Community Art Project Underway at Alma’s Burned-Out Opera House
Scenes from downtown Alma circa 1900 are coming soon to the site of the burned out opera house.
While preparations are underway for plans to restore the historic building built in 1881, Alma High School Art Teacher Jon Studebaker is enlisting the community’s help for an interesting art project.
Because of the boards surrounding the fire-gutted building, Studebaker is following up on a suggestion to decorate it.
Kurt Wassenaar, an Alma native and architect now residing in Virginia who bought the building, “Loved the idea,” Studebaker said, adding that the painting will likely be up for about a year.
Instead of allowing everyone to paint, willy nilly, whatever they want, Studebaker organized a theme: Downtown Alma in 1900.
Using photos from the turn of the 20th century of the opera house block, Studebaker has drawn some scenes from that period.
Some of the scenes include a workman unloading a box from a Studebaker wagon.
Why not? Studebaker said with a smile.
“I found out they sold Studebaker wagons where the Strand Theater is and I’m related to the family.”
Also included in the mural will be kids playing marbles, band members, businessman and developer Ammi Wright, along with Civil War hero and city founder Ralph Ely, store owners, a fashionably dressed woman of the time, a little girl with a hoop and an ice cream cart.
Artistic talent isn’t required, he said. Anybody can show up downtown after 10 a.m. and begin painting by following the drawn lines.
He just asks that would-be painters check with him first.
Wassenaar, who’s had experience with old buildings, said his plans are to restore the building the way it was in the 1880s “in a historically accurate way.”
The opera house building, home to several businesses, burned in a day long fire last fall. Surprisingly, the building still stands and was not as badly damaged as many feared.