Preston Jackson

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND Cultural tourism can help revive communities. And public support helps. A case in point is Preston Jackson and his efforts in Peoria by Jennifer Davis

Preston Jackson the artist is an unlikely hero for Peoria's riverfront. Until you consider that he's also Preston Jackson the gallery owner and Preston Jackson the board member of the nonprofit Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, both of which are housed in an abandoned historic riverfront building he helped renovate.

That was three years ago. Today, his gallery, the Checkered Raven, exhibits other artists' work, and his center offers classes and hosts jazz and poetry events. The complex is a nice — some say pivotal — addition to Peoria's riverfront, which just a decade ago was a wasteland of decaying factories.

As it has elsewhere, downtown Peoria's commerce and industry moved out over the years and nothing moved in. These cities have struggled to breathe life back into what used to be thriving centers. But Peoria has found a niche: cultural tourism. And Jackson says Michael Dunbar helped make it happen.

Dunbar coordinates the state's Art-in-Architecture Program, which since 1977 has supported Illinois artists by buying or commissioning their work for public buildings.

But he returns the compliment. "Preston Jackson is a good example of what a lot of Illinois artists are doing: They're giving back to their communities."

What Dunbar, a friend and fellow sculptor, means is that in addition to bringing new life to the riverfront, through economic development and historic preservation, Jackson devotes time to helping disadvantaged youth. And Dunbar figures that's the point of public support for the arts.

In that regard, he maintains, Illinois' program is unique.

"While other states will take national and international pieces, we said from the beginning we wanted the money to stay in the state. [The artists'] money goes back into the economy and their creative energy stays in the community."

Over the years, the state has purchased or commissioned more than 500 works of art. Indeed, it was a piece Jackson did for the state — bronze doors for the Cahokia Mounds Museum in southern Illinois — that enabled him to invest in Peoria.

"It was a big commission," says Jackson. "I didn't need that much money. And I've always felt we all need to give back. Our children today are messed up. And I'm not blaming them. Somehow we've failed. That's why a lot of my work is toward making this a better world."

While Jackson, one of six Illinoisans chosen for this year's Lincoln Laureate award, the state's highest honor for individual achievement, is altruistic, the motive for city leaders is cash.

In the 1980s, hard times hit Peoria. First the Pabst Brewery plant closed in Peoria Heights, putting about a thousand people out of work. Not long after, workers struck at Caterpillar Inc. — a seven-month walkout. And the economy couldn't bounce back. As Cat downsized, jobs dropped from 36,000 to about 17,000. Those layoffs started a chain reaction. As a result, in 1983, while the rest of the state had an average unemployment rate of 11.4

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"People were starting to panic," then-Mayor Richard Carver told the Peoria Journal Star in a recent retrospective of the sour years between 1982 and 1986. "Never was the need to diversify more evident."

So the city did. Today it has a riverfront redevelopment office and is in the midst of a $200 million renaissance project, including industrial, commercial and residential improvements.

Last year, Gov. Jim Edgar signed legislation allowing Peoria to extend its riverfront tax-increment finance district another 12 years. (TIP districts provide public incentives for private development.) And in February, the city was one of seven areas picked to share $700,000 in new state grant money for heritage tourism projects. In return, those projects are expected to bring in big bucks: an estimated $84.6 million by 2000.

Indeed, tourism has been a boon to many formerly struggling cities. Statewide, it's an $18 billion industry. Further, heritage or cultural tourism is the latest trend, according to the Illinois Bureau of Tourism. Illinois ranks ninth nationwide in attracting these travelers, which spend on average $615 per trip, compared to $425 for all U.S. tourists, says the Travel Industry Association of America.

"Families today, instead of taking a two-week vacation to some exotic locale, are taking the kids to a street festival," says Valecia Crisafulli, coordinator of the Illinois Main Street program, which since 1993 has helped communities revitalize their historic downtown business areas.

The Peoria area saw 1.6 million tourists last year, which had an economic impact of more than $290 million. And about 75 percent of those recently surveyed had visited the downtown and the riverfront, says Crystal Humbles of the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Still, Jackson and his gallery partner Bob Emser "took one of the first steps," Humbles adds. "[Development has] really taken off since they and the antique center opened up. Now there's the brewery right across the street, festival park, the amphitheater. Two more restaurants are scheduled to open this summer."

The Checkered Raven gallery — a name the partners chose because checkers appear often in Emser's work and the raven in Jackson's — takes up the second and third floors of an old ventilation manufacturing plant.

With its hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, minimalist furnishings and expansive view of the Illinois River, the gallery would fit in well in Chicago or New York. "That's what we were going for," Emser says.

Still, the two chose the site because it was, well, cheap, and it fit in with Jackson's mission to give back.

"It's my wish to someday see diversity on a large scale," says Jackson, whose steel cityscape of Peoria, "Our Town," was donated to the city.

Before the gallery and center, which occupies half of the building, moved in, there was little else on Southwest Constitution Avenue. Now the first floor of the building features a trendy coffeehouse/cafe and an art deco furniture shop. Across the street, the Crooked Waters brewery took over the old abandoned Central Illinois Power Co. plant that used to be the electrical switching station for downtown Peoria.

City leaders undertook Peoria's riverfront redevelopment about three and a half years ago, but they [the gallery and art center] were there "probably a year before that," says Susan Grant of the city's riverfront redevelopment office.

"We consider them a major asset. Our whole focus is to become a year-round cultural, recreational venue. We've learned you can't depend on industrial employers to carry the load forever."

Dunbar agrees that artists like Jackson and Emser deserve a lot of credit. "They're willing to go into an area that's undervalued. They'll go in and fix it up and start doing their own thing and, before you know it, they've started a mini urban renewal program."

He can name "a dozen, easy," artists who have done the same thing. "Terry Karpowicz moved into Bucktown before anyone knew what Bucktown was. Now it's one of the trendiest spots of Chicago."

Karpowicz, a sculptor, was able to do that in part because of the state's program to support Illinois artists.

Blacksmith sculptor John Medwedeff has helped another area of the state not often associated with culture: Murphysboro. With some 9,000 residents just north of Carbondale, this town boasts one small museum because it's the birthplace of Gen. John A. Logan, a Civil War hero.

Medwedeff volunteers there. But his main contribution, thanks to the sizable commission for his large-scale wrought iron piece at the Illinois state fairgrounds, has been to move into the town's industrial park and hire four full-time employees.

"It's still pretty sleepy out here, but I like to think we're on the cutting edge," says Medwedeff of his studio on Future Lane, which is, he notes, still a gravel road.

Meanwhile back in Peoria, there are plans for an indoor sports complex on the riverfront, and The Peoria Art Guild, the oldest community arts organization in Illinois, is planning to move just a block away from Jackson and Emser, says executive director Tyson Joye. The plan for the Foster Art Center is to renovate an old warehouse and create up to 18,000 square feet of exhibition and classroom space for artists. The Peoria Symphony Orchestra is expected to move its administrative offices in as well. "There's definitely a little mecca developing there," says Joye.

But more significant, argues Dunbar, are the creative solutions these artists bring to their communities. "They wake up every morning to a 'no.' Their job is to turn nos into yesses so when someone says, 'No, the downtown is dead,' they just see it as another challenge. Because of their art, they have the ability to look at things from a completely different perspective.

"I'd say people like Jackson are one of the untapped resources in America. " 

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