Jordan Weber of Des Moines has landed a $20,000 international fellowship that will take him from New York to possibly Europe to build on his socially engaged art business based in a studio on Keosauqua Way. 

Weber was one of six artists and two organizations who won spots in this year’s A Blade of Grass Fellows for Socially Engaged Art. 
 
You may have heard of Weber. He drew wide press for a protest artwork after the Ferguson, Mo., officer-involved shooting and riots in 2014, a work that involved an old police car adorned with fake blood. 

“I was just back from Ferguson for the first protests,” Weber said. “There were guns aimed at protesters, spitting on the Guard, cops calling people ‘animals.’ The car had foam pouring out of the back that looked like blood. I was not against the police. I was against police brutality.”
 
Weber wants people to see the good side of police work, too. To show the possibilities, he arranged a panel of African-American police. But he told black children they would almost certainly be stopped by police, despite all the talk of sensitivity training. Weber says police could use more training in handling tense situations.

The car hung out at an L.A. community center, then at the Des Moines Art Center as a planter. Now it is in his studio, posing as weightlifting equipment. 
 
Weber graduated from Des Moines Hoover High School before developing a collection of 2D works that he sold, and in some cases attempted to sell. But his heart was in addressing social issues born of his upbringing in a house attuned to the U.S. civil rights movement.
 
That led to one of his latest projects, the one that grabbed the attention of the fellowship backers: construction of a greenhouse at Malcolm X’s birthplace in North Omaha, Neb., in the shape of the original home that stood there. The project will involve growing food and promoting Zen meditation. 
 
Weber said the fellowship is his biggest award to date. “It’s the first of this scale and status,” he said. “It’s a chance to work with people I’ve looked up to my whole career.” 
 
Weber, 33, studied at Simpson College and Kirkwood Community College but didn’t graduate. An injury had ended his basketball career that blossomed at Hoover. It was easy to turn to art. His mother minored in art at Drake University. Weber remembers painting as early as age 4.
 
He got serious about it after dropping out of college, his work in Eastern philosophy a bit short of a full career. He studied to be an emergency medical technician. Two of his uncles had done that kind of work for decades. But Jordan discovered he wasn’t fond of the frequent sight of blood.
 
He wanted to do work that would improve the community, aside from saving lives by dealing with bloody folks in need.
 
He made some good money on paintings but considers himself “not good enough to blow people’s minds.” Still, he has “spent a lot of hours pushing a brush. I am not worried about money now.” He spends time seeking grants and fellowships and displaying his works at his studio in the old Kurtz Hardware building.
 
He started working with Boys and Girls Clubs, youth programs and Children and Family Urban Movement, even made plans to paint a basketball court for the Viva East Bank group. 
 
Weber’s father grew up in Los Angeles during the civil rights movement. So Weber was regularly inspired by the likes of Des Moines community leaders Wayne Ford and Ako Abdul-Samad and nationally prominent civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson. 
 
That background continues to guide his work. “I’m from the inner city,” Weber said. “I am good at getting access. Being black in America is relevant again.” 
 
Two of Weber’s supporters are community art supporters Mat Greiner and Teva Dawson of Group Creative Services, which is working to engage people with art.
 
Weber’s work “demonstrates how good artists can create solutions that bring distinction,” Greiner said. 
 
Added Dawson: “You normally wouldn’t go to artists to talk about police or low-income housing. It’s more than just putting paintings on the wall.”
 
“Artists are their own entrepreneurs,” Dawson added. “There’s not a lot of opportunity locally, but he’s making it.”
 
Weber has adorned a Des Moines bus with art and has painted murals. His Ferguson squad car turned into everything from furniture to a planter after he made his point about the violence in Missouri. 
 
Greiner said the fellowship includes support in New York such as help with video production in advancing Weber’s career. “This is an indication that Jordan is ready to be on the international stage now,” he said.
 
A Blade of Grass reported that the 4MX Greenhouse (4 Malcolm X Greenhouse) will reflect what Weber considers four pillars of health: self-empowerment and determination; soil and air cleansing on Superfund sites; spiritual reflection and meditation; and medicinal and food supply. 
 
The North Omaha neighborhood has a history of poverty and social challenges, and the site is a field of grass and signs surrounded by overgrown weeds and grass. The greenhouse will produce food crops in an area that now is a “food desert,” the organization said. It will house “spiritual practice and other community-based programming.”

Weber also has won the Tanne Foundation Award, a grant from the Des Moines Public Art Foundation, an Iowa Arts Council Artist fellowship, and the African American Leadership Forum Fellowship.