Viola's RAGBRAI event to launch art colony's revival

The thousands of RAGBRAI cyclists rolling through the hamlet of Viola Friday may participate in the revival of another unique Iowa moment.

"There's more than 100 of these abandoned school building in Iowa," said Ian Cullis. "It's kind of crazy we can't make use of these."

Cullis, 63, is heading an effort to make use of Viola's old school, which last saw students in spring 1998. Friday's events there will be the public launch of the Stone City Art Institute, a non-profit seeking to revive Grant Wood's two-year experiment in arts instruction and community.

“Even with this explosion of knowledge, our ability to teach creativity is really limited," said Cullis. "That's what the original art colony was all about.”

The school won't be open Friday, but there will be food, a wine and beer garden  with Millstream beer and Cedar Ridge wines, and performances by Craig Erickson, the JC Project, and Perry and the Pumper from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The artists' colony in Stone City, about four miles north in Jones County, lasted just two summers, 1932 and '33. Wood recruited prominent Midwestern artists, including his friend and Cedar Rapids native Marvin Cone, as faculty for about 100 students.

Male students stayed in refurbished ice wagons, the women in the nearby mansion of J.A. Green, owner of  the quarries that gave Stone City its name.

The colony last just two summers before falling to the Great Depression, a fate Cullis hopes to avoid.

“It only existed for two years because it wasn't financially sustainable,” he said.

Cullis said the institute's board plans to develop a vineyard and/or microbrewery to share the school and support its artists in residence.

He's working with organizers of the Grant Wood Colony in Iowa City, which brings artists to live and work in Wood's former home, to develop a similar program at Viola.

"They really don't have the studio space, and they don't have the authenticity of living in the country,” Cullis said.

Before that, the 1922 school building needs some work.

"The roof and the tuckpointing, those are the top things, so the building retains its integerity," Cullis said.

The board keeps the school's grounds mowed and has installed fencing to keep intruders out of the building. Neighbors keep an eye on the school and raise and lower its flag.

Cullis said the board has listed the school on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. He's working now to pay off about $7,000 in unpaid property taxes owed by the school's previous owners, some local businessmen who bought it from the Anamosa Community School District then donated it to the non-profit after their own plans failed.

"They gave me a $130,000 property, I can figure out how to get $7,000 to pay the taxes," Cullis said.