October is National Arts and Humanities Month, a time to celebrate and uplift artists in the community. To celebrate, The Skokie Village Fine Arts Commission, responsible for cultural enrichment in the village, launched a pop-up art gallery on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 27 at 4854 Oakton St.
The ultimate goal of the Fine Arts Commission was to offer local Skokie artists a chance to share their work with the community.
“[The gallery is] an initiative of Fine Arts Commission to give exposure to Skokie artists, and after posting an announcement, more than 60 people applied because many of them have nowhere to display their work,” Skokie Fine Arts Commissioner Sonya Osseny said.
The gallery featured over 20 works by Skokie residents who submitted their art online. Pieces were selected by Jay Ryan, a local Skokie artist and owner of The Bird Machine, a printshop specializing in hand-drawn text and computer-free design.
Ryan did not take a one-size-fits-all approach to the selection process; rather, he considered several factors when cultivating a diverse array of art pieces for the gallery.
“The Arts Commission oversaw the submission process and brought me approximately 180 pieces to look through. They asked me to select about two dozen that would represent the best of the submissions due to the size of the gallery space and to consider the diversity of the type of work that would be featured. I was pleased to see such a wide array of artwork being submitted, from pencil drawings to both figurative and abstract paintings, ceramics, fiber arts, photography, and various types of printmaking. Of course, it’s difficult to compare, for example, a portrait drawn in pencil to a sculptural ceramic piece, but I think the final collection of works for this year was a good cross-section of the type of art that people in Skokie are making,” Ryan said.
The diversity of the gallery was reflected through the unique methods used to create the art. Artist Pamela Sloan described the process of creating Bastet, a composition created with decayed paper and acrylic medium.
“This work is part of a series titled ‘Unearthed’ that delves into the relationship between humanity and soil, via a simple yet powerful process: Paper is buried in soil for several months at historically strategic locations. The elements, time and earth’s organisms worked together to decompose the paper, leaving behind textured canvasses of unexpected beauty, which are then transformed into final works of art,” Sloan said.
The gallery was also a channel for artists to tell their stories. Artist Michelle Humphrey created the featured Stroke Mom Sisyphus Series C/3 while recovering from a bilateral pons stroke she had as a soon-to-be mother. Her series was a tribute to her journey of recovery and healing.
“I did a series on Strokie Life 24/7/365…in a nod to the early years, the dark years, I didn’t sign any of the pieces when I didn’t have the motor skills to hold a writing instrument, much less use it,” Humphrey said.
Alicia Moag Stahlberg, a mixed-media abstract artist, appreciated the opportunity that art and the pop-up gallery have given her to give back to her community.
“It was nice to do something with my community. I have lived in Skokie for nearly 30 years; I raised my kids here and I’m now retired. At this juncture in life, I can participate in my community in new ways, and this was a perfect venue for that experience,” Stahlberg said.
The Fine Arts Commission regularly holds events to bring culture and arts to the public. To find more ways to get involved in local art visit their website.
