John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art 2019, Artists and American Communities: Part 9

Rick Lowe, artist, founder, Project Row Houses, and clinical professor of art, University of Houston. In its 25-year history, Project Row Houses has grown from 22 houses on a block and a half in Houston’s Third Ward to six blocks and 40 properties. Artist Rick Lowe and his team have, among other things, renovated shotgun houses to provide homes for single mothers, built new structures for affordable housing, reinvigorated a historically black ballroom, and opened spaces for creating and displaying art. On February 8, 2019, as part of the John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art, “American Communities, Then and Now,” Lowe describes the past and future of Project Row Houses and the continuing importance of its founding principle: “That art—and the community it creates—can be the foundation for revitalizing depressed inner-city neighborhoods.”