A new community arts center in Humboldt Park will make arts programs affordable while also celebrating the area’s diversity. Rumble Arts Center offers classes in a wide variety of arts, including hip-hop, African dancing and drumming, martial arts and outdoor mural painting.
The three-story facility opened late last year after the building was donated to Brook Woolf, an artist and art teacher who jumped at the chance to create a community arts center. Woolf decided to offer classes from $5-$20 so the local community could afford to take them.
“If I created programs that were $300, we’d be an empty school,” Woolf says."It’s a matter of creating a program for the community.”
Rumble Arts goes beyond just offering arts programs. Woolf is also working to bring in homeopathic and massage therapy to students. She plans weekly events where 100 families are invited to do art together and enjoy food.
“You can have a child come in and you teach them and they feel better, but then they go home and maybe their family life isn’t so good,” Woolf says."This way you bring the whole family in.” On Saturdays the center hosts a free market where there are books, clothing and food for the local community. Future plans include a community gardening class and an outdoor community mosaic.
Rumble Arts Center3413 W. North Ave.Chicago(773) 278-4441
www.rumblearts.org
