Rachel Perry commutes to the Indiana State Museum from Brown County every day, but please don’t judge her. Perry has a commuter buddy, so her carbon footprint on the landscape she so treasures is not as great as it could be.

Perry, who grew up in Bloomington, has been the fine- arts curator at the Indiana State Museum since 2003, but has worked in the state Museums and Historic Sites system for more than 20 years, poring over the work of regional artists and their efforts to represent Indiana.

“I started out at the T.C. Steele State Historic Site and clawed my way up to director of all the historic sites when I discovered that I really, really didn’t like being an administrator,” said Perry, 60.

Her latest venture in her new life as a curator is a two-part exhibition called “Making it in the Midwest: Artists Who Chose to Stay.”

For one part of the exhibition — featuring historic art — Perry had to find the pieces she wanted in private collections in more than a handful of Midwestern states. Then she had to select works from a group of modern Hoosier artists who were making it in their own way.

Ultimately, Perry chose people who were following their dreams.

Tell me about the Society of Western Artists and why you chose to write about them.

That was an Indiana University Press project idea. They asked me to write a book about T.C. Steele, and I said ‘Oh god, not another T.C. Steele book.’ So I segued them into a more regional subject by talking about this society that he helped to found — the Society of Western Artists. You have to remember, we were the West in 1896. And they were the top artists from Chicago and St. Louis and Cincinnati and Cleveland and Detroit and Indianapolis, and they all got together and decided to have an annual exhibition, and that lasted 19 years — 1896 to 1914.

In addition to raising their profile as artists, the society wanted to express “a characteristic Western feeling, a Western ideality and spirit, in art.” How was that represented?

Believe it or not, at the turn of the last century, Steele and his buddies were on the cutting edge, because they did study in Europe, but they came back and painted what they knew best, which was the Indiana landscape. And nobody had ever painted the Midwest. The wealthy people would put paintings of Europe on their walls. To paint just the mundane Indiana landscape was kind of a new idea, so they really helped Hoosiers to appreciate their own topography and things closer to home.

Where did you come up with the idea of an exhibition in two halves?

We were going to do an exhibit along with the book I wrote about Steele and the society, and the idea came up to look at perhaps the same number of artists who had founded the Society of Western Artists, and see how they were making it in the Midwest today. Those artists were chosen from all over Indiana, different mediums. They were also chosen for their stories. It’s all different stories of how they are making it.

Through the exhibit, you’re continuing a historic legacy of giving prominence to regional artists.

Absolutely. Indiana really has an amazing group of artists — if we can even call it a group. But Midwestern artists still have to struggle. . . . So I think it is worthwhile to bring recognition to these people, especially with their struggles right now, with the economy.

Are artists in the Midwest given short shrift because they’re perceived not to be part of a larger artistic community?

I don’t think there are any real art communities any more. It’s very disparate. . . . Making it as an artist has to be a perfect storm. It’s marketing, it’s who you know. It’s the patrons, the curators, if you’re willing to go out and lecture. If you’re really pushing you can become better known, but those aren’t necessarily the best artists. Some of the best artists in the exhibition are people who are just interested in doing their art, and they’ll probably never become famous, but will probably be more satisfied individuals.