About

Mitchell Street Arts was founded in 2022. The driving idea behind the organization was to create a space for creative abundance that remixed the concepts of fine art in a modern world and community space. The origin story is rooted in a series of conversations with local residents, artists, and community leaders. Rather than assume, we asked multitudes of community members: what would you like to see in an arts center? Most of what can be seen in the present day at MiSA is a direct result of that feedback. Our home on Historic Mitchell Street serves as the base for our arts programming with an emphasis on education and empowerment, complete with a gallery, a stage, and a makerspace.

Our central purpose is to make bridges: to utilize art as a vehicle to connect where there are places of misunderstanding. We do this by collaborating with community organizations and artist groups from around the city. Our stage hosts interactive theater troupes, spoken word poetry, open mic nights, community dialogues, and more. Programming is multi-lingual and takes place in English and Spanish.

In addition to hosting performing arts, our makerspace contains a wood shop, ceramics studio, photo darkroom, and more. It is a place for traditional and non-traditional artists to connect and collaborate, and a classroom for our community to learn new skills. Through an artist-in-residence program, we provide free studio space and gallery time to local artists.

We aim to foster arts access and creative place making projects in this beloved city of ours.

Our commons is inspired by a means of community based economic and social support practiced within a vast variety of cultures, regions, and time periods: The sharing of resources.

For many folks, especially members of historically marginalized communities, sharing money, food, living quarters, supplies, and more is how they gained access to the resources they needed to not only survive, but flourish. Through sharing resources, we are able to reduce costs and other barriers that served as hindrances to finding support for our work. 

We Host A:

  • Public Arts Stage

  • Artist in Residence program

  • Creative Makerspace

  • Gallery

  • Event Venue

Our Commitment
Flourishing is the ability to determine and define, both individually and collectively, the questions, challenges, and joys that define your vision and work. As a result, our community is committed to combating language, beliefs systems, structures, and practices designed, whether by intention or accident, to oppress or impede the path to flourishing and vision.

We celebrate diversity and practice inclusion. We accept members into our community who are committed to their purpose, capable of working collaboratively, respectful of different cultures and differing perspectives, and dedicated to advancing the collective flourishing  of our community and beyond.*

*our beliefs on Flourishing are inspired by the Social Impact Commons of Philadelphia

 

Mission

Mitchell Street Arts promotes creative abundance. We contribute to making a better world through the art of sharing resources and sparking conversations across differences. As a progressive beehive, MiSA promotes the Mitchell Street Community in designing our own tomorrow.

Vision.

We envision a Milwaukee defined by creative and economic abundance. We aim be a recognized force for actualizing that vision, and interwoven with the other amazing organizations in our city pursuing to lift all boats.

 

Values

  • Respect

  • Vulnerability

  • Diversity

  • Decolonization

  • Collective Impact Strategies

  • Mutual Aid

  • Commoning

Promoting Arts Education

MiSA builds relationships with Milwaukee schools and affiliated programming to bolster the education system in Milwaukee. Access to the arts, most especially pertaining to youth, can be limited; MISA seeks to remedy this inequity.

The creative process is vital to every student’s learning. By offering classes in our makerspace to local schools and affiliated programs, students can learn in small groups with local experts in their respective fields, ranging from ceramics, analog photography, wood-working, dance, and more. Students succeed most when they have the freedom to explore learning in a safe and positive environment of knowledgeable instructors and peers.

MiSA is devoted to cultivating the arts in the practical application found in the careers and personal trajectory of MiSA’s community.