Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

For arts-minded San Antonians, the names Kellen McIntyre and Bihl Haus Arts are so firmly interlinked that it’s hard to imagine one without the other.

But they will be unlinked in a mere couple of months. As hard as it is to believe, McIntyre and her husband, Eric Lane, will be leaving San Antonio in May, headed to a new life in Northern California.

“It was my job that brought us to San Antonio in 1996, when I took a visiting professor job at UTSA, so it was his turn now to choose where he wanted us to live, and he wants to go back to Northern California where he’s from, and where we have lots of friends and a few relatives, too,” said McIntyre the other day as we were sitting in the Bihl Haus Arts Gallery, with no art on the walls, giving the gallery a feel of abandonment.

She and her husband, who bought a home a couple of blocks away from the Bihl Haus when they settled in San Antonio, have had a connection with the Bihl family’s decrepit old homestead since they participated in the neighborhood effort to save the building from demolition by hungry developers. In 2003, a savior appeared on the scene in the person of Dallas developer Brian Potashnik, owner of Southwest Housing. He proposed to build a gated retirement apartment complex on the vacant lot behind the Bihl Haus and invited the neighborhood activists to decide how to use the former  residence.  

McIntyre promptly raised her voice to vote for an arts center.

And so, that’s what actually happened. Under her leadership, many artists found a home at Bihl Haus Arts, many budding artists attended a variety of classes, and many other San Antonians came to see the offerings and take part in a variety of events. In addition to the visual artists, poets, musicians, videographers and a range of expert commentators also appeared in a variety of Bihl Haus programs.  She estimates that over the past 17 years, the center hosted about 120 shows, while the total number of artists, of all disciplines, who have been involved in the center’s activities is at least several hundred.   Quite a few of those artists live in the Art Deco district, where Bihl Haus is located.

That last fact, gave rise to another of Bihl Haus’ initiatives: The Off and On Fredericksburg Studio Tour, which is scheduled for April 23-24 this year. The event is exactly what the name implies, a self-guided tour through artists’ studios homes and gardens. Visitors get a printed guide at the gallery and do the visiting – and shopping -on their own.

But the most impactful program created under her leadership is likely to be GO! ARTS, which consists of art classes offered free of charge to seniors across the community. It started with classes for the immediate neighbors in the retirement complex that surrounds the Fredericksburg Rd. facility, but spread to other locations thanks to the patronage of the WellMed Charitable Foundation, and later with city support as well.

“We are in 17 senior centers now,” noted McIntyre. “The program started right here when one of our volunteers expressed a desire to take art classes. I said, let’s see if we can get a teacher. We got a volunteer teacher and everybody loved her. I felt that people were different after they took a few classes. We could just sense a different energy in them. There was a little extra skip in their step and an opening of body language and hearts.”

Subsequently, after five different classes filled with eager students, two university professors, Dr. Jill Fleuriet from UTSA and Adelita Cantu from the Health Science Center (now UT Health) initiated a study on the effects of such classes on the mental health of older participants.

“They confirmed what we already knew about the healing power of engagement with art,” said McIntyre. “Still, it was good to have confirmation from an academic study. Up to that point, there were very few studies done on seniors who live independently in the community. The previous studies focused mostly on assisting living facilities.”

The two professors published the study in 2012. “So, I finally had a document that helped me tell people: ‘Look, here’s the proof!” And, sure enough, the study helped Bihl Haus to secure WellMed‘s sponsorship to expand the program.

Before the pandemic, the classes served about 900 to 1000 people a week, but the cancellation of in-person gatherings changed the whole process. Classes moved to the online format, something that both teachers and students had to adapt to, but also a development that forced some to drop out due to no internet access. McIntyre praises the teachers who went well above-and- beyond expectations to continue helping their older students, sometime by communicating with them through their home windows.

Before leaving, like the good steward that she is, McIntyre will teach her successor all the ins and outs of Bihl Haus Arts management. That person is Marty Markgraf, who is still working as a community engagement coordinator for Eva’s Heroes. The departing director points out that the exhibits are all already lined-up for the rest of the year and the following year, and all grant applications have already been submitted, making Markgraf’s first months on the job relatively easy.

So, how does she see her “baby’s” future?

“I would like it to get another bigger building with classrooms, an artist-in-residence space, and a black-box theater,” she said “The dream is that Bihl Haus becomes a bigger presence in the city. The talent is already part of who we are, with all the artists we have working with us, so it can happen.”