COVER STORY
Rick Lowe Moves the Needle on Community Support and Art By Virginia Billeaud Anderson
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Rick Lowe portrait by Ernesto Leon. Rick Lowe facebook Project Row Houses campus with Houston skyline. National Endowment for the Arts website 2013. Project Row Houses facebook
ny way you look at it, the MacArthur Foundation’s $625,000 is an eye-popping award. Houston artist Rick Lowe (b. 1961) said he was “completely floored” when he received it in 2014. One year before, President Obama appointed Lowe to the National Arts Council which advises the National Endowment for the Arts. These and a myriad of other honors befell Lowe for transforming 22 abandoned row houses in Houston’s Third Ward into the nonprofit Project Row Houses (PRH.) The organization hosts art exhibitions and residencies, education, a young mothers’ residential program, and a business incubation program. As gentrification pushes out low income residents, PRH punches back by purchasing, renovating, and leasing out at affordable prices. It partners with owners to preserve and make affordable historical properties. Shyriaka Morris’ participation in PRH’s young mothers’ residential program helped her earn a doctorate. Others landed law degrees. Last month when the Ford Foundation forked over $3.5 million, it called PRH “a cultural treasure.” “If you think about it, Rick sacrificed his career during that time.” Artists Floyd Newsum and Bert Samples are discussing the cradle days of PRH in an interview with Maria Gaztambide. In 1993, Rick Lowe, James Bettison, Bert Long, Jr., Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith tossed around ideas about an exhibition venue that would positively impact Houston’s African American communities. Lowe believed the row houses served their purpose. Samples recalled arguments. “Rick was the catalyst, had swell ideas, and Jesse was what I would call on the basketball court, the enforcer, holding Rick accountable for what he’s gonna accomplish, and he wasn’t just challenging Rick, he was challenging all of us. That was where I think we first saw ourselves as a group, not knowing what we were gonna do,” yet committed. Newsum recalled nasty dirty work. While removing debris under a row house, his clothes got covered with black specs, “they were fleas,” but he figured fleas were better than discarded drug needles. “This institution brought the whole community, the city, from River Oaks, to Memorial, wherever, every race, class came together to help us, to unify, to transform this area. It was Rick who really was the force, if it had not been for Rick, PRH 12 | Intown | November + December 2020
