Western Dane County is about to get the arts hub its creators say has been missing.
ART House 360, a new multidisciplinary, multicultural community arts space in a historic former school in downtown Verona, will host an official ribbon cutting on Thursday, August 14, followed by its second annual signature fundraiser, “Dancing with the Arts,” on Friday, August 15.
“ART house 360 is [a] multicultural space… open to everybody, multidisciplinary… you can do any form of art here – dance, visual arts, music, theater,” co‑founder AJ Juarez said. “We want people to get together here, to inspire each other in this space, and hopefully people see the value in that.”
Listen to our podcast interview with Monica Cliff and AJ Juarez:
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Verona Mayor Luke Diaz certainly does.
“My hope is that they can achieve the vision that the founders set out because their vision was very ambitious, which I think is good,” he said. “If they achieve that vision, I think it’s going to be fantastic both for Verona and for western Dane County.”
A big vision, born of a need
All four co‑founders — theater artist Jessica Lanius (Theater Lila), visual artist and scenographer Monica Cliff (Inventiva Works), dancer AJ Juarez (Barrio Dance) and Karissa Johnson (Slate Blue Studios) — live on Madison’s west side or nearby. That geography mattered.
“We were all trying to find ways to create other spaces beyond just downtown and the east side. There are a lot of needs met here for sports, but not necessarily the arts,” Cliff said. “As a mom, I always had to drive downtown for me and my family to enjoy any artistic events… it’s kind of like an artistic desert on the west side.”
Cliff’s own graduate-school research in 2020 got the ball rolling. She wanted to build sustained Spanish-language, culturally relevant arts programming — “like what in Mexico we have, which are casas de arte y cultura … places where people come together just to celebrate and to learn and to just do anything arts and cultural related.” As part of her capstone research project, she interviewed a number of local arts leaders; her first interview was Lanius, someone whose works she admired and someone with whom she’d collaborated before. The two began imagining something bigger.
Lanius, meanwhile, had her eye on a familiar building — her son’s former school, built in 1917, which the city acquired after the new high school opened and all the other schools in the district were reconfigured.
“We started the conversation with the City of Verona, and they literally put in the RFP, ‘We want to save this historic building. We want it to be a children’s museum, a nonprofit, a community space of some kind,’” she said. “We just slowly started continuing our own conversations on what this could look like… and the city was really great about partnering with us.”
Diaz confirms it was neither simple nor inevitable. It was a tough sell for developers, as the building needed significant upgrades. “Arthouse 360 had the artistic credibility and community support, and that’s really what counts.”
The model: an “artistic ecosystem,” and public investment to match
The partners’ business model is, as Lanius put it, an “artistic ecosystem”: ART House 360 is the umbrella nonprofit with six rental units inside. Rent from resident organizations helps cover the unglamorous but essential costs — “facilities, the insurance,” she said — while philanthropic dollars and grants ensure access: “so that everybody has access to the arts, not just the elite, not just people who can pay for it.” In addition to the four founding organizations, arts and crafts education organization Verona Maker Space and music studio Loud & Proud Studios also have a presence in the building.
Public investment helped make the building usable. “The city provided $750,000 in (tax increment financing) funding,” Johnson said, to cover the basic renovations: lead and asbestos remediation, ADA accessibility, fire sprinklers, and all-new electrical, HVAC and plumbing. The project also received $250,000 in ARPA funding from Dane County, she said, as well as a matching grant from WEDC “as a driver of the local creative economy.” The total capital campaign goal is $3 million; they’re most of the way there. Additionally, the City is supporting the effort by renting the building to the organization for $1 per year.
Multicultural by design
From the start, ART House 360 was meant to be intentionally multicultural. “We want the Latino community, the Black community, the Asian community… everybody to feel represented,” Juarez said. “Every community has something special to offer… I want to share what I grew up with. Monica brings a lot of elements from Mexico — we want the community to experience that.”
“For me, this is very linked to why I started Inventiva Works,” Cliff added. “As an artist coming from Mexico and living here in Madison for almost 22 years, I never really had the opportunity to see more offerings that are culturally relevant and also in Spanish… Just having a place and seeing that the community itself is embracing it — to me, that is already a success story.”
Measuring success: wellness, belonging and a busy schedule
“Part of the greater mission is wellness — how do we bring greater wellness to the community through the arts?” Johnson said. “We expect in a year or two that this will be bustling… a bustling community hub with classes and building communities.” Lanius frames success five years out as “a rich community of people from all walks of life, all generations, that find this place a warm and welcoming community space where they can be themselves.”
That lines up neatly with what Diaz hears from residents now. “People don’t always want to drive to Madison… People want to have things to do in Verona, not just be a bedroom community,” he said. “The arts are an essential part of culture and the human experience. What does it mean to be human, if not for culture and art?”
Lanius said the organization hopes to add at least two full time staff to operate the space. Additionally, Slate Blue Studios can provide co-working studio space for up to five artists for $400 per month.
Two dates to circle
The resident organizations have been holding classes and events all summer, but will officially cut the ribbon and invite the press and public for a tour at 10 am on Thursday, August 14. Mayor Diaz will be there along with other stakeholders, the four co‑founders and the two other resident tenants. “Anybody who would like to come is welcome,” Cliff said.
The next night, Friday, August 15, is Dancing with the Arts, ART Hhouse 360’s second annual, high-energy fundraiser — this year inside the newly opened building so people can fully experience the space.
“We’re going to have live music, food trucks, dance classes, visual art,” Juarez said. “Each room is going to have a different theme… It’s going to be super fun.” Tickets start at $50 — a donation that doubles as your entry — and will support free and scholarship-backed programming throughout the year. “What you get for your ticket is… a full night of amazing activities,” Cliff said, including headliner Lo Marie and her band, a Latin social led by Francis Medrano, Bollywood dance classes at Theater Lila, Barrio Dance performances, music from DJ B Pilar, and a collective mural project led by Cliff that will hang in the hallway.
Tickets and more information are available at this link.
