An artful approach: Brown County markets its nearly 100-year-old "Art Colony of the Midwest" brand.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: SOUTH-CENTRAL REGIONAL REPORT

WHEN IT COMES TO economic health, Brown County's numbers add up to a potentially robust bottom line: some 240 resident artists; more than 300 art studios, galleries and specialty shops; a whopping 16,000 acres in state park and forest lands half of the county; and 3.5 million visitors a year.

Leveraging and enhancing those assets to strengthen the economy is the focus of a new countywide endeavor. And the work begins just as the community prepares for a 2007 celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Brown County Art Colony by T.C. Steele and other impressionist painters.

The economic activity is spearheaded by the newly re-formed Brown County Economic Development Commission and fueled by a just-completed study by Ball State University's Office of Building Better Communities.

"We are maintaining our heritage as the Art Colony of the Midwest, and we intend to stay in the lead as a destination for visitors," says Jeanne Robinson, director of the first-ever economic-development group in the county with just 15,228 residents.

"We also want to expand our performing arts. And we're pursuing industry that would surround these arts," she says. "We're interested maybe in costume designers, musical instrument manufacturers and others that would expand the industrial elements that support the arts."

Members of the Brown County Arts and Cultural Commission, founded in 2002, are also advocating for new opportunities, but with careful homage to the community's arts heritage, says Wayne Waldron, one of the founders, an artist and co-owner of the Waldron Gallery.

A year ago, the group launched the first of its wish-list items, a downtown Nashville Arts Information Center for visitors that showcases local artists. The arts commission would also like to see an arts and cultural center open, with gallery and performance space--which is a recommendation also echoed in the Ball State study.

Events, too, are part of the arts commission's vision, perhaps a new major arts festival and a chautauqua, a one- or two-week artist-centered event.

"To be an art colony, we have to have good artists and we have to be authentic," Waldron says. "So we monitor and are very protective of our Art Colony of the Midwest brand. We want everything that uses that to be authentic and original."

"We are truly a unique area," says Sheila Dickman, marketing and communications manager at the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We're one of the few art colonies...