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“It’s been a while now, but a couple of our artists who share a studio space at Heinz Hall reported some water dripping in on them on their studio space, and that was on a Sunday night, and we reported it, and the maintenance operations folks took a look at it, wrapped it, and then the leak started again about a week later,” CIAA Board President Robert Moore said. “That prompted some major decision making. And ultimately, what happened is a decision was made to close Heinz Hall.”

The building was completed in 1898 and housed veterans for 125 years until its last residents moved to the Fox Building in 2023.

“Currently, IVH doesn’t have any future plans for Heinz Hall other than for storage at this time. Any decision will put what’s best for our residents first,” said Karl Lettow, communications specialist at the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs. “But we’re also very aware of our history and place in this community as ‘The Veteran Capitol of Iowa,’ as well as our responsibility to be good stewards for the state. If a partnership opportunity like we had with CIAA is possible in the future, we’ll let the community know.”

The decision to move out wasn’t an easy one. And, Moore points out, the CIAA will continue to offer free art classes to IVH residents even after the organization ceases operations at Heinz Hall on March 15, thanks to dedicated volunteer art instructors.

T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Robert Moore, left, and Muller, right, examine some of the art inside the CIAA’s current space at Heinz Hall.

“We will still have our free kids’ art classes March 8 and 15 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.,” Robert added.

In addition to hosting classes and programs at Heinz Hall, CIAA was also using the building to store its decades-old Ceramics Study Collection.

“We’ve agreed to keep the space available until June 30. We don’t know CIAA’s plans yet, but they’ve been a great neighbor and we’ll do what we can to allow them access to do what they need to do,” Lettow said. “We’ll have to cut the water supply to the building in March, with the exception of the emergency fire suppression system. But that shouldn’t affect the move.”

CIAA has been in talks with a couple of local churches that are considering allowing the group to meet in their houses of worship and store supplies, either on a short or long-term basis.

“We’re still looking for a more permanent location,” Board member Linda Moore, Robert’s wife, said.

Robert said he estimates the space needed to store and display the ceramics is around 1,000 square feet.

“We could rotate the pieces in and out,” he said.

Three of its more popular pieces from the collection are representative of the Funk Art Movement: “Showerhead” by Robert Arneson, “Patched Satchel” by Marilyn Levine and “Mad Doctor’s Experiment” by Clayton Bailey.

“The big hope is that we can find a home for the collection that is more than just storage — it’s a place where we can display the artwork,” Robert said. “We used to have it on display when we were in the Fisher Community Center, and it was a wonderful display in cases, objects were standing in standalone cases, and then bigger cases for lots of small pieces…We would love to have another opportunity to share this collection with the community.”

Robert said he knows some people believe it would be easier to just sell the ceramics or donate the pieces to a gallery, museum or university.

“But that creates the problem of losing the collection and we want to keep it in Marshalltown if at all possible,” he said.

The (CIAA) can trace its roots to 1944 when three women, Allene Gordon, Edna Wise and Helen Lentz, began exploring the idea of art classes being offered in Marshalltown. The ladies formed The Creative Group. Later rebranded as the CIAA, its Art Center opened in January 1958 at the Fisher Community Center and remained there until August 2020, being displaced after the derecho.

Robert noted that Lentz was his art teacher in school.

On Saturday, March 8, the public is invited to attend a community art swap from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Malloy Hall at IVH. Bring your own original artwork (or cash for non-artists) to trade with another local artist. All ages are welcome to participate, but an adult must accompany children 16 or under. Please park in the West Lot and enter through the chapel doors.

The CIAA will hold a public forum in the future to discuss the organization’s options going forward. For more information, CIAA may be reached at: [email protected].