022, the artist-led cultural and community organization, Big Car Collaborative, is teaming up with Downtown Indy and the City of Indianapolis to spark downtown with free, human-scale activities like playing games, enjoying live music, making art, and socializing in a comfortable place to take it easy, spend time together, and enjoy our city. SPARK activities are free for everyone to enjoy.
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