Project Row Houses

Project Row Houses is a development in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses includes a group of shotgun houses restored in the 1990s. Eight houses serve as studios for visiting artists. Those houses are art studios for art related to African-American themes. A row behind the art studio houses single mothers.

History

Rick Lowe, a native of Alabama and 2014 MacArthur "genius" grant winner, founded Project Row Houses in 1993 with James Bettison, Bert Long Jr., Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith. In 1990, according to Lowe, a group of high school students approached Lowe and asked him to create solutions to problems instead of creating works that tell the community about issues it is already aware of. Lowe and a coalition of artists purchased a group of 22 shotgun houses across two blocks that were built in 1930 and, by the 1990s, were in poor condition. Lisa Gray of the Houston Chronicle said that the houses, originally used as rentals, were "previously ruled by drugs and prostitutes."

Inspired by the work of John T. Biggers, the group used seed money funds from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts to restore the houses. Corporate sponsor Chevron renovated the outside of several shotgun houses. The director of the Menil Foundation allowed Monday to be a day off of work for the employees so that they could help renovate the shotgun houses. Volunteers numbering in the hundreds fortified porches, removed trash and used needles from lots, and hung wallboard. Several individuals and families from the area and one local church "adopted" individual houses. Garnet Coleman adopted one house. The houses first opened in 1994.

Deborah Grotfeldt created the concept of the Young Mothers Residential Program, which began operations in 1996; Grotfeldt had worked with Lowe since the Project Row Houses project started. The program gives single mothers one year of housing to allow them to finish their education and organize themselves. Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times said "It has been as successful as the artist residency program."

As of 2009 the Project Row Houses campus had 40 properties. As of that year, some houses have art exhibitions and some houses provide housing space for resident artists. Newer low income housing blocks, using designs provided by the Rice Building Workshop, are now a part of the campus. The program for young mothers uses seven shotgun houses. A playground is adjacent to those houses. In addition, several shotgun houses built in the Victorian era, moved there earlier from historically black communities under development, are a part of the campus. The Eldorado Ballroom and the Bert Long sculpture "Field of Vision" are a part of the campus. Lisa Gray of the Houston Chronicle said during that year "Driving around, this writer found it's hard to tell where the Row Houses campus begins and ends."

Resident alumni of Artist Rounds

Terry Adkins
Edgar Arceneaux
Michelle Barnes
William Cordova
Aisha Cousins
Erika DeFreitas
Brendan Fernandes
Coco Fusco
Charles Gaines
Leslie Hewitt
Ayana Jackson
Ayanna Jolivet McCloud
Rodney McMillian
Charles Huntley Nelson
Mendi & Keith Obadike
Lovie Olivia
Robert Pruitt
Kameelah Janan Rasheed
Martine Syms
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Autumn Knight
Otobong Nkanga
Tricia Ward
Question Bridge: Black Males ( Chris Johnson, Bayete Ross Smith, Hank Willis Thomas and Kamal Sinclair)
In-Situ William Titley,Kerry Morrison,and Paul Hartley

Funding

In 2006, the Houston City Council gave Project Row Houses a grant of $975,000.

Honors

1997: Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence silver medal

Education

Children living in the houses attend schools in the Houston Independent School District. Zoned schools include Blackshear Elementary School, Cullen Middle School, and Yates High School. Students were previously zoned to Ryan Middle School before 2013; students were reassigned to Cullen after it closed. Beginning in 2018 the magnet middle school Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan also serves as a boundary option for students zoned to Blackshear, Lockhart, and MacGregor elementary schools.