Mark Williams is leading the Indy Art Center through one of the most consequential chapters in its history. After completing an $8.8 million fundraising effort to support major campus and building improvements, Williams is focused less on celebration than on stewardship. The upgrades address long-term infrastructure needs, safety, and capacity, ensuring the Art Center’s twelve-acre campus can continue to function as a working hub for artists, partners, and learners across generations.

A former student turned board member turned president and executive director, Williams stepped into leadership at a moment when legacy alone wasn’t enough. Under his guidance, the institution has become not just a place where art happens, but an engine that employs working artists, convenes collaborators, and anchors a significant but often overlooked segment of Indiana’s creative economy. Williams approaches the work with a builder’s mindset, concerned with what can be sustained, measured, and carried forward long after any single project or person. Enjoy! - Polina

Per usual, we’ve edited the transcript for clarity and brevity.

Polina Osherov: You just finished raising $8.8 million for major improvements to the Indy Art Center campus and building. Can you tell me what that work includes, and why it matters to take it on now?

Mark Williams: A lot of it comes down to stewardship. The campus and the building are critical community assets, and they need to be safe, functional, and capable of supporting what we’re asking them to do. One of the biggest projects was our HVAC system. What we originally thought would be about a $700,000 project turned into a $1.3 million investment once we accounted for fresh-air requirements and safety standards. Those aren’t glamorous upgrades, but they’re essential.

When you’re responsible for a twelve-acre campus that serves nearly 200,000 people a year, you don’t get to defer those decisions forever. You either invest now or pay a much higher price later. The goal was to make sure the Art Center could continue to operate as infrastructure, not just today, but decades from now.

This wasn’t about expansion for expansion’s sake. It was about making sure the foundation is strong enough to support everything that happens here, from employing working artists to hosting partners, youth programs, and community events. If the building doesn’t work, none of the rest of it works.

PO: You’ve described the Indy Art Center not just as a venue, but as infrastructure. What do you mean by that?

MW: I think of the Art Center as a community gathering place first. When you frame it that way, it’s not just about classes or exhibitions. It’s about what the campus enables. We have a twelve-acre site, indoor and outdoor spaces, an auditorium, studios, a library. That kind of infrastructure allows a lot of different things to happen that otherwise wouldn’t have a home.

When you build that kind of foundation, it becomes a tool. A tool for artists, for organizations, for partners, for the community. And the more we partner with others, the more effective that tool becomes. We can activate the campus in ways that benefit everyone involved. That’s the mindset.

PO: You shared something that really struck me: that most months you have ninety to 110 working professional artists on payroll. What would change if data like that were tracked statewide?

MW: It would change the conversation entirely. Right now, we don’t memorialize that kind of economic input. If you began to quantify the employment of working artists and creatives in a consistent way, you would start to understand the true economic impact they have on the state.

It’s about being able to say, this is the output. This is the contribution. This is the value. Once you can quantify it, you can justify investment. Without that data, it’s all anecdotal, and that makes it much easier to dismiss. And data-informed decisions are always better.

PO: And in your case, that impact isn’t just concentrated in one place.

MW: That’s right, it’s not just the artists we employ. We see about 200,000 people a year across the Broad Ripple campus every year. We serve roughly 8,000 students there annually, but we also reach about 1,800 kids through our youth outreach and community programs, which is more than double what we were serving before I arrived, at dozens of partner sites across the Greater Indy metro area. We take the experiences, and the artists, to seniors at senior serving centers. We partner with the Indianapolis Public Libraries to offer free adult programs, also taught by professional artists. We operate the Fishers Art Center.

On our main campus, our studio enrollment is about 160 percent of pre-pandemic levels. That tells you there’s real demand. People want to make things, experience things, and grow as individuals. They want tactile experiences. After being isolated, that desire exploded.

PO: You’ve also talked about how your audience has changed.

MW: Dramatically. Historically, our core audience was in the 60 to 69 age range. They had time, they had disposable income, and they chose to spend it here. When COVID hit, it was obvious that group would be the last to come back.

So we pivoted. We changed how we talk about ourselves, who we market to, and how we show up. Since then, our leading demographic has been 30 to 39. That shift matters for sustainability, but it also reflects something broader.

There’s a growing understanding that creative thinking is a career skill. If you want to improve your career, you improve your creative thinking skills. But there aren’t many places where you can do that in a hands-on way. We fill that gap.

PO: You mentioned trends you’re watching beyond Indiana.

MW: Absolutely. There’s a trend overseas called downshifting. You see people in finance or tech who see AI coming and decide to move into trades, crafts, and the arts. They understand that while AI can iterate from inputs, it cannot ideate, and people will still want physical, human-made things. You’re still going to pick up a coffee mug. You’re still going to value something made by a person, which is how exhibitions are yet another aspect of our mission, with most presenting the work of contemporary artists from across the country.

That’s why it’s hard to say, this is what we do here, full stop. What happens through the Art Center is vast and varied, and that’s the beauty of it.

PO: What would be lost if an institution like this didn’t exist?

MW: It would be a tragedy. Plain and simple. Not just because of the classes or the exhibitions, but because of the ecosystem it supports. The partnerships. The youth programs. The access.

We work with Indy Jazz Fest, Heartland Film Festival, youth theater programs like REACT. We activate the campus in ways that give other organizations room to grow. Without that kind of shared infrastructure, a lot of this work either becomes much harder or doesn’t happen at all.

PO: You came into this role with an entrepreneurial background. What did you bring with you that’s shaped how the Art Center operates?

MW: My background is in film, advertising, and storytelling. Storytelling across all mediums. We were early adopters of marketing technology, using emerging tools to engage audiences in new ways.

That work led to developing museum exhibits and large-scale storytelling projects. At one point, my firm went head-to-head with Industrial Light & Magic for a major project when the American Academy of Achievement moved from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. We won that bid.

So I came into the nonprofit world with a mindset around audience, engagement, innovation, and growth. And to their credit, the team here embraced that. They embraced a culture where trying new ideas is encouraged, where failure isn’t the mistake, but not trying is.

PO: You’ve been clear that collaboration isn’t just programming for you, it’s strategy.

MW: Exactly. Collaboration creates new revenue streams, new audiences, new relevance. When organizations work together, everyone does better.

If someone doesn’t have access to a stage, or a campus, or an audience, and we do, why wouldn’t we share that? It strengthens the whole ecosystem. That’s how you build something sustainable instead of siloed.

PO: We talked a lot about the creative economy and the difference between serving creatives directly and educating stakeholders. How do you see that balance?

MW: They’re both necessary, but they’re different jobs. Artists and creatives need professional development, sustainability training, support systems. Stakeholders need to understand why creative industries matter economically.

Institutions like ours can point to examples. We can say, this is happening here. This is what employment looks like. This is what professional development looks like. But someone has to connect those dots at a policy and systems level. That’s where your work comes in.

PO: When you look ahead, what feels most important to put in motion now?

MW: Building things that outlast individuals. I won’t be here forever. So the question is, what systems, relationships, culture, and infrastructure do we put in place now so the work continues?

That means shared resources. It means measurable impact. It means partnerships that make it easy to point to what’s happening and say, this works. Start small, iterate, grow. Not everything has to happen at once.

PO: Last question. What keeps you engaged in work this complex?

MW: I like solving hard problems, I like to give back, and we have an incredible story to tell. Assembling and growing a very talented team that keeps a keen eye on impact and relevance ensures that this ninety-two-year-old community asset will be here for another ninety years. That’s multiple generations; that’s meaningful.

PO: It’s legacy work. And if you get it right, it creates space for a lot of other people to do meaningful work too.

This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our friends at Life in Indy.