Work underway for Art Chapel in Near South neighborhood

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - The Art Chapel is an unfinished building now, but it will be transformed into a neighborhood art studio in a few months. Architecture students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and F Street Neighborhood Church have teamed up to bring the studio to life.

“Most of this building is going to be left very open as we see it now,” Jeff Day, a professor of architecture at UNL said. “We will just be adding a restroom and some other utilities and storage facilities and support structures to help people make art including furniture and ways of working, but it’s a very open-ended place. And we wanted to leave it that way. So that it’s we’re not pre-determining what people do through the architecture, but allowing their creativity to have a place.”

Architecture students are building pieces of the studio at Nebraska Innovation Studios.

“The students really work through multiple different types of designs, we made presentations to the community. And then we started building models, doing drawings, and then started fabricating parts of the building,” Jason Griffiths, an associate professor of architecture at UNL said.

F Street Church hopes to create an outlet for art that will help the community.

“Substance abuse is prevalent in our neighborhood. And we are aware of that,” Jean Stryker, the Creative Arts Director at F Street Church said. “Here at F Street, we will just use whatever tools we can to give people a place to find some peace and some healing. And so if art can accomplish that, then we want to use that. "

While programming is open-ended, classes and opportunities will range from leather crafting to sewing classes to art parties. Everything will be offered at low to no cost.

“We’re just seeking to give people a good experience creatively and to be supportive of them,” Stryker said.

The groups have been working on creating this space since 2019 and were interrupted by the pandemic. The chapel is set to open in late spring, early summer.

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