New Creative Arts Center Takes Shape in Battle Lake

By Heather Rule, Photos provided

Battle Lake is known for supporting the arts. The non-profit Art of the Lakes organization expanded its space into a former Lutheran church, turning it into the Creative Arts Center. The group started leasing the church space in January 2024.

The new Creative Arts Center is conveniently located near Main Street, off of Lake Avenue. The additional space is being used for various art forms. The vestibule of the former church building is now used as an open, community gathering space for artists. They also have a resource library for the arts.

In addition to the community gathering space, the arts center has a ceramics maker space. The floor was resurfaced and the kiln now resides in that space, along with shelving, pottery wheels and work tables. It’s the first big conversion the group has done in the building, said Kristi Kuder, chair of the Art of the Lakes board.

“We’re building that support of people who are interested in taking classes in hand building on the wheel and just generally wanting to come in and work with clay,” Kuder said.

Nearby that space in the church building is a meeting room with tables and a printer. That area can be rented out for those looking to host meetings.

They also turned the altar area of the church into a stage, bringing in performers and dancers for that space. They held dinner theater events over the winter in 2024 and plan to do the same in 2025. The stage will host dance classes, dance performances, and even a yoga class within the versatile space.

Some smaller rooms on the upper level will be used for various media classes. They’re also hoping to develop one room into a digital lab for video and photography.

The group also converted some wall space into exhibition space. The high school regional arts exhibition will be hosted there in the spring.

In the lower level of the building, there’s a lot more space to work with. There’s a fiber arts studio set up so people can work in groups together. It’s a perfect space for quilters and knitting groups. Larger groups or meetings that need more space than the smaller community room can also use this area.

The kitchen is available for culinary classes, which has been very successful so far.

“We didn’t realize how popular the culinary classes would be,” Kuder said.