Harmony at Dusk brings music, art and community to Witter Gallery

Harmony at Dusk turned Witter Gallery into one of Storm Lake’s liveliest gathering spots Friday evening, bringing together live music, art, food, fun and film in a free, family-friendly program built by Buena Vista University students and gallery staff.

The event ran from 7 to 9 p.m. at Harmony Gardens on the Storm Lake Public Library and Witter Gallery grounds and centered on “Visual Sound,” an interactive video and sound experience paired with hands-on art activities. The BVU Rock Ensemble opened the night and drew attention from the crowd before the gallery programming continued.

Julie Steinfeld, president of the Witter Gallery board, said the evening brought in both new faces and longtime supporters, underscoring how an arts event like this can reach beyond the usual gallery audience. She credited Jerry Johnson’s media studies class for helping make the night happen and also thanked Brandon Ripke and Dave Stanton for their roles in the collaboration.

The performance piece mattered as much as the visual art. The BVU Rock Ensemble is directed by Aaron Eastwood, Buena Vista University’s assistant professor of music production, who joined the university in 2021. His students’ presence at Witter Gallery showed how BVU’s creative work is extending into public life in Storm Lake, not staying contained on campus.

That public-facing role fits Witter Gallery’s own history. The gallery was founded by Ella Witter, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and with Hans Hofmann and Diego Rivera, and its exhibitions are free to the public. Harmony at Dusk also connected to the larger Harmony Garden project, which was supported by a T-Mobile Hometown Grant to the City of Storm Lake and added seven outdoor musical instruments along with game tables, benches, a charging station and a reading pergola.

The setting gives the event added weight in a small community. Buena Vista County had 20,823 residents in the 2020 Census, and Storm Lake had 11,300, making a free arts night at Witter Gallery more than a routine calendar item. It became a shared civic space where students, artists and neighbors met in one place, and where Steinfeld has said public-art projects can expand the city’s cultural life and help draw people into Storm Lake.