Robin Dluzen: Never Sleeps

 

Robin Dluzen is a Chicago-based artist and art critic whose artwork has been featured in venues throughout the Midwest including the Auer Center for the Arts, Fort Wayne, IN; Morton College, Cicero, IL; South Suburban College, South Holland, IL; Zhou B Art Center, Chicago; Chicago Artists Coalition, and the Union League Club of Chicago. The former Editor-in-Chief of Chicago Art Magazine, Dluzen now writes regularly for Art Ltd Magazine, Visual Art Source and Art F City; her writing has also appeared in New City, The Reader, the New American Paintings blog and The Outsider Magazine. Dluzen received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Robin Dluzen is a dynamo. Think Energizer Bunny with wild hair. I first met her at a book reading of Kathryn Born’s first novel The Blue Kind. Afterward Dluzen had to rush off to attend the Polish Film Festival where they were screening two films she had to review.

She is here, there and everywhere, and if you haven’t seen her name before you soon will. You may have encountered Dluzen jurying student art portfolios; manning an art publication booth at Expo Chicago while conducting spontaneous interviews and generally working the crowd; browsing for ideas at Home Depot; or installing artwork at a Pilsen gallery for her upcoming solo show.

Frequently she gallery hops to say hello and pay respect to various artists. There is a good chance that she can be found at A-list West Loop gallery, Linda Warren Projects, where she is their Web Content Manager, event photographer/occasional food coordinator, and Girl Friday. Oh, and did I mention ‘tweet queen’ 24/7? Beyond all of this, Dluzen taps away at her keyboard writing reviews/essays to meet deadlines for the publications she writes for, or she’s in the studio creating.

Dluzen’s current artwork is made from cardboard, duct tape, wire mesh…not your traditional art media. You may have noted that cardboard has been elevated in status with the recent Pritzker 2014 Architecture Prize being awarded to Japanese architect Shigeru Ban; among other things he produces refugee shelters made of cardboard for natural disasters.

What are your Chicago roots?

I was born and raised in southern Michigan, and I came to Chicago in 2008 for graduate school; I’ve lived and worked here ever since.

Where did you attend college?

I attended Adrian College, a small liberal arts school in southeastern Michigan. Fine art and literature were double majors. I received my MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010.

Why did you stay in Chicago?

I didn’t think it was possible to have an art career in Michigan. I don’t know if I still believe that’s true or not, but definitely I always wanted to come to Chicago. Part of graduate school is making connections and it would seem absurd, a waste, to leave once I graduated and start all over someplace else.

Have your parents been supportive of your creative direction?

They’re both very open to creativity. I don’t think they pushed me to being an artist or wanted me to be an artist but when it happened they were very supportive of it. My mom’s quite a good draftsman and illustrator so they were always happy to see me drawing. My dad is a furniture maker amongst other things and his mother is a self-taught painter. They have a fondness for art. It’s not foreign to them; they have an understanding for the artistic side.

Tell me about your first ‘breaks’ as an artist and writer?

I had some art awards in undergraduate school. The school purchased a sculpture from me, and through their annual juried competition I was given ‘Best Underclassman Award’ and awarded a solo show. Both were very exciting for me. Getting accepted to SAIC for graduate school was huge. I count that as probably my biggest break as an artist.

In regards to writing, I didn’t plan on publishing. I’d been teaching all through undergraduate and graduate school as a private tutor in writing, mostly working with adults who speak English as a second language. I’ve been supporting myself a long time with that but never thought of writing until I started writing reviews for Chicago Art Magazine my second year of graduate school.

Power lines and industrial landscapes figure prominently in your artwork.

I’ve always had structural imagery in my work. A lot of it related to southeast Michigan’s Midwest landscape and the labors and functions associated with these manmade pieces of the landscape. The power lines in particular, and the transmission towers, were a result of me moving from a very flat open rural area to Chicago, which is much denser visually.

I was born in Ypsilanti, MI, we moved around a bit and the last place I lived was a very rural area. I was living in the city when I’d go back to visit and I started to appreciate and see the big open areas in a different way, especially the way that these structures punctuate it. We have plenty of these in Chicago, they’re pretty impressive, but it looks different to see them standing in a vast open cornfield. I saw them as line drawings and silhouettes against the skyline and they’re not always beautiful. A lot of people hate transmission towers because of pollution that they cause. Often people find them very ugly. I don’t even know if I think they’re beautiful. Formally they’re doing something that interests me. I’m not trying to make them look beautiful to other people; the work definitely isn’t about beauty in any sense. You almost ignore them at a certain point; they’re just plainly functional things. I’ve started noticing the differences between them: this one is missing a part, that one’s taller, another is just weird.

Talk about your use of non-traditional art materials.

Before I came to graduate school I was using traditional materials such as oil paint and a bit of everyday material in my work. I was using newspaper and encaustic, similar to Jasper Johns and then I stopped doing that. This is harder to explain…this feeling when you’re painting on a canvas or using a piece of drawing paper and it feels completely blank and useless to you. But in another way it’s not. You start with this canvas and mentally you’re already loaded with all of this stuff, and I wanted to make all of the materials have a reason to be there. There’s also the underlying part about elevating everyday materials and lower materials. I’m doing that, and more specifically, I think a lot about rural life…anything down home and country. Rural life is not represented well. It’s often romanticized or people are dismissive of it, something you want to escape from: it’s trashy, it’s cultureless. Especially in the Midwest, I think a lot about the poor and white working class, not to celebrate it but to be more truthful.  It’s tough and people don’t understand what rural life is like right now, it’s a particular cultural experience.

Amanda Elizabeth Joseph, a painter from Fort Wayne, IN who shows at Zg Gallery in Chicago, has a series of photorealistic yet dramatized paintings of what some people would say are ‘white trash’ women with cut-off jean shorts, etc. She does a lot with the bodies themselves: razor burns, huge pores, bruises, oily skin, and those things are glaring at you. Viewing them all together at her solo show last summer had a different impact than when I saw just a few of her works previously in a group exhibition, where I had looked at them in a different context. Initially, I thought, 'Oh, she's painting regular girls,' but at her solo show it became clear to me that her subjects were what some people would describe as 'white trash' girls. I realized that what I thought was a pretty commonplace and pervading type of person was actually so very culturally specific to the places she and I come from. Amanda is talking about some things that I think about too. She’s exploring stereotypes and although I’m not really talking about stereotypes, I want to point out those things exist. Isolating that experience, she opened up yet another avenue for me about how specific the cultural place I came from is.

Where do you find your materials to work with?

I look for things I can use at Home Depot; there’s a lot of browsing that way. I don’t do a lot of scavenging. I’m not that great with found materials. Every once in a while I can get something to work for me that’s found, but typically I’m searching for it. I see something used in an everyday situation and think about where I can get it and make something else out of it.

Do you have a preferred medium?

I like variety. Right now I’m into cardboard and brown paper, obviously an unusual paper palette. I don’t paint anymore. I’ve used paint and you’ll see enamel paint in works, but it’s used as a vehicle for a drawing practice. I’ve always preferred charcoal and I’ll always use it; that’s the only thing I rely on and go back to.

You wear many hats—artist, writer, critic, gallery web content manager. What are the challenges of multi-careers?

When you’re working to make money, you’re always thinking about making time for your art, the money funds the visual practice. It became very important for me to invest money in studio space. My work was becoming too small and was suffering by not having a place to make it. Hopefully investing money in the practice means the visual art will eventually start making me money back. Some people get irritated about me working in a commercial gallery and writing criticism. I don’t write art criticism about anyone in the gallery where I work, that would be a conflict of interest. There’s no such thing as complete objectivity. Wearing multiple hats allows me to have a more complex relationship to the art world, and a better understanding of how things operate and how different dealers/curators treat the artists they’re working with.

What percentage of your week is devoted to art/writing?

I have at least two to three hours every day for writing, about four hours every day for art, and several days a week I'm on site at Linda Warren Projects for six hours a day; it all varies according to what’s more urgent. If I have a show coming up I focus on my art, and if there’s a writing deadline that takes precedence.

Do you have a preference between art and writing?

Art comes first. I think of myself as an artist. I think about it all of the time; I’ve always wanted to be an artist and the writing came about as a way for me to use some of that knowledge to make money. But the writing has helped my practice in a lot of ways. I also don’t think I could write art criticism without being an artist. I don’t know how people do it when they’re not makers and yet they’re able to write about it. I know a lot of great people that do it, but I can’t imagine what that would be like.

Tell us about your relationship with the digital world.

I have a smart phone, iPad, eReader and a laptop. I’m really passionate about digital publishing. However, I also work for a print magazine and that has its own advantages and great people to interact with.

Chicago Art Magazine was an online magazine?

Right, and it was different than others because it wasn’t a one-voice blog and it wasn’t an unedited conglomeration of different voices just contributing whatever they felt like writing. When it first started it was hard to get the editorial eye on every single piece because they were interested in getting all of this content out. But after I came on board as editor I was looking at every piece, not only copy editing but conceptual editing, working with all the freelance writers, assigning and guiding people through it. At the time, what we did with SEO (search engine optimization) and figuring how to disseminate all of our content was huge, and we were a WordPress blog. We had it figured out. Social media was huge. Half of our traffic came from social media and when we were really publishing every day we had as much or more traffic/readership than any other art publication in Chicago, digital or otherwise. We really prided ourselves on that.

How did the Chicago Art Magazine job come about?

There were posters around school saying an internship would lead to a paying gig. During my second year of graduate school I realized they weren’t teaching us any career skills as part of the Master’s Degree Program, so I decided to pursue the internship. This was a year after Chicago Art Magazine was founded so I came in after it was up and running. I spent two weeks as an intern and wrote so many articles that I graduated to being a freelance writer. By the time I graduated with my MFA, the position of managing editor had opened up so I was promoted. I had so many responsibilities and was willing to take control of so much that I became Editor-in-Chief by the time it closed. Kathryn Born took her hands off the day-to-day editorial stuff and worked as publisher.

What is the significance of Chicago Art Magazine?

Kathryn Born, the founder, publisher and former Editor-in-Chief, was inspired by the way the New Art Examiner had started in the ‘70’s. She’s also the co-author of the anthology The Essential New Art Examiner. She wanted to continue a blend of criticism, artists’ voices, and also news and context for Chicago art. We like to think that it was very timely, things were not overly academic…and with the internet you don’t have to wait for your newspaper to be delivered in the morning. That was really important. By the time we closed we had published 900 articles, and had thousands and thousands of images of Chicago artists’ work. We had a Chicago audience, we covered Chicago.

Do you choose what to write about or are you given assignments?

For Chicago Art Magazine I wrote whatever I wanted. Currently I primarily write for Visual Art Source, Art Ltd Magazine, and Art F City. For Visual Art Source and Art Ltd Magazine I make lists of possibilities. I pick a handful of shows I want to write about and then my editors choose. Sometimes they come to me with ideas such as featuring collectors in an issue. I’ve turned down some articles that I was not interested in writing. For Art F City I do what I want, but then they can say yes or no. Mostly I’m pitching to them.

Do you receive compensation for writing?

I do very little writing for free anymore. If it’s something that I’ve never done before, such as a recent book review for The Outsider Magazine; I was happy to volunteer for that. Otherwise I don’t have the time to write for free. I need to be taken better care of by the publication and they’ll do that if they’re paying you. I’m usually paid a flat fee. They’ll say they need a 150-word piece or whatever from you and this is what you’ll get paid. I also do social media administrative work for Art Ltd Magazine and Visual Art Source. It’s very part time but that’s hourly pay.

I know you also wrote a review for the Polish Film Festival in Chicago.

Patrycja Wierzba, a good friend of mine in the arts, is one of the people responsible for the Polish Film Festival of America in Chicago. She also is a curator in the visual arts, I met her at a terrific show that she curated called ‘unzipped’ at the Society for Arts. I watched a lot of Polish films that year and I met several of the filmmakers; I still maintain a friendship with one of them.

Where did this series of reviews get published?

Chicago DIY Film (DIY-film.com) which is another magazine that Kathryn Born and I ran together. We had an umbrella, the bigger company was called Chicago Art Machine and under that were three magazines: Chicago Art Magazine was the biggest, Chicago DIY Film, and TINC Magazine was the smallest of the three and featured the technology/digital start up scene.

Who are your go-to people?

Kathryn Born is clearly my go-to person and mentor for what I do as a business person or if I need advice of any kind. If I’m making proposals especially relating to the digital world, I’m always talking to her and I also see how she talks to clients and navigates freelance in publishing and social media. Angela Bryant, my former studio mate, is another. She is Director of Dominican University’s O’Connor Gallery, and under her own Abryant Gallery she curates new and emerging artist exhibitions. If I need help, need to get the word out, or want to know about someone, she’ll tell me about artists, and I’ll talk to her about artists. Pedro Velez also is supportive. We’re pals, and for a while we were co-authoring articles about exhibitions in Chicago for Art F City. He’s an art critic and a visual artist; his work is at the Whitney Biennial right now. They are all good people, curious and welcoming, and very smart business people.

What is a key strength of Chicago’s art market? 

Its strength is that if you make art, even if you’re starting out, you can find a place to show your artwork. There’re lots of places, and whether people think they’re legitimate or not, they are great places to start. You can find a venue and get people to come. There’s accessibility in being a visible artist and a lot of venues. Everyone is accessible, even artists and gallerists you may think would be out of your reach. It’s not that you can get them to talk or pay attention to you a lot, but you could go to the shows and introduce yourself. There’s nobody that’s out of your reach to know, whether they want to do anything with you is a different story. If you want to meet an art dealer, go to their shows and introduce yourself. Everyone is pretty good at being polite and welcoming. They’re not going to give you studio visits or whatever, but as a visitor they’re very welcoming to you.

Do you find challenges in the Chicago art market?

Chicago’s art scene is a microcosm of what Chicago is on a larger scale; it’s very segregated into groups, and different communities within each of those groups. It’s pretty incestuous with shows of the same people repeatedly within certain groups and people curating the same people into shows. In that regard it seems impossible to get into the ‘in crowd,’ and people don’t all get along. In talking to people from slightly smaller cities such as Milwaukee, people get along for the good of their city. People get behind each other and work together. Here you can’t get all the dealers in a certain neighborhood to open up on the same day and do anything together, not to mention collectively throughout the different neighborhoods. That’s a problem. People keep asking if there is one day when everything’s open. No, galleries won’t even cooperate enough to do that.

What is the ‘good, bad and the ugly’ of being an artist today?

The good thing is the interdisciplinary world that we’re living in. You’re not just stuck being a painter and no one’s expecting you to have a singular style. It still can be useful to have a style, but painters can make photos, they can perform, write, whatever…it can be completely interdisciplinary, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that it starts to be hard to differentiate yourself. The last SAIC MFA show I saw was just piles of stuff everywhere and I thought it’s interesting because I can’t tell who’s from what department, but it’s only vaguely interesting. It was hard to tell them apart. It was described as bricolage style art by Lane Relyea who wrote the book Your Everyday Art World. He describes bricolage as a bunch of found junk piled together. It is hard to differentiate yourself that way. Part of the bad thing is to want to take part in this trend especially when it’s so easy, and you feel current. It’s not a skilled, particularly hand-crafted way to participate in a trend.

Do you see any venue/sales trends in today’s art world?

The gallery serves a different function and is somewhat separated from the sales part; sales take place in a separate environment like an art fair. It’s separating saleable objects from exhibitions and other things an artist can do, i.e. for social good. An example is Theaster Gates whose art consists of places, big things, happenings, but he’s also selling the objects he’s incorporated into the larger scale work. They don’t do much on their own; they’re like artifacts. They’re physical things that can be sold. In that regard they’re separating the monetary aspect of his physical objects from the socially conscious work he does on a larger scale which benefits community and society.

What is your most rewarding experience?        

Recently I was a juror, along with Matt Woodward, for the Annual Student Show at Chicago Academy for the Arts, the fine arts high school in Chicago. A small group of students are doing visual arts and it enabled us to see everyone’s portfolio in person. Matt & I selected a handful of awards and were told later that these were kids who aren’t usually picked; they weren’t the ‘big fish.’ It was great to see the kids excited. They get to formulate a voice as a teenager. I was not in that position at that age.

Any words of encouragement for emerging artists?

It’s what I mentioned earlier, especially in Chicago, that there is a place for you to put your art. You can’t send things blindly to galleries or stay in your studio and expect someone to stumble upon you. Get out there in person and meet people, and if you’re out there meeting people you are a part of it. If you do this there will be a place for you to show your art, someone will see it and something else will come of it.

What’s next for Robin Dluzen?

Lately I’ve been exhibiting at small colleges, universities and art centers. That’s a nice step and I like being there. I’m looking forward to a show at South Suburban College, a really beautiful space. They take care of you and you get to interact with students. I love that. The next 4-5 years I’d like to be done with the exhausting scrappy pop-up stuff; I’d like to start working with a gallery. I also see myself showing elsewhere which is really important. I’m not opposed to moving but I see Chicago as a good home base.

Who are your artistic influences?

Diego Rivera, Jasper Johns, and Anselm Kiefer have been favorites since I was a kid. Presently Amanda Elizabeth Joseph was a big eye opener for me. Influence on a personal level in helping me understand things came from working with Kay Rosen, Peter Power, and Christine Tarkowski.

Who are your favorite women in Chicago arts?

We already talked about Kathryn, Angela, and Kay Rosen. Great people to be around were the staff at The Mission; Rebecca Eaton and Natalia Ferreya, who no longer is there. The Mission is a commercial art gallery owned by Sebastian Campos that shows art from the Americas and a lot of the exhibitions are of Latin American artists. I’ve written a catalog essay for the gallery and the Argentinian artist Erica Bohm, and it is among the first critical pieces written about her work in English; clearly the gallery is filling a hole here, bringing in new artists and expanding the dialogue. Their basement space is called Sub-Mission; I was on their 2014 Selection Committee to select artists who will show this year, all Chicago artists.

If you could have lunch with any artist, past or present, who would it be?

Diego Rivera. He’d just love lunch!

What three words describe you?

One is serious, another is a nicer word for stubborn like steadfast, and I like to think that I’m reliable.

What did you want to be at age 13?

A paleontologist.

What is your favorite way to chill?

I like to read.

What are you currently reading?

I just finished the biography of Alice Neel. That was excellent. I’m currently reading Your Everyday Art World by Lane Relyea who teaches critical theory at Northwestern. It’s a critique of DIY culture; I’m only a chapter in and it’s very academic but very good.

Do you have anything else you’d like to say?

This will be a very exciting time to be in Chicago with the attention on the Whitney Biennial this year.




(Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.)

 

Architect and educator Katherine Darnstadt is founder and principal of LATENT DESIGN, a collaborative of individuals whose projects focus on social, economic and environmental impact beyond the building. Darnstadt uses design to make the invisible forces impacting a project at local and global levels—policy, culture, climate—visible through architecture. Her firm is enhancing existing design practice and education to pro-actively engage in community-based participatory design as an advocate against the inverse relationship between design and economy. Darnstadt brings innovative design to resource and budget limited environments through a holistic, creative approach to design driven by community needs. Her passion for public interest design through participatory strategies and diverse background has allowed her to collaborate with change agents in design, science, arts and philosophy.

Since founding her practice in 2010, Darnstadt and her firm have been recognized as an emerging leader in architecture and have been published, exhibited and featured at the International Venice Biennale, Core 77 Design Awards, Chicago Ideas Week, NPR, and as the 2013 American Institute of Architects Young Architects Honor Award winner.
                  Photo: Julie Franzosa


Laid off. Married. Pregnant. When Katherine Darnstadt found herself in a career stalemate, this motivated young architect acted on her passion. Pursuing her dream of architecture for the social good, she took small steps to realize big dreams, starting with Fresh Moves--a mobile produce market inside a decommissioned transit bus which provides access to nutritious food and education in areas where it is not available locally—in collaboration with Architecture for Humanity Chicago. This award-winning project has given her the confidence and nod to advocate for public interest design for the benefit of the community and beyond. Katherine has begun to transform Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods one-by-one, a long-range goal of hers. She is an
educator and mentor to the next generation of global thinkers, inventors, and architects.


When did you start Latent Design?

In a 6-month span in 2010 I was promoted, received my license, was laid off, got married, then found out I was pregnant. You not only have the dramatic professional change of finally hitting this goal—I’m licensed, I’m an architect—but also dramatic personal change and the unexpectedness of all that happening at once, which is how it framed starting Latent Design. I had this stark choice: I’m an architect, legally, professionally and I could either be an architect right now or I could not. 

Our industry in 2010 was at an extreme depression. I was in job purgatory because I had my license but only three years of experience. If I applied for jobs with that level of experience, no one wanted to pay for a licensed architect to do that type of work. If I applied for licensed architect jobs then I didn’t have enough experience. You only have a certain block of time, too, before no one wants to hire a pregnant woman. There were internships, but no pay. 

In 2010 I founded Latent Design and the first thought in my head was ‘I’m an architect and can pick up small jobs. I’ll set this all up and 18 months from now, after I have my kid, and everything’s settled down, I’ll find a job. Someone’s going to hire me, right? I’ll look back on this time and laugh.’ And that never happened. Over time my plan B, Latent Design, had become plan A. Now you have to refocus and ask, ‘How do I grow this and be a firm, a good employer, good mentor, and train that next generation I want to advocate for?’

What are your Chicago roots?

I was born in Chicago and grew up just outside the city limits. 

What led you to the path of architecture?

I started school at DePaul University and studied English and Philosophy. In my second year I realized that might not be a good career path. To the delight of my father, an electrical engineer and contractor, I said I wanted to go to IIT and study architecture.

Maybe architecture fell out of being on job sites and around buildings given my father had an electrical contracting firm. He was an entrepreneur and started from scratch. I think it’s the culmination of those two: being aware of the built environment and being curious about it at a young age, and thinking about what professions really have an impact on the world—doctors, policy, and buildings. I chose to enter architecture because naively I thought it was a way to incorporate both design and construction. I didn’t understand how divided architecture, engineering and general contracting industries really are in terms of how buildings get built, but I see that changing. I think that’s what makes Latent Design really unique; we’re a field and observational based firm.

How did your parents foster creativity and volunteerism?

Every Saturday we would hang out at my dad’s shop, meaning he would be in the office and say ‘go play in the shop’ go tinker, don’t blow the place up, don’t drive any trucks.’ My dad was and still is very pragmatic: ‘This is how it’s built, this is how it’s done, and this is what it takes to do it, any questions?’ My mother nurtured the creative side as I had an aptitude for drawing, painting, and music. She encouraged volunteerism because she wanted to go into the Peace Corps when she was in high school. 
 
What did you want to be when you were 13?

When I was a pre-teen I wanted to be a librarian. When they were renovating our house, my mom found a piece of cursive writing paper of mine from elementary school that said I wanted to be an architect. That’s totally wild because I honestly don’t ever really remember having the desire to be an architect. I wanted to be a librarian and that was part of going to DePaul, studying English, wanting to go into that realm. I wanted a nice quiet job.

Did you work while you were in school?

I did a summer internship with my dad and taught the office how to use CAD. My freshman year at IIT I learned AutoCAD; I taught the office staff at the Freshman Center and also worked on projects for them. I worked on electrical plans for a Lucien LaGrange tower. 

My first job in the city was a waitress and a hostess at Mon Ami Gabi in Lincoln Park. That’s when I first met Helmut Jahn. He was funny. I loved being the hostess and I think that is why I always worked customer service jobs. There is a microcosm of people coming up to your hostess stand, all different personalities, from super aggressive, and quasi VIP to just wanting to have a really good dinner. You have to react to that, and those skills make me very successful now. Customer service—you end up being a great community engager; you can stand on your own. I was a telemarketer in high school so I can cold-call anybody. In addition, I worked through college as a bartender. 
 
When did your first significant career opportunity present itself?

Right out of school I worked for FitzGerald Associates Architects because I was interested in affordable housing. I studied in Paris and Copenhagen during college, and had this radical design shift. In Copenhagen, they deal with housing and equity issues through design. They use design as a tool to build equity and sustainable communities, and that was different than how it was treated in the U.S., and definitely in Chicago. They want to create elevated design for all income levels and they see being around this wonderful environment as an opportunity that elevates a person’s aspirations and hopefully brings them out of their situation. They also see affordable housing as something that’s temporary, and thus put in a significant amount of social structure behind that to make sure it’s a temporary piece. In addition, they see individuals that need affordable units not as the stereotype that we had in the U.S. in 2005-2006: predominantly minorities and single mother households. They see it as young adults, married couples, people coming out of school; a broader range of who qualifies for and needs quality affordable housing. That shifted how it was designed, built and executed, and the perception that was attached to it. It was used as a tool to promote young start-up firms, and they made sure they saw design as one of their exports. That inspired me to know more about affordable housing. 

We’re catching up now: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her outgoing speech, talked about design as a source of American
power and export. Denmark was already there. They’re pushing craft, saying this is how they infiltrate and spread their culture and power and they see that as valued. We’re doing that more in the U.S.: they’re changing how federal buildings look, going from a fortress to something more transparent in physical and metaphysical ways. What I’ve been seeking is to build that design
infrastructure here in Chicago where it’s using design as that tool of equity.

How did you get involved with Architecture for Humanity?

I was trying to figure out, ‘How do I be an architect, what’s out there, what’s available for me?’ I wrote an email to the organization and they introduced me to four architects who were starting the Chicago chapter. In 2010 when I was unemployed I took on more of a role. We had some successful projects because we had people who were very interested in applying their architectural skill to projects in their own backyard. It was a very interesting form of nimbyism. Instead of: ‘Not in my backyard. Should I have this project?’ people were really thinking: ‘Not in my backyard. Should I have this problem?’ You really saw design activism come out of that. 
 
Architecture for Humanity was defining the context through directly engaging community in a participatory design process, defining the content that we were going to design. All of the experiences with Architecture for Humanity posed the questions: ‘Why don’t we do this in practice? Why can’t Latent Design do this? If this is what we’re taught and this is how we build, why is there this huge gap? If organizations and non-profits fill this gap then why can’t it go into practice?’ That’s what started to push
and frame the mission of what we wanted to do at Latent Design and how we become a social impact design firm for the built
environment.

How did you arrive at the firm’s name?

Latent Design is really the pure definition of latent. We want to make the invisible visible through design. We look at all the factors that influence design—policy, environmentalism, community, power structures, municipal forces, culture, economy, environment—we want all of those to be manifested physically into the building itself. We then look at the other latent factors of influence at the final building that has those first influencing factors. How does that building now influence the community beyond that? When a building’s loved, that’s actually a well-designed building. We’re taught to look at the system of a building just by what’s inside it, from the shell to the interiors to an internalized professional structure. It is complex enough, the ecosystem of a building itself. But we also need to look at the ecosystem of building as part of and how that building influences other things, and manipulating these other areas can actually make a better building.

How many employees and interns?

We have one full time employee and two summer interns. The first two and a half years we only used contract employees on a project-by-project basis. 

Latent Design is a registered ‘Benefit Corporation’ in the State of Illinois. Define.

A ‘Benefit Corporation' is a business organization structure of a corporation that has a triple bottom line business focus and is reflected in your articles of incorporation, your annual reports, and your overall business structure; your work and what you do has a greater benefit to the citizens of the state. Many people might have heard of B Corp, which is a third party certifier of businesses—from sole proprietorships, LLC’s, to corporations—that have a social impact within their work. A Benefit Corporation is actually a state level way to structure your business. We were the first architecture firm in the state to be registered as a Benefit Corporation.

What is the most challenging aspect of working with political/neighborhood groups?

Challenges arise from different personalities and agendas of those wanting to be an influencing factor. My particular brand of going about architecture and design is that we have fluency in both directions, with the community organizations in talking about what these projects mean and how they get implemented and with the policy officials. As professionals, we know both, and become a neutral source that can mediate this entire process. We want to be there early on and have intimate moments and honest talks with all involved. 

A great example is the Fisk Power Plant Remediation and Redevelopment. Last year the mayor convened a task force to develop guiding principles for the redevelopment of both the Fisk Power Plant in Pilsen and the Crawford Power Plant in Little Village, coal fire power plants. The community organizations in both neighborhoods had been working for over a decade to get them closed down. They had a very effective marketing campaign right before the plants finally closed down; they worked with the EPA, the Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council. It made me realize that to get noticed in Chicago for any of your initiatives you actually have to do something bigger than Chicago; you have to go to the national level and then they actually listen. 

Latent Design in tandem with Architecture for Humanity was asked to help them create their guiding principles. We created a beautiful 70-page document about public space, access to the river, jobs, economic development, and also included the community engagement surveys and flyers; we did it in English and Spanish, which should be a no-brainer given the community, but the city was not doing that with its reports. To tell the message authentically we have to start educating a broader group of people; it’s talking with aldermen and policy officials about building these skills also. 

Currently where are you currently teaching? 

I teach at Northwestern University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For SAIC, I teach Intro to Sustainable Design in the Built Environment and Intro to AutoCAD, two courses I created for the School for their Interior Design Certificate, which is part of the Adult Education program in Continuing Studies. At Northwestern I was working with Design for America, an extracurricular and multi-disciplinary program where the students at the school work on practical and professional projects and use design and Human-Centered Design thinking to find solutions to those problems. This year students are working on how to
increase self-esteem and other issues related to personal development within homeless youth in Chicago. 

It was working through DFA that Northwestern noticed the design process our students were using, and asked if I would be part of the Segal Design Institute. Currently I’m not teaching any courses; I’m a thesis advisor for the Master of Science program. The program has a sub category called Engineering Design and Innovation that utilizes Human-Centered Design approaches to develop processes, products, or systems solutions.

One of my students is developing immersive empathy labs for individuals; another student is developing a communications tool that replicates the intimacy of a whisper. It’s conceptual but what he’s seeing is that as families become more geographically divided, relationships suffer and there’s no way to build the one-on-one personal relationship. How can you use an interface to share information of what another person is doing? It’s a platform for relationship building. When you whisper to someone you’re in a very intimate relationship with them. If you can’t do that, how can you use a device to replicate that? The platform serves to start building relationships between parents and children, especially as they’re going away to school, and between loved ones who travel a lot. It combines many different things including gamification. I’m excited how this will turn out.

What would be your ideal class to teach?

I had a very circuitous, alternative, extra-curricular education path that got me to where I am, so I promote institutions and organizations that want to encourage and build on that type of education. I’m a huge proponent of field based, professional and project based learning over traditional Masters or MBA programs. 

What percentage of your time is devoted to Latent/Teaching/Family?

It changes. I’m a person who has to put strict boundaries on myself or I bleed over into lots of things. Now that I have a dedicated office space, the family time is evenings and weekends. Latent has become a pure weekday structure. Teaching is part of that and falls on nights so I have very extended 12-hour days. 

I’m phasing out of Architecture for Humanity Chicago; that used to take up my weekends. I then have to look at teaching and how to balance the two schools. With the mentorship at Northwestern, we set our own schedule with our students so there’s flexibility, but teaching nights at the School of the Art Institute makes for a long day. 

I have to consider if Continuing Studies is the best place for me to be teaching. I’m hoping to migrate into the School of the Art Institute’s AIADO Department—Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects. 

What three words describe you?

That’s a tough one. I would say bold, naïve, and open. 
 
Do you have a mentor?

Peter Exley from Architecture is Fun has been my mentor for the past few years. We’re on the AIA board together but we met through a mentoring program from AIA Chicago and we’ve kept a good ongoing relationship. I had two very amazing professors at IIT. Annie Pedret who is finishing teaching at UIC and moving across the world, was an incredible, theoretical architect. She wasn’t a practitioner, she was a theorist, and had an eye for stripping down your design to the essentials and pushing you to articulate the process and the product of the design. Pedret was tough, accurate and very insightful; she helped me think critically about my work. I wouldn’t say promote it, but be ready to defend the work and then be ready to rip it apart and do it
again. 

The other professor, in my last year of school and his last year at IIT before he moved to the School of the Art Institute, was Ben Nicholson. Ben is an amazing thinker and he challenged me and our entire studio to ask, ‘What’s the point of architecture if you don’t have the world to build it in? What the hell are you doing and what does this do? What’s the influencing factor?’ He taught us to be very aware of the surroundings of our work, what influences it, and to take risks to make two disparate ideas connect. For Nicholson, you can’t get caught up in the building, you have to get caught up in the world. Being able to have individuals that have shaped how I think, and who I can still fondly write an email to, have a drink with, or ask those difficult questions, makes me cognizant of how good a mentor I am to people.

What has been your most rewarding or significant accomplishment?

The most significant would be Fresh Moves. That project has won many awards, and became a model of how a design project integrates community, engages a personal agenda, and withstands a lot of patience. We started working on that right before I got married in November 2009 and it didn’t launch until 2011—two years of development to get that perfect concept model out there. It was a significant project in terms of the exposure it’s received, and also being able to work the entire process around a design project. I think rewarding accomplishments are always the ‘next one’ because there’s always a new challenge. 
 
What would you still like to accomplish?

There’re more gaps that need to be filled; gaps that need to be discovered. One that Latent Design is looking at is incorporating the build aspect to design. The small scale projects that have been influential are from the Activate! Public Space Design Competitions—the human sized croquet wickets, pop-up shops, Fresh Moves. The next three weeks are the ‘boot camp’ inside Chicago Public Schools. We’re transforming a room at Fenger High School on the South Side to be a community Safe Space; the students are going to design and build it themselves. Those types of projects, when bid by contractors, are too small, too weird, too whatever, but they’re actually the projects that make the biggest impact. These small scale pieces start to make transformation within the communities. 

How do you relax?

I don’t think that I do. I need to start carving out time for hobbies because I don’t have any. I don’t work out, do yoga, or anything like that, but I need that. On the weekend I get a few hours to read and that helps. Trying to find new ways to make my family laugh is fun, but there’s a difference between family time and personal relaxation time. 
 
What are you currently reading?

I always read the Economist. That’s my weekly reading, and that’s good for me. I have stacks of partially digested books.

What are your favorite Chicago spaces?

There’re a lot of different, interesting spaces, the more you know about the city. There’s a funky little public park in the Loop, off Adams and the riverfront. For one of the big buildings that was developed on the east side of the river—I don’t know if it was the MillerCoors building or the one right on the corner of Wacker and Adams—they had to probably create public space to increase their floor area. Their public space is right on the river, is very small, has a waterfall and is beautifully landscaped with lots of trees and little benches. When you go in and sit there, you’re up against the river, you’re totally somewhere else. It’s really cool, a secret concrete garden. 

If you could have lunch with any architect, past or present, who would it be?

Lina Bo Bardi, a Brazilian architect, prominent during the 60’s and 70’s. She created amazing public spaces throughout South America and truly embraced community and participatory based design by bringing cultural influences from her surroundings into her buildings, and using design as an egalitarian structure and her buildings as equity building elements. She also was a Brutalist so her structures were all concrete, but she actually was able to bring a lot of soft qualities through color, shapes and
detailing.

Do you have any advice for emerging architects?

I’m terribly optimistic about the next generation because I think they have opportunities to influence design and the profession of architecture. It’s difficult because you have to find ways to be heard but they have more tools at their disposal to make those ideas heard, to capitalize on them, bring in business development structures, and change how our profession acts. 



(Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.)

Blues artist Nellie ‘Tiger’ Travis has performed with top musicians around the world, including Buddy Guy, Gladys Knight, B.B. King, and Koko Taylor. With her intense vocal style and feisty, independent personality, Travis was crowned the ‘New Queen of the Blues for Chicago’ by Bluesman Purvis Spann in November 2009. Travis has headlined at the Chicago Blues Festival and will again perform in 2013, with pre-Festival concerts scheduled for the Chicago Cultural Center and Daley Plaza. In addition to being an award-winning singer/songwriter, Travis is an accomplished actress in theater and commercials. 
 
Photo: Steven Wolf

 
Chicago is known around the world for its Blues; its rich history of Blues performers has influenced many famous musicians. Nellie 'Tiger' Travis is one of Chicago’s gems. Blues historian and host of Chicago’s Blues Breakers for over 25 years, WXRT
DJ Tom Marker has been proclaiming her talent for years. Travis performs regularly in many of the established Blues clubs in Chicago, and at the annual Chicago Blues Festival. 
 
A recent exhibition, Blues for Smoke, currently at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City through April 28, 2013, features exhibitions, lectures, readings, and performances by visual artists, writers, poets, and musicians whose work reflects the Blues. Originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and curated by Bennett Simpson, it was given a two-page review in the March 2013 issue of Art in America.

Blues reflects life: it encompasses all moods, milestones, and demographics using repetition and rhythm. It is part history, sociology, and musicology; it is entertainment and art. Chicago’s current and historic talent pool goes deep in this genre. Get out there, listen up; clap your hands, tap your toes, and shuffle your boots. Enjoy.


When did you arrive in Chicago?

I moved to Chicago in 1992. This is where my mom lived. I was raised by my grandmother in an all-black town, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and came here in the summer when I was a teenager. I didn’t like Chicago and never thought I would end up here. However my mother was sick, so I moved back here from Los Angeles and ended up staying. 
 
What age did you start singing?

As far as I can remember, around age five I started singing in church.

How did you get the nickname ‘Tiger’?

In early 2000 I was working at Kingston Mines, on break we went across the street to B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted. I was with my cousin and a few others and mentioned that everyone had a ‘name’ and I had plain Nellie Travis. There’s Melvia ‘Chick Rodgers, Big Time Sarah; we needed a name for me. I said ‘Why don’t we turn Nellie backwards and make it sound French—N’eille—or how about ‘Angel?’ They disagreed and said those didn’t fit me. My cousin said ‘I’ve got it…'Tiger'' and it instantly rang a bell. It took me to an extreme. My house is a jungle: I’ve got tigers everywhere because people bring me tigers if they see a tiger anything. 
 
Define the ‘Blues’.

The Blues is an experience. The black community is the originator of the Blues. It’s an experience of hardship, pain and reality. The Blues originated with a lot of my ancestors, from being enslaved, and it was something for them to do to forget about everything that was going on in life. That’s what the Blues is; it’s within you, and it’s what you have experienced—the hardship in life.

Do you always perform with the same band members?

No. However, in most cases I do use the same band members. With certain venues I do Southern Soul music and I have musicians that play that genre; Southern Soul is close to R & B but I call it Modern Blues. It’s a juggle and a struggle but this year I’m working on having a permanent band.

What are some of the difficulties in playing with a new band?

If I’m required to just do straight Blues, it’s not difficult because most musicians can play a shuffle or a lump or the Jimmy Reed-type Sweet Home Chicago thing; a lot of that music is public domain. As long as they can do that, I’m fine. If I have to do Southern Soul it can be difficult, but once we rehearse I’m pretty content. I’m strict and strong about my music and can’t afford for it to not be right. I search and get the best musicians.

What is the most exciting international locale where you’ve performed?

The most exciting was Japan, just the rapport. With any foreign country you get great rapport from people because they have a greater respect for your craft than those in the United States. In Japan, it’s like I have an entire family there; they show so much love and you can’t help but feel it. It’s more Americanized than any other country; you can get USDA choice beef.

Is there a special routine, meal or prayer before you perform?

There’s always a prayer. I normally pray to myself, sometimes I pray with the guys. I don’t know other people’s religion so I don’t intervene. I ask the Lord to give me strength to be in my song and my spirit as I perform.

Is there always a dressing room?

It depends on the event. If this is just the regular standard gig like Blue Chicago, they don’t care whether you dress or not. Kingston Mines has a dressing room. I used to change for every set and I had to buy more clothes. Now it depends. When I’m doing main events and I’m the headliner, a dressing room is in my contract. Water, cold trays, fruit—that’s all part of my rider; it’s for the band, and it should be in my dressing room when I arrive for the performance. I don’t order alcohol for the guys; if they want it they purchase it themselves. I don’t want to be responsible. When I was really drinking I would request a fifth of Hennessy for me; that was part of my rider too. But I don’t drink like that anymore.

What’s your favorite song to perform?

My favorite is one of my original songs, I’ve Got Amnesia. I don’t always perform it because the bands don’t always know it. Second is I’d Rather Go Blind by Etta James. I lose myself in that song and I’ve had the pleasure of re-recording it as well. That’s in my show every night. I’ve Got Amnesia was the first song I wrote. The title came to my when I was in Greece one year and we had to go below sea level to perform. We were in a campground and I knew that I had to go back up this mountain that looked like a piece of the Prudential Building, a side of a rock. We’d come down from there and to think that I had to go back up I just wanted to get amnesia and forget about it. That’s the way I write. I’ll do a title first. 
 
What are the roots of Chicago ‘Blues’?

I was told this was the Blues capital, but I really can’t tell sometimes. Muddy Waters, Willy Dixon, Jimmy Reed—actually all of them were the roots of Chicago from what I understand. There was a migration from the South; Muddy Waters was from
Mississippi.

What are your favorite Chicago venues?

Buddy Guy’s Legends is my first favorite. I opened for Buddy in January and Tom Marker was hosting. There’s something about that new stage that brings out another me. The sound system is perfect. When it’s Buddy’s time to perform and they’re still clapping for me—that stage is special. In addition I like Kingston Mines and Blue Chicago.

What are the strengths of Chicago’s music market?

I don’t think it can be compared to Nashville; they are world renowned for country music. I can’t say what the strengths are because we don’t even have Blues radio stations and this is the ‘Blues Capital.’ I don’t understand that. You’ve got Tom (Marker) doing his Blues program but other stations that did programming had 5 watts where it couldn’t spread out. I don’t know what the strengths are but that’s the weakness. You can go all over the world and you’ve got country music on the radio station, and you don’t need an antenna. It should be at least like that in Chicago since it is considered the Blues Capital. They’ve got more computer stations in Mississippi playing my stuff; I get played a lot in the South. I don’t get played at all in Chicago. Why can’t every radio station in Chicago have a Blues channel? I don’t get it. Quit calling it the Blues Capital if you’re not going to support it.

What is the future of Blues?

To be honest, if we don’t get more black children involved in the Blues, the future of Blues is not going to be black Blues. It’s our heritage; we don’t mind sharing it. The younger white kids are coming up in the Blues, and there is nothing wrong with that, but as far as the future of the Blues we’re not even controlling it right now, the record companies basically have control of it. You still have the black artists that are doing it but it’s all about money and recognition for the record companies. At the rate it’s going, a lot of the uneducated blacks are falling by the wayside with it because it’s being taken over by other people, not just white people but Japanese. They perfect it; Japanese people are smart. They pick it up quick; they can play for me any day. But that’s what I feel about the future of it; we won’t be the ones getting credit for it if we don’t instill it into others. Where are the Koko Taylors? Where are the Muddy Waters? Who’s going to step in as we die off? Where are they? 

Do you have a mentor?

Koko Taylor was my mentor. She’s gone now. I mentor myself in every way that I can because I discovered that some people are not to be trusted. It’s me and my Maker. 
 
You mentioned Koko Taylor. You wrote a song and performed it at her funeral.

A recorded version of my song Koko (Queen of the Blues) was played at her funeral and I performed one of her songs the day before the funeral. I was scheduled to record in Texas the day after her passing. I took the plane; I had a full day in the studio. I finished my session and I had time to write; I wrote the song in the studio. 

Was that easy or difficult to do?

It was really easy; it just came to me. I just started humming it. That’s how I’ve Got Amnesia was discovered too. That’s the Blues because if you can hum it, you can sing it; if you can think it, you can believe it; if you believe it, you can achieve it—right in the back of a car going up a mountain.

Who are the artistic influences in your life?

Koko was one of those people and Big Mama Thornton. They have that ‘gutsy growly’ thing going on. That’s what I’m all about, it’s part of my soul.

What three words describe you?

Loving, caring, sharing; that’s totally who I am.

You have a family. How many children do you have?

I have three sons: 32, 31 and the youngest is 16. He came years later. I think I was moving too fast and God shut me down. I have four grandchildren now—two boys and two girls—it’s fun. I braid hair. We bake cookies. We have a really good time around Christmas. I’ll be working a lot and then I don’t see them; they spend time with the other grandmother. She works too, but everyone’s schedule is different than Nellie’s because I work the crazy hours of the night, especially when it comes to the
Kingston Mines—until 3:30 a.m. When I first came to Chicago I did six years in a row at the Kingston Mines. Now I just play one day a month and some weekends. The work is easy. It’s the time; in between you’ve got to wait an hour for another band to play.

If not singing the ‘blues’, what would your career path be?

It would probably be acting which I still do. Before wanting to be a singer, I wanted to be a beauty queen. My goal was to be Miss USA. I was the Homecoming Queen for my high school. I was Miss JFK (John F. Kennedy High) in 1979, the year I graduated. 
 
In what capacity do you act?

I did a commercial for T-Mobile in 2011, There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays. It was filmed at Woodfield Mall. There were 100 ladies in pink dresses; we were with Carly Foulkes, the girl who does the T-Mobile commercials. I did a commercial a few years ago at the Checkerboard Lounge on East 43rdStreet where Mick Jagger and others played one year. I’ve performed in plays: I Was There When the Blues Was Red Hot, a Fernando Jones play, and The Lust of a Man by Tracie Armour-Adetunji. 

Do you have an agent for that?

Now I would have to become a SAG member, which they raised the price to $3000. With the two commercials I did, you can do a Taft-Hartley; you can do two free ones. After that, in order to do a union shoot, you must have the SAG card. I’d have to do a benefit to get mine, that’s a lot of money. You have to be guaranteed something is coming in to cover the SAG costs.

When do you write most of your songs?

I write when I’ve got peace and quiet or when my mind is totally focused. I have to be happy and in the mood. I have to be somewhere where I’m jolly and I’m just feeling the song.

Do you have a new CD in mind that you’re going to do a body of work for or do you do the work first and then say I have enough for a CD?

It depends on what I’m doing it for. I just finished another Southern Soul album and a couple of weeks ago they released a single, Mr. Sexy Man. Floyd Hamberlin writes for me; I didn’t write anything on that album. But I just finished working on the album that was released last February; I wrote six of the songs on it. I write about reality. Coming up with a title stems from
something familiar; I then write from experience or what I think might happen. For example, I’ve got a song on the recent album that came out last February I Was Born in Mississippi. I’m telling where I was born in Mississippi, and how much fun you can have if you go down there and hang out. 

What was a significant turning point in your career?

Moving from Los Angeles to Chicago was significant. I was singing in L.A., doing Top 40. It was all about who could sleep with whom and that wasn’t my forte. When I left Mississippi to move to California I told my grandmother, ‘I’m going out there and if I have to sleep on Quincy Jones’ doorstep, he’s going to hear me.’ That was my attitude. She said ‘I want you to always remember: Don’t stoop lower than what your morals are, because you can always come back to church and sing.’ I never forgot that. I had some crazy offers in L.A. but I didn’t take them. 
 
When you arrived in Chicago did you go straight to the Blues?

Yes, I had no choice. I was told that Chicago is the Blues capital; when I moved here I didn’t have a clue about the Blues. Coming from Mississippi it was Gospel. I did top 40 when I moved to L.A. In 1995, I was invited to Kingston Mines. I went on stage and sang Proud Mary; they hired me for the following Tuesday. I said that I didn’t know any Blues songs and they told me
‘You’ll figure them out.’

I went out and listened to different bands, and this is what I tell young girls that ask me for advice about music: it’s good to go out and listen. My best experience came from listening to others on stage. I had to listen to Mustang Sally. I heard Sweet Home Chicago; didn’t know a word. I went on stage and made up something. I had to improvise, to make it work for me and that shows your professionalism. I didn’t go on the internet and find them, I learned them from people.

There are a few places on the south side where I perform my Southern Soul in addition to Blues. I’ve got a song on the Southern Soul charts, Slap Yo’ Weave Off.

What has been your biggest career challenge?

The biggest challenge is wanting to record with a major record label and I’m working on that. I’ve been on minor record labels; I recorded with CDS Records of Carlsbad, CA. 
 
What has been your most rewarding experience?

What could have been my most rewarding experience never happened. Last year I participated in the IBC (International Band Competition). To make a long story short, they called me as the winner and when I got to the stage they said it was a mistake. Big tears from me. When I hurt, hit songs come up and I write about it. Even if I didn’t get the title there’s a queen in me; every female is born a queen. There’s a song I wrote There’s a Queen in Me. 
 
I’ve been around the world many times before 
and they say there were great role models 
that opened many doors,
but there’s one thing you need to see
and that is there’s a queen in me. 

Apart from that incident, having a hit song, If I Back It Up, What You Gonna Do, has been my most rewarding experience. It’s on everybody’s ring tone in the South and all of the females have ordered tracks to do the song on their shows. It’s popular and has been a classic since 2007. That’s a great tribute. 

What would you still like to achieve?

My goal that I work toward every day is to sing the National Anthem for the Super Bowl; it would be a thrill and a chill.

How do you relax?

Time spent with my grandchildren is most relaxing for me; we play cards. With everything else that I have to do, I make time for them. They love to watch me on TV. I perform at the Bulls games on occasion and somehow we became the cameraman’s favorite band. I always keep them up if I’m going to be on TV or we’ll watch a video of a past performance or look at an album. I’m way up there in their eyes, and to my family in the South; they think I’m a rich recording artist. My entire home town thinks so and that’s a good thing.

Do they have a Nellie Tiger Travis Parade Day?

They did! Everybody comes home for Labor Day weekend and they had a Nellie Travis Day that day. Mound Bayou is an important location in the history of music and a Blues Trail Marker was installed in my home town. I’m working with the mayor to get a community center built where kids can learn to skate and participate in summertime activities. The people love me there. I attended Koahoma Junior College in Clarksdale, Mississippi, majoring in Criminal Justice. I’ve had several jobs in my life time
but singing was my passion. 

If you could have dinner with any performer, past or present, who would that be?

I would love to have dinner with sexy Mick Jagger.

Who are your favorite female performing artists?

They are Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, and Beyonce; not necessarily in that order but I love them all. I see a little of me in Tina, I see a lot of me in Gladys, and I see some ‘wannabe me’ in Beyonce. I saw her in the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show. She’s awesome and really worked that camera. If I was ten years younger and knew things then that I know now I would be another form of Beyonce. I’ve never been a dancer but I’ve always been a great entertainer with a gifted voice. I grew up in the 60’s and
it wasn’t there for us. That makes the struggle harder and your Blues greater.

Do you have any words of encouragement for emerging talent?

I tell them to be themselves; don’t try to be anybody else. Be the best you can be and don’t let anyone or anything discourage you from achieving your success. People will try to stop you, they’ll throw stumbling blocks. 

What are you currently reading?

I read the internet every day, from news and politics to entertainment, music, Blues. With technology today you can ask any question and be anything you want to be. It’s a matter of understanding it and continuing to pursue what it is you are trying to do. The only time I will quit is when the Lord says I quit. Koko said ‘Nellie if I can’t sing I’d rather die.’ A lot of the older Blues artists were that way and that’s how I feel about it. 

Would you like to add anything?

I pray one day there could be affordable community radio stations for musicians without a major record label. That’s important. When I get rich I’m buying a Blues radio and television station, and I did say when and not if. I’ve got many ideas for the Blues. Chicago is called the Blues Capital. Nashville is the Country Capital and you hear country music on every corner; you can hardly get regular stations in Nashville. Chicago should be that way; we should have more Blues radio stations. There are many great Blues artists here that have never been heard. There are many great Blues albums and music that nobody has heard because there isn’t a station to play them. We’re in competition with the major record companies and they’re making sure their artists’ music is played three or four times a day. You could feel discriminated against but rules are what they are in business. There is a need for more Blues radio stations; and if they even had one Blues television show it would be awesome. I should be responsible for that; it would be good for me.


Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.



 

Blues artist Sharon Lewis has performed with top musicians around the world, including Grammy award winners Buddy Guy, Mavis  Staples, and Mumford & Sons. Blessed with a powerful, soulful voice described by Chicago Tribune Music Critic, Howard Reich, as "the eighth wonder of the music world,” Ms. Lewis is a mesmerizing entertainer that captivates her audience with her penetrating delivery. She is a featured artist in the 2006 University of Illinois Press book Chicago Blues: Portraits and Stories by scholar David Whiteis. Lewis received a BS from Loyola University in Management and Industrial Psychology and a minor in Computer Science. 
 

Chicago is known around the world for its Blues; it has a rich history of Blues performers that have influenced many famous musicians. Sharon Lewis is one of Chicago’s gems. Blues historian and host of Blues Breakers for over 25 years in Chicago, Tom Marker, DJ for WXRT, has been proclaiming her talent for years. Lewis performs regularly with her band Texas Fire in many of the established Blues clubs in Chicago, and at the annual Chicago Blues Fest. 

A recent exhibition Blues for Smoke, currently at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City through April 28, 2013, features exhibitions, lectures, readings, and performances by visual artists, writers, poets, and musicians whose work reflects the Blues. Originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and curated by Bennett Simpson, it was given a two page review in the March 2013 issue of Art in America.

Blues reflects life; it encompasses all moods, milestones, and demographics using repetition and rhythm. It is part history, part sociology, part musicology; it is entertainment and art. Chicago’s talent pool goes deep in this genre, currently and historically. You are encouraged to get out there and listen up; clap your hands, tap your toes, and shuffle your boots. Enjoy.



What are your Chicago roots?

I arrived in Chicago in 1969, married, and had my son at a very young age. I’m originally from Fort Worth, Texas and my husband was from Chicago; he was in the army and was going to do a tour overseas. When he came back from Europe, he had issues; we couldn’t get along and I went to California. Six years later I returned to Chicago. I have two boys and one girl and they’re all ten years apart. The oldest is 44 and the youngest is 24. 

What age did you start singing?

Before I could talk! My grandmother taught us songs and with my two sisters we had a group in church. I sang and played a little red tambourine. Over the years I sang in church choirs and was in the first ever Gospel Fest in Chicago in 1985. On Election Night 2012 I was one of ten singers who performed as Blues Mamas for Obama. 
 
What was your first professional stage experience?

My first professional gig was May 5, 1993 at Buddy Guy’s Legends. Guy had put an ad in the Reader to audition Blues singers. My first band, Under the Gun, was getting ready for a show at Buddy Guy’s. At the time they didn’t have a name. Legends kept calling and asking the name of the band. The guitar player told us we’re under the gun for a name. Everyone agreed—we’re Under the Gun. I learned a lot from them. The guitarist and writer for the band, Steve Bramer, is a prolific writer. Steve and I wrote all the songs on my first CD Everything’s Gonna Be Alright. 

Tell me about your current band Texas Fire.

My bass player CC, Carl Copeland, from Toledo, Ohio, has been with me the longest and he played with Under the Gun. Bruce James, from the south side of Chicago, writes beautiful music, sings and plays guitar. My drummer is Tony Dale, of Naperville, but I use another drummer for the gig we play every Sunday at Kingston Mines in Lincoln Park.

Do you perform individually with an unknown band?

Yes, and it can be awkward. In this day of technology, however, through email or a website, they can download and upload music. You provide a user name and password to the music folders and they download the songs and learn them. I just performed at a wedding in Switzerland last month. A girl got married and keeping with tradition, she skied down the slopes in her wedding dress. It was absolutely wonderful. I was able to bring my bass player and guitarist. We had a site set up where we could upload and download music. That is ideal because everything that I had to learn was put on my tablet; I use earphones when I’m going somewhere and listen to the music I must learn. Before, you had to send a tape or CD and they’d have to duplicate it. With this set up every member of the band can go in and download the music. We use SkyDrive.

Define the Blues.

It means many things to many people. But the root of Blues was a call to attention of an unbearable world for a lot of people. It tells stories of life and death. It’s hard to find a clear point to some songs because they can be so silly. The lyrics have to do with the people writing them. Basically illiterate, they had no formal education. So in that vein you can’t write with very much flair and flamboyance if your education isn’t evident. They are pure stories, but you can tell a lie in the Blues yet tell the truth about someone’s life.

What is the most exciting city internationally that you’ve performed in?

I think Prague. I’ve been there many times. I can ride the buses and trolleys in Prague like I can ride them in Chicago. Prague is one of those cities I could go back to forever. I always see something different and new. It’s fun to see the progress in the country and the city. When I went over there in the 90’s they had not been long out of communist rule. There had been a 10-year waiting list to get a phone. It was unfathomable. Then here comes the cell phone. We made this joke ‘I’d like to be the first man who brought cell phones there because he’s somewhere fanning himself. My friend replied, ‘No, he’s somewhere having someone fan him.’ The little things over the years show the progression of these people. They’re the only people that didn’t fight the Nazis, so the city is intact and beautiful. 
 
Recently on facebook there was a photo of you and Mumford & Sons.

One tour, a few years ago, I played with Jan Korinek & Groove, the band from Czech Republic. It was a lengthy tour with some pretty big venues. We had a trumpet section, and in it was a fellow from England, Nick Etwell, who has a British jazz group called Filthy Six. Nick had just won a 2013 Grammy with Mumford & Sons for ‘Album of the Year.’

I didn’t know Nick was playing with Mumford & Sons. Every time Nick comes into town—he’s played Lollapalooza and other things—Nick, Ted (Dwayne) and I would always hang out. And this goes back some years. Nick would call and say ‘We’re going to be in town and we want to hang out; we want to eat and play, and you know all the fun spots.’ Last year Nick called and said ‘It’s Ted’s birthday and we want to celebrate.’ I asked who are ‘we’ and he said just some guys in the band. 

They love Honky Tonk BBQ and I said we’ll go there. I use to play solo there for the dinner set, with my guitarist. I’m running late and when I get to the restaurant there’s a lot of people and I asked Nick who they all were. He said this is the Mumford & Sons tour and I ask who is Mumford and Sons? Everybody is just looking at me and they knew I was sincere because it just wasn’t washing over me. Ted was sitting next to me with his girlfriend and said ‘You know, Mumford& Sons,’ and I still didn’t know. He said ‘You’re doing the after-party.’ I said ‘Yes, in Dixon.’ I did their after-party in Dixon, Illinois. At that point Nick said ‘You know this is Ted Dwayne of Mumford & Sons.’ I said ‘No, it’s Ted.’ It never ever occurred to me that it was Ted ‘Mumford.’ They got the biggest kick out of that. They laughed ‘til they cried. It was wild. He’s my friend and I didn’t care what his name was. 

Do you have a special ritual before you perform?

Because the band opens first with two or three songs, I go to a dressing room and try to clear my head. Some venues are hard gigs to play—hour on, hour off, and you’re not done ‘til 3:30 am. For a musician, it’s like having to talk for hours and be interesting to keep people’s attention. 

There was a ritual of sorts where I would bless the stage with my band. We would form a circle with each taking the hand of the person next to them, saying out loud that together we can make it and we are going to do the same tonight. It was a spiritual blessing. I don’t stand on one foot holding a rabbit’s foot, shouting incantations or throwing rabbit’s blood. I know some people that do. It’s superstitious and it makes people shy away from you. That’s just a cloak for other things. 
 
What do you wear when you perform?

It depends on the venue. I like to be comfortable. I’ve worn a lot of things by a young black designer in Chicago, Tennille White. Another source is Fashionable Addictions. I like eclectic things, clothes that are art. I dress for my age but not of my age; I dress to impress but I also want to impress me. People years ago came to my shows just to see what shoes I had on and they always would ask where I got those shoes. Now friends ask what country I got them in. 
 
What’s your favorite song to perform?

Currently it’s a song that I wrote called Chicago Woman. It talks about the power of women and it has a really rough sound to it, as if the two don’t mix, but they do. You know that Chicago sound. It gets people’s attention, and it says:

I wanna tell you about a story of a woman I know
She’s not the kind of person that you ever want to owe
Born and raised on the main streets
A big city gal
With the kind of spirit that you can’t corral.
She’s a Chicago Woman and she won’t be denied.

I just did this song in Switzerland at a wedding. I say this is a song about powerful women in Chicago and I want you to replace Chicago with whatever city that you come from; and we all understand. That’s the power of my music. I can take something that is very serious, like the elders before me did, and make a joke out of it but get people to pay attention. 

Where was Chicago Blues born and when was its heyday?

It came up from the South with Muddy Waters; he electrified it. Most of the people doing Blues in Chicago are immigrants from the South. There was a mass exodus after the Civil War, but even more so in the‘20’s and ‘30’s when people were trying to escape the horrible Jim Crow law. A lot of people are born here but very few of the generations before me were born here. They were transplants from the South—Muddy Waters, Son House. This is where it came from, the past generations, and in the Blues right now we have about three generations of musicians and singers.

Where do you think Blues is going from here?

The City of Chicago, Dominican University, and Janice Monti, Professor and Chair of Sociology & Criminology, have brought  world focus to the Blues with the biennial symposium Blues and the Spirit. Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune, and one of the premier Blues critics, was also involved with Blues and the Spirit and would like to make it happen every year. 

The music genre called Blues is being recognized as cultural. This music was created from the backs of my ancestors. I’m not trying to sing Irish music, nor am I trying to sing Klezmer. I’m trying to keep alive what my ancestors have put forth. There are very few things that we can claim and I claim ownership with this. If you had asked me thirty years ago if I were going to be a Blues artist, I’d have thought you were crazy, but I grew to understand what this music is and what it means, now—I can claim it. What I’d like to see with this industry, this Blues genre, is to see the black artist get a lot more recognition. 
 
What is the difference between Delta, Texas, and Chicago Blues styles?

Delta’s got more of that ‘twang,’ more of a country type feel, especially the traditional Delta Blues with Muddy Waters, Pine Top Perkins—those old guys. Texas Blues is more upbeat, with more of a boot kicking shuffle to it. Stevie Ray (Vaughn) was Texas Blues. It can be more‘rockabilly’ type music. Boot skid. Chicago Blues again is Muddy but electrified. When he came they called him the father of electric blues because they came from the South and there was no way they were going to get any power unless you sat in somebody’s corner; it was all acoustic guitar. I’ve been around the world and nobody can shuffle like Chicago. Chicago has a more  polished and refined sound than the others. It comes from the Delta and what we call Soul Blues, another genre in the south; it’s almost like Blues R & B. 
 
Is there a genre called Island Blues?

Yes, like my friends Mumford & Sons. I call that Irish Blues although Mumford & Sons are English Blues. How many strings are in a band? I started paying attention years ago when I was working at Kingston Mines. A few of the cast members from one of the musicals in Chicago, Lord of the Dance, came to Kingston Mines. I let some of the singers come up on stage and one of the guys sang Mustang Sally with me. I could see this Brogue trained musician becoming a blues singer. I went to see their show and what they did was take three genres, just like Chicago, Texas, and Delta Blues, and showed exactly how they were rooted the same yet different and that was the tap of Irish; they showed the three by comparison. It’s the same root but the branches are so different. 
 
What Chicago labels still record blues and what label do you record with?

The same one I started with, Delmark, celebrating 60 years. This year they’re going to have a big celebration at the Blues Fest and I hope to be part of that. Another label still recording here is Alligator Records. My friend, Son Seals, who has passed away, was on that label; he was one of the drummers for Muddy Waters years ago. 
 
Who are your favorite Chicago performing artists?                  

I love to see Sugar Blue. I caught the bouquet at his wedding. His wife Ilaria plays bass; she’s now expecting their first baby. On the female side, I’ll always go see Nellie (Tiger Travis).

Do you have a mentor?

Here’s my theory on the music: Anita Baker said something years ago, ‘Steal from everybody if you like it. They don’t have a patent on it.’ Steal from everybody if you like it, and use it; make it your own. 

In life, my oldest sister would be my true mentor, Bobbie Hughes. She always gave me sound, precise advice, and was never pushy. She would say little things that would make me wonder, ‘If you want this to end, end it. It’s in your power.’ I was going through rough times and her words helped me.

Musically, I admire Tina Turner. She was one of those people that I relate to; she was going through something too then but I didn’t know it until the movie came out. Patricia Scott also is a music mentor. She married into the Scott dynasty in Chicago. Hollywood Scott and the Platinum Band, Howard Scott and the World Band, this is an entire family of musicians and they’re just incredible. Her husband, Buddy Scott, who died in 1994, was one of the Scott brothers, and Pat was the lead singer in his band
Buddy Scott and the Ribtips. I saw Pat perform in a tiny club which was as big as a studio and she had those people in the palm of her hand. She used to play at Blue Chicago quite a bit but is in ill health now.

What three words describe you?

Strong. Creative. Sensitive. I’m strong because I’ve had to be. I’m creative because I choose to be. I’m sensitive because I can’t help it. My friends say ‘She’s going to cry.’ I am sensitive too because I am a recovering addict which is not uncommon in the Blues world, which is sad to say. Crack cocaine did to the Blues world what heroin did to the jazz world in the 50’s and 60’s. By the grace of God and the power granted in myself I sit before you today. I’m proud to be alive, happy to be alive. Otherwise I wouldn’t have three little granddaughters to boss me around. They are 7, 5 and 4, but I think in all honesty they’re like 40, 32, and 25. That makes me sensitive too.

Where do you draw your inspiration from when you write music?

From life—funny stuff, crazy stuff—touching stuff.

What did you want to be at age 13?

I’ve always wanted to be a singer. Around 12 or 13, I started leaning more towards being a nurse because one of my older sisters was in nursing school. The careers for women were a nurse or a teacher. That was it. You never thought about being a lawyer or an architect. 

What was a significant turning point in your career?

What pushes blues artists are the places they’re able to play. I was fortunate to be one of the headliners at the Monterey Blues Festival (California) and the Lucerne Blues Festival (Switzerland), the largest in the world. I played Chicago Blues Fest twice and I’ll play again this year. When people see names like that on your bio, they know the quality of your work. 

What has been your biggest career challenge?

The financial aspect, that’s the biggest challenge. It’s hard to say I’m going to be broke. I have no problems getting gigs. Dealing with the booking agents, however, can be stressful. I had a very good living as an executive administrator for a law firm for 12 years. Two years ago I made the commitment to work solely as a blues artist. I own my own house but the car is in the shop; I’ve learned how to ride the bus in the suburbs. I love this genre and what I do; I love being a representative of  what’s right and good about it. People are not allowing me, is that even fair to say, to make a living. I get angry with my friends when they buy bootleg stuff. I ask if they know what they’re doing to the artist who created that. They’re not allowing them to make a living. If somebody takes my CD and replicates it, I don’t make any money from that. Blues is my birthright and I should be able to make a living doing it. When people say blues they think of BB King, Bobby Blue Bland, or Buddy Guy. Financially it’s a struggle, the economics of it. In addition to singing, I do side work for plays and movies to make extra money when I can; I’d like to do commercials. I’d like to see a blues artist on Dancing With the Stars.

What has been your most rewarding experience?

Easy! In 2011 I was on tour with a band from Czech Republic, Jan Korinek, and we did a daylong seminar in Austria at the only performing arts high school in Europe. Formerly I was a teacher before I became an administrator. I taught under the JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) program for the City of Chicago. Watching those kids hang on every word, being in awe, and having some of them come to the show was rewarding. We did a mini concert for them at the school. 

I started the class off like this: ‘How many people want to be musicians? Every hand in the room went up. OK. How many people want to be broke? All the hands went down. So I say to you ‘If you don’t want to be a broke musician you better stay in school. Because if you think you can just be a musician you’re going to be broke. You need something else to level your life, especially financially. Nobody knows who you are when you get out of here and play on your first corner with your guitar case in front of you for people to throw coins into. Therefore if you play on that corner from 6-9 pm and you go home, be prepared to go to work the next morning. Don’t give up the day job. You’ve got to be able to support yourself.’ They really liked that although they didn’t want to hear that. 
 
I used to teach a JTPA program course called‘Career and Professional Development.’ I helped people identify how to set goals. But first of all to set a goal you have to know the definition of a goal. It’s easy to say I want to be a doctor. But what do you need to do to be a doctor? I need to go to school. I need funding or scholarships, loans, grants. You have to establish a ground; this is your ground, this is your root. It then grows from that and you have several branches. My favorite quote is from black educator Benjamin Mays: ‘The tragedy of life is not reaching a goal; the tragedy of life is not having a goal to reach.’ 

What would you still like to achieve?

I’d like to be in a movie, and I’m writing a play that may be adapted into a movie. I auditioned for a movie but I had some issues that stopped me from getting the part. The role was for a blues artist in a George Clooney movie called Leatherheads. I wasn’t selected but when I finished my audition the woman said ‘You gave me chills,’ and no one had ever said that. I needed dental work and didn’t have the money. I finally had to get the dental work done as it was an investment; I’m a front face.  

How do you relax?

A hot bubble bath, fragrant candles, and a glass of 7-Up. It looks pretty in a champagne glass. Put a little grenadine in it and it looks like pink champagne.

If you could have dinner with any performer, past or present, who would that be?

Billie Holiday.

Any words of encouragement for today’s young artists?

Educate yourself first. It’s not glamorous. In all honesty the promoters I’ve dealt with are mainly because of Dave Specter. I’ve traveled a lot with him and while on tour Mr. Specter’s level of expectation is brilliant. I love that. I don’t have to have yellow roses and pink champagne in a room in order to perform. But I’d like to be able to sit down on the couch in my dressing room without expecting to get up with bugs. He taught me a lot including that they will treat you any way they want to if you let them. Learn how to negotiate and put those things in your contract. I am by no means a Beyonce or Mary J., but I’m a human being who expects to be treated as such. Educate yourself first, because it is business. 

Oprah said Bill Cosby told her to sign her own checks. There have been bluesmen who have lost their cars and houses from recording contracts. The only way you can get around that is to be educated enough to know that you don’t know enough to make some decisions. I hired an accountant. You have to be educated enough to know how much education you really don’t have and fix it. Johnny Carson had the richest man in the world on his show once, and Johnny asked him a question. The man said to him ‘No I don’t, but I know who does.’ Don’t think you know everything; a Grammy is a wonderful thing but you can’t boil it and eat it.

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading two or three books; there are five on my tablet. I’ve just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I loved that. I’m reading Vagina by Naomi Wolf. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is actually an incredible book. I had never read it; I just saw the Disney version of it. It is actually quite an adult book.

Is there anything else you would like to say?

I’d like people to know that this is not an easy journey. There are many pitfalls, and right now there’s this war about whose music it is. We’re fighting for the music, and we’re fighting for a place. After this symposium Blues and the SpiritI wanted us to go further with some of these festivals, especially with regards to people hiring the talent. It’s one sided when you see a roster of 15, and there’s not one heritage artist on that roster, let alone a woman. Major festivals hire 33% heritage and far less than that of heritage women. I just want more fairness. Ciao.

 
 
Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.

INDO is a Chicago-based design and fabrications firm specializing in site-specific installations created with materials diverted from the waste and recycling streams.

Co-creators Linsey Burritt and Crystal Hodges blend sustainable practice, innovative design and thoughtful collaboration to produce interiors, window displays, art installations, objects and environments for a diverse range of clients, designers and venues.



INDO began 2013 by being mentioned as two of ‘The Most Kick-Ass Girls of 2012’ in a list published by Carhartt, the traditional tough-boy clothing manufacturer. This dynamic duo, Linsey Burritt and Crystal Hodges, have had an amazing past year, appearing on ABC Local (WLS-TV) and being featured in Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, and others. The leading visual merchandising trade publication, VMSD, just named two of INDO’s projects to a short list of ‘2012 Stunning Window Displays from Around the World.’

Burritt and Hodges believe in sustainable living so much that they dedicated their careers to it. They co-founded INDO, their West Loop company, in 2007 (think window without the w’s), building window displays and installations from materials that have been diverted from waste and recycling streams. These soft-spoken, stylish young women are making loud statements with their creative repurposing of recyclable goods, practicing what they term quiet activism—urging viewers to think about waste in our society.

Their client list includes Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Taste of Chicago, the Merchandise Mart, and others. Library catalog cards, expired hibiscus, nail polish caps, 6,000 pounds of paper, 17,000 yards of string, and ‘used fabric tubes from foxy designers’ are their selected media. ‘If our work can spur a conversation, that’s a win. If our work causes people to reflect on their consumption patterns, that’s a win, too.’


How did you meet?

LB: We met in the South Loop at a coffee shop Gourmand Coffee. We both were working there and attending Columbia College. I was a Graphic Design student and Crystal was studying Interior Architecture.

What was the catalyst for starting INDO?

CH: City Soles, a shoe store in Wicker Park, commissioned us to do a window and we eventually did 4-5 installations for them. We established a portfolio from these installations and our collective work at Columbia. In 2010 we did a project with Shannon Downey at Pivotal Production for Urban Innovations where we used office paper.

Do you each have designated tasks on projects?

LB: We decide at the beginning: one manages and one assists, it’s a collaboration for us. We begin with an idea session; on most projects we both can do all roles, but we take turns at managing.

What businesses use your services?

LB: Ad agencies, design firms, retail establishments.

How do you calculate your fees?

CH: We calculate our fees on a project by project basis. We scope the project parameters and define the client’s requirements. We then estimate the project which requires a back-and-forth dance until we find the sweet spot. We calculate our rate hourly for most projects, for interiors we cross reference with a square footage rate, and then assume a range for material costs.

Is ‘green’ a big part of your work?

CH: Yes, absolutely. That part comes under material sourcing. We try our best to get materials from stores that like the recycling stream so that we are just diverting it from that stream instead of buying new things. We have to keep buying new glue sticks and other things to support projects but, for the most part, the recycling stream is where the materials come from. We also pay attention to where it’s going after the window is finished so it won’t be thrown away.

How do you handle the recycling phase of a project?

CH: For our smaller projects, we save things. We save and recycle all of our fishing lines; it doesn’t take up that much space. The 6,000 pounds of paper for Steppenwolf is coming down relatively soon and we have to return that to where we got it from, which is Recycling Services. They’re going to take all the paper back; we planned that with them in the design phase.
 
What are your favorite materials to work with?

CH: We love paper. It is easy to come by and easy to manipulate.

Are most of your materials purchases or donations?

LB: We purchase our materials half of the time and the other half of the time they are either donated or found. When materials aren’t coming to us by way of being donated or found we reach out to recycling companies to see what they have in stock. Last year we purchased a gaylord with 1,000 pounds of sheets of plastic that the recycling company so graciously stores for us. The sheets were used in the Taste of Chicago installation and it’s amazing to us those sheets came at the size they are (3′ x 4′).

Do certain settings influence your choice of materials?

LB: Sure! That’s the nature of site-specific. Since the bulk of the materials we use are in a simple, raw form they are extremely adaptable.

Do clients dictate what they are looking for or do you have free rein?

CH: Sometimes they do; they usually come to us because they have something that they want to show. Delta-Brizo always have a new technology they want to showcase. Then it’s up to us; we go through our creative process and give them a few interpretations. We have creative rein, but they give us a seed. Sometimes the small shops give us full creative rein.

Talk about your recent ‘tea project.’

CH: TeaGschwendner is a German company with its first store in Chicago at Division and State Streets. They decided to do a window display because they’re thinking about rebranding. Even though they’re a German company in America, they’re recognizing where they are in the world. A friend brought us to their attention and we did their first window. It was a small window and something we have been struggling with lately is we don’t do too many small boutiques because we have to manage the budget. What we do is usually so intricate and ‘out there,’ that’s what we’re known for. To take enough time for us to get a small budget to work is very difficult. We’re trying to be more successful so we can work with the smaller boutiques in Chicago. It’s not easy to do what we do in half or a quarter of the time.

What is your most challenging project?

LB: The current Brizo installation at Dream2O showroom in the Merchandise Mart was challenging as we worked with string in a new way. We built a full scale prototype in our studio, which we don’t generally do since it takes a lot of time. We find a challenge in projects of all sizes. For Brizo we were challenged by sculpting string in a new way, but for the Tea project, we were challenged by a tight time frame.

What is your most rewarding project?

LB: Steppenwolf. It often felt as though it was an impossible project. It was a big accomplishment for us. We sorted through 10,000 pounds of paper and the final result used 6,000 pounds of paper. To see that go up and stay up was quite gratifying.

CH: With that project we had the opportunity to work closely with a recycling agency that was very excited to be involved and to see what their material could be used for. They had a different sense of purpose when working with us. It inspired a larger community than we are used to working with. We also had a lot of volunteers that gave their time to help us sort through the paper for specific uses.

Would you say that this project has given INDO a media presence?

LB: It was a slow trickle. We would get a slow trickle of press and then it was full stream.

CH: Linsey has been very involved in the design community since college and a lot of our press came from that community bouncing our name around. People find the work that we are doing and the materials we’re using interesting. We have a different model, because we made it up: we’re doing what we want in windows and with this medium. It’s not that we made up window dressing, but we’re doing it a different way and people are responding to that. People ask ‘Why did you start, how did you start? How do I do something like that?’ We really don’t have an answer. You just have to do something you like and see what sticks.

Where does your inspiration come from?

LB: I don’t think it comes from one place.

CH: A lot of times we just play with materials. We process things internally, we both just dream about things. We take our time and think about it, and not let anything hold back that kind of ideation. Then, we get real with it; just allowing yourself to dream about it yields results.

You currently share studio space with Strand Design, a hot new furniture design company. How did that come about, and does that foster a more creative work environment?

CH: I actually worked with Sharon Burdett, Strand co-owner and principal, at a different job. When I was doing retail design, Sharon was doing the graphics for that company.

LB: Ted Burdett had studio space that was shared by 6-8 different artists—now it’s our current space. At that time Crystal and I were excited about being creative on our own and we talked about starting a collective together. We met a few times with Sharon and Ted around the time that Strand was born and we decided to share space together.

Do you find that you feed off each other in your different areas of work?

LB: Yes, just being in the same space with other creative people, even at a subconscious level, informs and supports the work.

Do you have a staff or interns, or use volunteers as a project requires?

LB: We’ve used volunteers in the past for lack of budget. It would be a dream to be able to afford to work with other like-minded, creative individuals as it makes the work better.

Where do you hire them from? Are they students at Columbia, or professionals?

CH: Students usually email us and then we save it for future reference. Lately we have a teacher at Columbia that has been rallying her students. We got a great student of hers recently who we’ve been trying to work with. The students are excited and it’s best to have people that are excited to be working on these projects.

Describe a typical studio day.

CH: Go in, make coffee; sometime we chat, sometimes we don’t. We’ll probably check our email; sometimes we’re on the computer all day, sometimes we’re not. We always make lunch, because we have a kitchen at the studio; we usually make an afternoon coffee. Everybody’s lives in the studio revolve around coffee and lunch!

LB: There’s a little bakery, Loretta’s, on Randolph and we go there around 3 o’clock; we all go for a cookie, a little pick me up.

Do you socialize together when you’re away from the studio?

LB: Absolutely. We’ve been friends for 10 years and still have the same group of girlfriends worked with at Gourmand.

Favorite way to chill?

CH: I love to cook at home, and I love my greyhound Rachel (aka: Moto Rainbow).

LB: I love to mix up a great Manhattan to drink while I cook. And play gin rummy.

What’s next for INDO? Any move in the near future?

CH: A future goal is more of our own personal projects. 2013 is already lined up with client projects, which is a good thing. Right now we’re in the perfect space with no plans to move.

Any lectures, demonstrations, or teaching positions?

CH: We do occasional talks to students. There’s also job shadowing with Chicago Public School students, usually at the high school level.

Do you have a mentor(s)?

CH: Tim Cozzens, my studio professor in interior architecture at Columbia, he was always supportive, encouraging, and never gave up on me.

LB: My mentors are my friends. We have a very strong creative community surrounding us. My boyfriend, Sam Rosen, is my main mentor; he is part of the Post Family, an art and design collective in Chicago, and he has a web design firm.

Who are your favorite Chicago artists?

LB: I love Jenny Kendler. She always impresses me and she’s one artist in Chicago whose exhibitions I always attend. She did the Bolt Residency at Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC) and had an installation there recently.

CH: That’s really hard. All of our friends are artists and I don’t have a favorite. I have a favorite photographer who is one of my best friends, Stephanie Bassos. She is so good with people and has a passion for it. Stephanie is continually growing her photography and it’s beautiful to watch somebody escalate. She also did an amazing job photographing my wedding.

LB: We collaborated with Stephanie at the Rainbo Club, a bar in Ukrainian Village back in 2007. They have these window boxes inside that they feature local art in and one day it occurred to me how amazing it would be to engulf them. Stephanie’s work went up on the walls and inside of the window boxes we printed her photos life size and then placed a few props to make those photos come to life.

What are you currently reading?

CH: I’m reading Until I Find You by John Irving.

LB: I’m reading Rework by 37signals.

Is there anything more you would like to say?

CH: There are a few things. When we were talking about materials and how we got started, Margot Harrington wrote something: she basically took everything we were doing and made a sentence about how we diverted things from the recycling streams. We got that from her; it was the first time that somebody helped us frame what we were doing because we were doing this and not realizing it.

LB: She has a blog, Pitch Design Union, we enjoy.

CH: We see that window dressing has a powerful role on the street where it can impact people in different ways. A lot of people stop to look at great displays, just like they would stop to look at great art. For our future plans we are trying to engage people to use window display as a platform for larger campaigns or different kinds of messaging; having more of a purpose, or social platform, rather than just something beautiful. We are not there yet but hopefully in 2013.


Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.

Heather Becker is an artist, author, and entrepreneur. She studied painting and art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the International School of Art in Italy, and is represented by Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. In 1992, Becker developed a national business plan for The Conservation Center, Inc. and later purchased The Center from the founder in August 2003; it has since become the largest private art conservation facility in the country.

Becker co-founded both the largest mural preservation project in the country’s history and the New Deal Preservation Association-Midwest Chapter, a not-for-profit organization that records and preserves works of art from the New Deal Era, and in 2004 authored a book on Chicago WPA murals and art preservation, Art for the People a(Chronicle Books). In 2004 Becker was named “Small Business Person of the Year” for the State of Illinois by the Small Business Association (SBA), and in 2007 The Conservation Center was awarded the “Chicago Landmark Award for Preservation Excellence” by the City of Chicago.






When did you first come to Chicago?

As a senior at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas in 1985, I was recruited by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and given a scholarship to the BFA program in painting. The Hugh Hefner Mansion in the Gold Coast was the dorm for freshman students and that’s where I stayed my first year…that was my introduction to Chicago.

What led you to the path of art conservation?

After I graduated in 1989, I was awarded a scholarship to study abroad at the International School of Art located in the countryside of Italy, between Rome and Florence. We went on several field trips during the program to learn about figurative art in the area, and one was a site visit where a conservator was working on a chapel mural. I went back to visit the conservator and she invited me up on the scaffolding. Over the next few months, I visited several times and talked with her about her career and it opened up a window for me.

At the School of the Art Institute I put myself through school by waitressing, and knew I wanted to find another way to support my art career. In 1989, on the flight back to Chicago from Italy, I decided instead of going back to waitressing, I would pursue a job in the field of conservation. The mixture of art and science was fascinating to me. I asked where the laboratories were and kept hearing “You should visit the Chicago Conservation Center.” I called the founder, Barry Bauman, and he graciously met with me. He realized I had no experience; I just had passion and was eager to learn. The only position he had available was an administrative assistant. I accepted the offer and started typing all of the conservation reports for him.

I was in that position from 1989-1992. In 1992 I kept staying late, learning from the conservators and Barry, and I started thinking about the operation. I’m from a family of two entrepreneurs—my mother and father—and I kept having ideas about how to grow the company. I made an outline and presented it to Barry like a business plan. He told me I had a lot of great ideas and gave me one year to try my plan. I grew the company 12% that year.

You’ve done extensive research on the WPA murals in Chicago Public Schools and other locations. How did this opportunity present itself and how did it evolve?

Barry received a call from Flora Doody, teacher at Lane Tech High School. She had noticed a mural at the school that was falling off the wall, and was devastated to hear that the engineer was going to staple it back to the wall. Mortified, she stopped the engineer, and told him she would contact Barry who she knew from her days at the Art Institute, and seek advice.

Barry and I visited Flora, and we walked around the school, amazed there were 66 murals scattered around the campus. We thought this would be a great research project, because we felt there had to be more murals out there. Barry gave me permission to investigate and I called John Vinci, architect and historic preservation expert, to see what research there was on murals in these public buildings throughout the city. Vinci suggested I call local historian Mary Gray.

Gray had started research for a book she was writing, A Guide to Chicago’s Murals, and asked me to join her. I was in the right place at the right time. We spent the next several years visiting over 500 sites and documenting everything; we found hundreds of murals in the public schools. Not many people knew much about the collection, including the school board or the city.

Mary and I were determined to bring awareness to this issue and we fostered other supporters, such as Robert Eskeridge, Director of Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago. We involved several city officials in this project, and the teachers wrote class curricula around the murals. Before we knew it, we were involved with very complex fundraising to preserve the collection; we got support from the Field Foundation, the Driehaus Foundation, Alphawood Foundation and many others.

We were amassing an incredible collection of data and I thought it should be turned into a book. I had been interviewing artists from that era and I talked to Studs Terkel who was involved in the WPA Federal Writers Project. The book I wrote, Art for the People, was published by Chronicle Books in 2004.

An incredible experience that started in 1994 flourished into an arts preservation program; to date it is the largest mural preservation program in the United States, restoring over 400 murals in the Chicago Public Schools. I am passionate about public art and murals; they have such potential to impact a broad audience that may not have access to the arts otherwise. This project drew me back to my childhood; I was a quiet, shy child and my mother decided to put me into a magnet arts program at a public school. That opportunity changed my life, and I believe having these murals in public schools can open doors and foster creativity for the children.

Beyond paintings what does The Conservation Center work on today?

Together, Barry and I nurtured a more inclusive transition. One of our first conversations was how do we want to grow, and what is the strategic purpose of the growth? Originally we handled paintings, paper, and textiles, and we wanted the ability to treat an entire collection under one roof. In order to do that properly in our industry, experts were needed in all areas. It would be difficult to gain respect in our industry if you said that you treat everything—there’s too much to know in order to be good at everything. So over the course of 10 years, we regularly added another discipline, fine-tuned it, and made sure the newly hired experts worked with the rest of the team before moving on. Eventually we had built a team with the expertise and credentials to treat an entire collection.

Do you have a mentor?

I bought the company from Barry in August 2003. I accomplished this because I had special mentors like Barry, Marshall Field V, and Norm Bobins. They suggested I get a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan. I bought the company without any investors or partners, something that would be very hard to make happen today. I continued growing the company, nearly doubling it in two years. I started an advisory board because I knew there was a lot I didn’t know; I needed to surround myself with smart, passionate people that could help with different aspects of the company—real estate, banking, economy, and financial reporting. Marshall Field V was the first to support me, and Norm was the second. I then added Diane Swonk, Bob Glick, and many others over the years.

How did you assemble this savvy board of individuals and what is the board’s role?

These are all relationships that I’ve nurtured over time; every one of them is a mentor for me. I’m a big promoter of vetting ideas, thinking about positive change, and being creative about running a business. The board plays different roles and is involved in various ways. Diane Swonk taught me a lot about economics and how my business relates to the economy. Bob Glick has given me a completely different perspective on legal issues. Buzz Ruttenberg has been a great help in finding our new building and teaching me strategies in real estate and business. Marshall Field V was involved from the very beginning with the founder and I have had the honor of carrying on that tradition with Marshall. The advisory board meets four times a year: they are strictly advisory and carry no legal responsibility.

What would you like to accomplish?

I don’t necessarily want to get bigger—that’s not my goal. I want to make a wonderful work environment for very talented people: an environment that is effective as a conservation laboratory, which is what I pursued with Jeanne Gang in designing our new facility. Moving into the new space was a very pivotal moment in taking my goals for the company to the next phase of the operation. We spent a year planning and executing the move, and during the last six months we honed all of the details with Studio Gang.

How did you first meet Jeanne Gang?

We’re both members of The Chicago Network, an organization of women entrepreneurs and executives in Chicago. After meeting at a few events, we became friends and developed this great rapport because of our synergies in the art world. I mentioned to her, “We’ve got this challenging new space we’re moving into; and it would be great to have you and your team develop the design with me and the conservators so the space flows with the conservation process,” and Jeanne graciously accepted. It was a privilege to collaborate with her and the Studio Gang team.

Tell me about your disaster assistance involvement.

We have become known nationally as a go-to resource for disaster situations. The first was the LaSalle Bank fire in 2004 where we helped recover over 4,000 photographs in the bank’s famous collection. The next year, Hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans and we were brought in by AXA Art Insurance to assist at the New Orleans Museum of Art immediately following the floods. We rotated crews in New Orleans for four months, assisting collectors, families and other institutions in the region. We realized that it was a unique service to offer, and we developed a following, so when the wildfires in California happened in 2007, we were called in to assist again.

Our largest disaster involvement was the Cedar Rapids flooding in 2008 where we assisted five different museums at one time. There were over 7,000 pieces that we were responsible for; that was our most daunting task. When the floods hit the Farnsworth House, I got a call late at night and we were there to help the next day. Most recently on October 29, 2012, The Conservation Center was called to New York City following Hurricane Sandy, where we assisted both businesses and home owners with damaged art, heirlooms, and unique items affected by the flood waters. Our onsite crews worked to carefully remove and triage over two thousand works of art in order to mitigate additional damage.

How do you organize your disaster teams on location?

For Hurricane Katrina response, we were rotating crews for four months. We would have a team leader with 3-5 people per team go down for 3-7 days. These environments can be very extreme. If it floods in September in the South, the humidity is high and at 100 degree temperatures there is mold everywhere. We don’t send volunteers; only trained team members. It’s incredibly rewarding to be the people that go in and save rare and meaningful items in the situation, and you quickly see that you’ve made a real impact.

Do your teams require any hazmat training or special equipment?

Yes, everything from boots to goggles to hard hats. There are Tyvek suits and mold respirators required, and each person has to be specially fitted with their own respirator. There are also instances where certain vaccinations are required for various exposures.

We have a hazmat expert on staff and need to know quite a bit about that internally because of the solvents we use; there is so much science required for what we do. We attend several conferences for the disaster world, read articles and attend special programs year round.

What technological advances have there been recently in conservation?

There’s a very tight network in the conservation community. Conservators are great about relaying information and helping each other; that’s one of the things that we’re really proud of with this laboratory and our company culture.

For example, if our furniture conservator is posed with a new problem that he’s never had to address before, he can go to other conservators and see if someone has a suggestion on a technique or something new they heard about in a paper that was recently published, or heard discussed at a conference they attended; or they might send an email to their colleague at the Getty for example. There are many stylistic things that have been passed down through generations that you may not know about unless you’ve worked with or apprenticed under an expert. Innovation is a big part of the field, yet at the same time, there is a huge draw into the past, to learn from the mistakes that have been made over time and perfecting techniques that are tried and true. The coalescence of talent, experience, and intuition is something that thrives daily at The Center.

What has been your most rewarding or significant accomplishment?


Assisting five museum collections all at once was a daunting responsibility during the Cedar Rapids floods; yet being able to maintain order in the chaos of a disaster site multiplied by five, was very special in the history of the company.

What has been your biggest challenge in conservation?

One of the hardest things about a specialized company is perfecting and finding the right people to be on the team. This is a very unique talent pool; they must really enjoy working together, and communicate well with each other. I’ve learned the importance of managing and creating an effective workplace, where people like to come to work, and love what they do. When that combination of enjoyment, passion, and a challenge exists, great things happen.

What are the challenges of two careers, art and conservation?

Actually that’s one of the best things about my life. I don’t get tired of coming to work or being in the studio making art; I’ve found a way to balance my time. I’ve been very disciplined and effective with transitioning between activities through meditation and yoga, which I’ve studied for 12 years. I’m very effective with my time; I haven’t watched television for 15 years.

How often do you find yourself in the studio?

It’s probably 80/20…80% at The Conservation Center, 20% in the studio. What is good for me as an artist is I’m very facile. Even though I might work on 5-8 paintings over 6 months, I’m focused and I don’t fuss—it flows.

Who are your favorite women in Chicago arts?

Jeanne Gang is one of my favorite women; of course she’s a dear friend. I also respect Helyn Goldenberg and Mary Gray, who have been an inspiration over the years. Marilynn Alsdorf has shown incredible leadership as a connoisseur of art.

If you could have lunch with any artist, past or present, who would it be?

I’ll say Giacometti. He is very intriguing to me as an artist.

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading a book on yoga by Richard Freeman. He’s amazing. I’ve been practicing Ashtanga yoga now for 12 years; it’s changed my life.



Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.

Justine Jentes is Associate Campaign Director at Illinois Institute of Technology and the Director of IIT’s Mies Van Der Rohe Society. Before launching the Mies Society, Justine ran a two-part business called insideART, a contemporary art gallery in Wicker Park, and art tours that took people off the beaten path to explore Chicago’s creative community. Jentes served as public tour coordinator for Around the Coyote arts festival and the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Chicago Artists’ Month, and coordinated itineraries for groups of art collectors visiting Art Chicago at Navy Pier.



Building support—noun or fundraising activity? Both descriptions apply to the soft spoken Jentes who patiently and passionately gets the job done on behalf of several Mies van der Rohe buildings on the IIT campus. This Mies cheerleader has been instrumental in the preservation of landmark gem Crown Hall, Wishnick Hall, and Carr Chapel, the only religious Mies structure in existence. Mies’ influence is visible in skylines around the world, and IIT is fortunate to have so many of his structures on a campus designed by him. After all, cell phone technology, the process for creating the Twinkie, and Silly Putty were all invented under a Mies roof. Who knew?

With a childhood connection to Mies and his buildings, Jentes went on to study urban planning. After college she launched insideART, which was ahead of its time and preceded the flurry of pop-up apartment gallery spaces in the 2000’s; in addition, she led tours of unique Chicago art venues. While in public relations, she brought art lectures to Loop offices at lunchtime.

Her innovative, creative entrepreneurial background facilitates her ability to continually stage exciting and educational events that celebrate Mies and encourage patrons of fine buildings to share in the passion of landmark preservation. Mies’ favorite martini is served at his annual birthday party. Crown Hall has been filled with Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds, 1,000 mylar pillow puffs that float in the air, sit in a corner, or create their own interactive performance. A Marimekko exhibition focused on mid-century textiles and products of the less-is-more Finnish designer, and a Van Der Vogue exhibition featured fashion inspired by signature buildings.

Jentes has organized lectures, film series, and photography exhibitions. She has arranged many tours of significant Chicago buildings and radically renovated private homes. Recently on facebook, the first person to ‘like’ the Mies Society page at 2 pm that day won an autographed copy of a newly released Mies bio by Franz Schulze and co-author Edward Windhorst. 
Unfortunately I was away from my computer at the time.


Can you briefly describe the Mies Van Der Rohe Society?

The Mies Society was launched in November 2002 for a threefold purpose: to preserve Mies’ legacy, particularly at IIT; restore the Mies masterpieces on the historic IIT campus; and reinforce Chicago’s international reputation for architectural distinction. It was formed at the time IIT was about to open two new buildings on campus by Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn. There was a recognition that those two architects wanted to do projects at IIT to work in dialogue with Mies. Also this was a campus that had been studied, visited, and celebrated by people from around the world since Mies first designed it.

Never a wealthy university, IIT hadn’t been able to give all of the attention that it should or could have to the buildings. Since there was going to be a spotlight on the campus because of these two very celebrated architects opening buildings here, we wanted to seize that opportunity and call attention to the Mies campus, both to promote it but also to start raising money to do restoration beyond the traditional IIT donor community.

What is your position with the Mies Society?

I started in 2003, soon after it was founded, working part-time as the Director of Marketing. A few years later when my son was older, I came back full time as Director of the Society. There hadn’t been a Director when they started; they just had various staffing of people. As part of my responsibilities, I create the Mies Society programming and dynamic website content. Also I promote the IIT campus as a ‘must see’ destination for its bold campus buildings by Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn, and the increasingly vibrant Bronzeville neighborhood where Mies and his followers pioneered design solutions that transformed the skylines of the world.

What are your Chicago roots and has Mies played a role in them?

I’m from Chicago. I went to Bryn Mawr College and had a major called Growth and Structure of Cities; you’ll see a theme here. I grew up in Old Town and my parents are very city people. A number of my friends lived in Mies buildings, particularly the ones up in Lakeview and at Diversey. I’m not sure that I was wholly conscious of Mies in a front and center kind of way, but I was very aware of those buildings and how they functioned, and of the spaces; I had sleepovers with my friends there. Some very close family friends were the Goldsmiths; Myron Goldsmith had been Mies’ protégé, taught here at IIT for many years, and was a beloved faculty member. That’s probably where my more specific awareness of Mies really came from, and of IIT.  I’m not sure this really would have been much on my radar otherwise. Myron’s daughter now teaches here part time in Landscape Architecture, she is on the Mies Society Board, and we have been close friends for many, many years. 

What are some highlights for you in your affiliation with the Mies Society?  

I’m really proud of the restoration work. We’ve received a number of awards for the work and it’s been great to get outside recognition. It was satisfying when we unveiled Crown Hall and Wishnick Hall and to give tours where people would say, ‘that is really beautiful.’ Before restoration they wouldn’t have said that; the Halls looked shabby. A lot of buildings have charm when they are down and out; you grow ivy on the side and you let things slide. That is not Mies; Mies’ buildings are almost nothing and if anything is wrong with them everyone is going to look at the glass and steel and ask ‘why are there cobwebs?’  
Or, ‘could someone come and hose that off?’

Having once thought this was an ugly campus I found it thrilling to have people visit. We used to be in guidebooks as one of the ‘ugliest campuses in the United States.’ Last year we were named to Forbes list of 10 Most Beautiful Campuses. That kind of transformation, even though we haven’t accomplished all of the restoration work we want to, and whether you loved Mies or not, is a real highlight.

I’ve been given a lot of leeway from the Mies Society, the board, and IIT administration. It is important to pay great respect to Mies and to celebrate what he was about, but not always to take him so seriously, but to try and include a mixture of fun. I don’t hink he would have been against that. He has a real rap for being cold and austere, but people that knew him would say that wasn’t true. It was important to liven up and use these flexible spaces; the Marimekko exhibit…that was terrific, that was just a joy.

Challenges?

Frankly, it is extremely challenging to raise money to restore these buildings. Because we have to attend to every detail, what seems very simple has to be done perfectly; it’s very expensive, and there aren’t a lot of people that are as passionate. It’s an ongoing big challenge, and not just here. This is true of anyone who’s doing architectural restoration. It’s a tough road.

What would you still like to achieve in this position?

Two things: we are bound and determined to finish Carr Chapel in the next twelve months. That has taken much longer because the economy came crashing down just as we began. The other thing is that I continue to run into Chicagoans every day that have not been here. We have so much work to do just to introduce our locals to IIT.

You have an innovative art background, how did you transition to this position?

The thread here is that I’m not an expert in any of this. I think what I have a talent for is being a little bit of the ‘every person’ and looking for content in a way to share it and engage people with it. Sometimes in our Mies programming we’ve done some very academic and serious things, and then we’ve done some really whacky fun things without being disrespectful. I think I’m good at pulling together people to be Mies experts: to act as ambassadors or curators.

Did those skills prepare you for your current career path?

They did.  I’ve also done a lot of volunteer board work, and have worked with the board at Mies Society as well; I am a huge fan of collaboration. There’s nothing that thrills me more than being able to do a project that wraps in a couple of different organizations or teams where you get the best of everybody.

How many MVDRS’s are there?

There’s Fundacio Mies van der Rohe at the Barcelona Pavilion. Also, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, there’s a very active community at Lafayette Park in Detroit that is actually the largest collection of Mies buildings. It’s wonderful; I finally went there this summer and was thrilled. There’s also Farnsworth House, we collaborate and they’re trying to do some interesting things as well. However, there is not a universal group.

Does MVDRS partner with landmark preservationists to restore other Mies structures?

We haven’t partnered in restoration; we’ve partnered more in promoting Mies’ legacy. Without trying to be unfriendly, each of us has our own restoration issues. With that said, we have certainly shared information. Crown Hall was a leading edge in restoration. The team that did Crown Hall then went on to do the Mies building down at the University of Chicago and the Lake Shore Drive Apartments; in turn, they have been consulted for the new National Gallery in Berlin and for the Martin Luther King Library in DC. A lot was learned and explored here and we’ve been able to share that information.

What spurred restoration of Mies’ only religious structure, the Carr Chapel, at IIT?

When you think about fundraising and how to tell that story, Crown Hall was an easy story—national historic landmark and home to the College of Architecture. It is an extraordinary building in every regard, and celebrated around the world. That was a ‘no brainer’ in terms of what is the first building we are going to fix. Then you get into ‘what next?’ and it gets more complicated. We also restored Wishnick Hall: since it opened, it has been a building that every single IIT student takes at least one class in. It is a classic IIT Mies 1947 brick building and was a priority for the university from an academic programming point of view.

Although Wishnick was an extremely complicated and expensive project, we were looking for another building that had some urgency and uniqueness to it. Since Carr Chapel was the only religious building that Mies had ever done, it had that quality from a storytelling point of view that we could get a bit of excitement around. Also around that time, IIT hired a director of spiritual life because more and more students are coming to IIT with an active interest in maintaining their spiritual life here on campus. We saw an opportunity with the chapel, because of its uniqueness from an architectural standpoint, but also from a spirituality standpoint, to be able to play a role on the campus.

What is involved in maintaining landmarks?

Some of the places that are house museums could be treated much more as—and this doesn’t make it any easier for the administrators—works of art. The wear and tear is very real; these buildings get hard use. In trying to do what the top priority is here—getting a terrific education—people are not constantly thinking about the wear and tear; it’s not a criticism but they’re moving fast on a daily basis through these spaces. As soon as you’ve finished a restoration you could be starting it again tomorrow because already things have worn down.

Do you think they would ever isolate Crown Hall?

No, and it shouldn’t be. It’s a huge testament to Mies that we are using this, and essentially in the same way; all these years, and hundreds and hundreds of students more than he had hoped for.  For the ability of the building to expand and embrace all of that is great.

Where does Chicago rank in world architecture?

I haven’t traveled to a lot of the ‘new’ cities—Shanghai, Dubai—so I can’t comment in that sense. Still, from architects and visitors, you hear that Chicago has great fundamentals and you can see very large-scale and small-scale projects here.  You can go elsewhere and see heart-stopping, attention grabbing, high rises; but they’re not the whole range of residential and community that is here. Chicago remains a very premiere city and I don’t see that going away; the Chicago Architecture Foundation has done an outstanding job of promoting it as such. Lynn Osmond is the director; she does international travel and works on that kind of stage.

Have you seen an increase in female enrollment in IIT’s School of Architecture?

I have.  One of the goals of building those two new buildings on campus, adding the landscaping, and all of the master plan work that Dirk Lohan did in the mid 90’s, was to create a sense of campus and community here; to increase the desirability of living here, not having it be such a commuter school which it had been traditionally, but to have a real residential life. All of that has been a success, and also it’s been successful in attracting more women to IIT.  It is still obviously heavily skewed, and particularly architecture compared to other programs has managed to have more men than women. It’s not where everybody would like it to be, but, particularly in architecture, it’s taken a lot of strides; it’s a 40/60 ratio. The young women I know in  architecture, who have been tour guides for me or who head up the AIAS, are no shrinking violets. They’re right out there. They’re leaders and very confident.

Do you see a recovery in the architecture industry in the near future?

It will come around as there still is a lot of interest in architecture, design, sustainability. Think of how many museum shows feature that, and magazine articles. There’s a lot of cultural attention on those things; it’s hard for me to imagine that we’re not going to circle back around.

What are you currently reading?

I went back and reread a book by Tony Schwartz that he wrote in the 90’s, called What Really Matters. He goes on a big quest for several years to understand the human potential movement; to see if anyone has been able to nail down how to live the most fulfilling and productive life. He looks at it from a left brain right brain exploration; he looks at it from the history of Esalen, meditation, and gurus. It’s that mindfulness thing; that everything’s moving so fast all the time and how do you slow down and look. I have been trying to walk more.

(Kathleen Waterloo had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.) 

DePaul Art Museum recently opened an exhibition that pays tribute to a Chicago legend. Ellen Lanyon: The Persistence of Invention, September 14—November 18, 2012, features 28 paintings, an accordion-fold screen print, 6 lithographs, 9 hanging gadgets, a display case with two dozen vintage useful objects, and a digital slide show with Ellen’s voice explaining the meaning of all of the above. Lanyon’s distinguished career spans many decades; the work in this show starts from 1969 to present.

 Ellen Lanyon, (born 1926, Chicago, IL) received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and MFA from the University of Iowa, and The Courtauld Institute University of London, UK. Lanyon’s work has been the subject of eleven museum exhibitions, including the Smithsonian, and seventy-five solo exhibitions. She is the recipient of numerous commissions, grants, and awards. Having taught for forty years at universities and art schools, Lanyon is now a retired Associate Professor of The Cooper Union, New York, NY.



Pitters and peelers and clamps oh my. Or perhaps a dissector, separator, gripper?  A visit to Ellen Lanyon’s current exhibition is reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe tale with a bit of psychological magic. Sparked by the discovery of a book by Poyet, Magic Experiments, in the late 1960’s, Lanyon found inspiration from the illustrations that doubled as magic tricks and physics demonstrations. These drawings were technical; the subject matter obscure. At this time, Lanyon abandoned the figure and took up the object as subject.

Lanyon is the first to admit she is an obsessive collector: her NYC studio is filled with vintage mechanical devices, taxidermy (her coyote is the studio watch dog), and paintings on the walls (salon style) by Chicago friends Ed Paschke, Michelle Stuart, Gladys Nilsson, Christina Ramberg, Philip Hanson, Robert Barnes, and Edward Plunkett. Joan Mitchell left a Tiffany lamp in Lanyon’s care and later abandoned it. Her collection of objects and ephemeras became characters and narratives of their own. Lanyon’s creed: Necessity=Imagination=Invention.

Lanyon always wanted to be an artist. Her grandfather came from Yorkshire to work on the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and also worked on the 1933 Century of Progress. He presented Ellen with his drawing materials at age twelve. At an early job she produced exploded view drawings of machine parts; later she received a scholarship to the School of the Art Institute.

A visit to the Everglades awoke an interest in ecology, global warmth, and the impact of man. Lanyon became preoccupied with the environment; the natural world vs. human intervention.  Objects and mechanical devices remain a fascination and she juxtaposes these manmade implements with botanical or rock formation backgrounds, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions of how environment and machine coexist.


Q:  You have a rich history with Chicago. What are some highlights that make you claim this city as your own?

A:  I was born on the South side, (Englewood and Woodlawn) and attended public school (Wadsworth & Hyde Park). My parents moved in my sophomore year to Ravenswood and I finished my education at Roosevelt High. I took my BFA from SAIC and, except for three years spent at Iowa and abroad, I lived permanently here until 1985—age 59. I would say that qualifies me as a true Chicagoan. I’ve participated in many, many annual Chicago and Vicinity shows and consistently have been represented in Chicago galleries from 1946 to the present. I now have a small condo in Lincoln Park and spend a lot of time participating in art events here.

Q:  In 1999 you were awarded a commission for Chicago’s Riverwalk Gateway Ceramic Mural Project. What was the inspiration for this?

A: The senior Mayor Daley had favorite Chicago River Bridges; Richard Daley Jr. wanted to beautify the river and its banks with artistic parkways. He had the Department of Transportation commission Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to create a galleria on the south bank of the Chicago River—under the Outer Drive Bridge—and I was commissioned to create ceramic tile murals. I decided to honor the Daleys by telling the story of the discovery and development of the river through the 18th and 19th centuries as bridge design and water traffic changed. The murals also acknowledge Burnham, the Museums, and the current reclamation of the river for recreation.

Q:  What motivates you to keep making art?

A:  Perpetual curiosity and discovery of subject matter.

Q:  Do you have a mentor(s)?

A:  Giovanni de Paolo, de Chirico, Magritte, Dorothea Tanning, Kaye Sage, Alice Neel, etc.

Q:  Discuss the joys and challenges of living with an artist husband.

A:  Roland Ginzel was and remains my good friend. We worked as parallel but diverse artists; we supported each other with incomes and careers, keeping separate studios and, in later years, different domiciles.

Q:  How were you able to juggle studio time with raising a family?

A:  Each demanded and received equal time and attention without any prescribed programming. My two children contributed enormously to feed my imagination and they supported my need for time to create. As adults, they are both very creative individuals. My son Andrew is a very successful sculptor having had many public art commissions, and my daughter Lisa is a
skilled designer, contractor, and humanitarian.

Q:  How many hours per week now are devoted to artmaking? Art administration?

A:  That is never the same and an impossible question to answer. Once in the studio, I work 12-15 hours in a stretch. Then, take a day a week to work with a studio/computer-smart assistant.

Q:  You split your time between Chicago and New York. How has each city contributed to your career?

A:  Since I have exhibited in galleries—in both NYC and Chicago since 1946—I have never even thought about it nor have I ever had a problem. I have always worked through the galleries and have been lucky enough to be supported by them without conflict. Critics in both cities have been generous and I believe in keeping as current and connected as possible.

Q:  What gallery representation do you currently have?

A:  Valerie Carberry Gallery and Printworks Gallery in Chicago, and, in part (group shows), with Pavel Zoubok Gallery and the Adam Baumgold Gallery, both in NYC.

Q:  Do you see any trends in how art is sold today? How has that affected you?

A:  Art Fairs seem to be a partial boost for some dealers but the real business is carried on in the galleries. I find that, in order to make sales in this slim economy, dealers are giving bigger discounts—20 & 30%—and that in turn affects the artist’s income which is usually 50% of any realized sale. It is not a good time.

Q:  What teaching positions have been the most rewarding for you, and why?

A:  All of them because I like to teach. My longest tenure was with The Cooper Union in NYC and there I had a chance to see students spend four intense years and emerge into the art world. Several have become very well-recognized professionals.

Q:  What is the most important achievement or honor during your career?

A:  I have received Cassandra, Florsheim and Fulbright Grants as well as two NEA Artists grants. Achievement Awards from the Women’s Caucus of the CAA and the University of Iowa. Three Honorary Degrees: The Chicago Academy of Art, Lincoln College and the School of the Art Institute. I consider them all equally important.

Q:  What would you still like to achieve?

A:  An autobiography based on Chicago art world history, a Guggenheim, and/or any other honor that might come my way.

Q:  In the 1970’s in Chicago you founded WEB. Please describe WEB.

A:  WEST-EAST-BAG (WEB) was founded by Miriam Schapiro when she was at Cal Arts with Judy Chicago and Lucy Lippard in New York City.  It was an organization that encouraged consciousness raising, circulated a newsletter, held meetings, etc. I was asked to begin the Chicago chapter and did so. We had an active group here that held two conferences at Oxbow and, eventually, was the basis for both ARC and Artemisia galleries. The core of WEB eventually became the collective quarterly magazine Heresies published in NYC.

Q:  What feminist organizations have you been involved in? Are still involved in?

A:  WEB, Heresies, and the Women’s Caucus of the College Art Association.

Q:  Did you face any discrimination early in your career? Later in your career?

A:  In Chicago women were regarded equally with men artists and until I went to NYC I was not as aware of the great discrimination there. It evened out through the years, but men still dominate the gallery and exhibition scene there. Chicago still seems to be more tolerant and equally based. Many women find it possible to succeed here.

Q:  Do you have any advice for emerging female artists today?

A:  Work hard at whatever you do and keep politically active.

Q:  Do you have any favorite Chicago women artists?

A:  Gertrude Abercrombie, Julia Thecla, and all those established who are working and showing and dedicated to furthering the lot of other women in the arts.

Q:  What book are you reading now?

A:  The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes; and NewCity and The Brooklyn Rail newspapers.



It was an honor  to have the opportunity to interview Ellen Lanyon. She taught me egg tempera painting at the School of the Art Institute’s Oxbow in 1994, and continues to be my mentor and friend.

60 miles from downtown Chicago, in Michigan City, IN, there is a dynamic lakefront art resource. Consisting of classrooms, galleries, reception area, outdoor art collection, and gift shop, the Lubeznik Center for the Arts is a contemporary art facility whose mission is to interweave art exhibitions, the performing arts, educational programming, and collaborative community outreach within the region. The building was donated eight years ago to be used as an art center by the Lubeznik Family, owners of the first McDonalds in the area. At one time, the building was a McDonalds management headquarters. The family always had an interest in art and a collection of their own, but they also wanted a place of culture in their hometown.

Janet Bloch is an artist residing in Chesterton, IN with her husband, rock and roll photographer Bobby Talamine. Since 2009, she has been Education Director for the Lubeznik Center for the Arts. Bloch was Gallery Director for Woman Made Gallery in Chicago from 1993-2000 where she also led workshops on professionalism for artists. Author of Strategic Marketing Tools for Visual Artists, Bloch conducts seminars in grant writing, proposals, and artist statements. She is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Visual Artists Fellowship and an NEA Regional/Midwest Fellowship. Bloch is represented by Linda Warren Projects in Chicago, and her work is in corporate and museum collections, including the Illinois State Museum, Eaton Electric, and Deloitte.


Q:  You have worn many hats—artist, gallery director, author, lecturer, education director. How have these various career paths prepared you for this current job?

A:  I didn’t know something existed that had this job description, but I’m perfect for it! I’m lucky because I could never figure out how to take my expertise in all these different areas and put it into something where I can make a living. I couldn’t make a living from my artwork that is a labor of passion. It’s such a relief to have my insurance paid and not worry about bills. I’m a natural teacher. In this job you must like people and have a spirit of service, which is more unique than you realize, let alone in the art world. I like empowering people with useful information.

Q:  In your seminars, your concise analytical skills help artists get right to the point with their proposals and statements. What is your college background?

A:  I received a BFA and MFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. I had a broad liberal arts background and strong verbal and writing skills; and I credit my education to growing up in public schools at a time when there were really good teachers and programs. It was an era when you got a great education regardless of economic status.

Q:  What are your Chicago roots?

A:  I grew up in Rogers Park before moving to the suburbs. Both of my older sisters went to Mather High School and I went to New Trier West. My dad was a lawyer in downtown Chicago. I wasn’t afraid of the city, and we often would take the train downtown. When I was little, my older sister went to the School of the Art Institute for Saturday classes. I remember she drew me a map of downtown Chicago, and the intersection of State & Madison was zero. Now I know how to get around in Chicago, it’s an amazing grid. I like the vibrancy of the city, and feel strong connections to Chicago. For twenty-some years I lived in an Edgewater 2-flat, with my sister as the other tenant, and our husbands. I’m happy living in Chesterton, and appreciate having more space and being in a smaller environment. I never appreciated that until recently; it was the right time for me.

Q:  How was creativity nurtured or encouraged when growing up?

A:  I had a happy home environment with a stay-at-home mother and two older sisters. Our parents had an interest in art and there were art books at home. I loved to draw and learned from my sisters. We would copy comic books, and they worked with me on my handwriting. We all liked going to museums as a family, it was exciting. I remember going many times to the Art Institute at a very young age. My oldest sister is 11 years older than me and the museums catered to that age. We traveled to Europe when I was 7, and visited several museums and a glass factory. My parents sent me to Saturday classes at the Art Institute and bought me art supplies. There was a sense that I was talented. I don’t think they expected me to have a career as an artist, but they thought I was very good at drawing.

They thought I would grow up to be a teacher. The viewpoint in my family was that you got an education so that you could be smart when you got married. It was always a given that you would go to college and then get married; and you would give up whatever. My mother didn’t work outside the home until my dad died, even though she had a good education. I think she couldn’t wait to go to work, as she did really well! My dad never wanted my mother to work: If the wife worked, it was a symbol of not being able to support the family.

Q:  Do you still practice your art? If so, where is your current studio space?

A:  Yes, but not nearly to the extent that I had been. I am still making art at home but do not have my Chicago studio anymore. I can’t make it work, although I miss a studio environment with other artists. I would go 1-2 times per week when I first moved to Chesterton.

Q:  Describe your position as Education Director at the Lubeznik Center.

A:  What I do here is a lot! There are 11 school sites in Michigan City that we visit twice weekly, and we do programming for art, music, and dance in the after school programs. We also have a site in La Porte where we do community outreach once a week after school. Their back-to-school rally serves 800 kids with a project. When I say we, I hire teachers vs. volunteers. The teachers are paid a low wage yet above the minimum. However, we pay more than we are reimbursed by our state grant. Here, it doesn’t work to use volunteers; we can’t afford the ‘no-shows’.

We are currently developing the curriculum for the exhibition, X-Ray Vision: Fish Inside Out. Also, we get requests for tours from the entire region—New Buffalo, Westville, Valparaiso. I am the tour guide and docent, and during the last exhibition we gave approximately 30 tours during its run. The main gallery exhibitions are curated by the Exhibitions Curator, CarolAnn Brown. My position does not involve curating except for the community gallery, which only happens occasionally. I put together educational shows, i.e. school shows or project-related exhibitions, for the community.

I program all of the classes held at the Center. We offer drawing, watercolor, hat-making classes; new things all the time. We will be offering glass fusing workshops as a kiln was donated. The education department has grown from floundering to bustling. In fact, we are out of space for room usage. We have discussion panels, hold cultural events, and Poetry Slam night is held twice a year.

Q:  Does the Lubeznik Center have a permanent art collection? 

A:  Yes, there are approximately 375 pieces in the permanent collection. There’s a rich history of landscapes from Indiana that date back quite far with some famous names; we have some Kokoschka’s.  When contemporary artists exhibit we ask them to put a piece in our collection to build it. We have temperature and humidity-controlled storage facilities and galleries. In another phase, we want space to exhibit our permanent collection all the time—the ultimate education.

Q:  Is the Center hoping to be part of greater metropolitan Chicago, or is the focus local/regional?

A:  We want to serve Chicago as well, and we do. People travel here from Chicago and other cities. One third of our patrons are from Chicago, have a second home here, or a Chicago connection. We are like theGateway to Chicago. People come from the east coast or are returning to Chicago from Michigan. They all have to do that loop around Lake Michigan. The exhibitions in the summer attract many visitors, and those attending for the first time are astounded at the quality of the work. We receive a lot of local press, and are trying to target more Chicago press. Getting reviews is our next step. James Yood was recently moderator of the glass panel. People are starting to know about us more and more.  Currently there are 6 fulltime employees: Executive, Education, and Marketing Directors; Exhibitions Curator; Facilities and Administrative Managers; and a part-time staff.                                  

Q:  Are you currently involved with any arts organizations locally or in Chicago?

A:  I’m still involved with Woman Made Gallery in Chicago.

Q:  What is your history with Woman Made Gallery? 

A:  I was Co-Director with Beate Minkovski from 1993-2000. Basically I did everything—taking the garbage out to being contact person for hundreds of artists who would call or email, procuring jurors, programming exhibitions and events, writing press releases, fundraising, and writing grants. Beate had the technology and database skills; I was better with writing skills. We really had fun; we also had fights, but we did things as partners. It was a shared passion, and I give her credit for staying with it.

Woman Made had been open for 6 months when I arrived, and Beate and I became close friends very quickly. I had all these ideas for Woman Made but wasn’t involved in the gallery yet. I would say, ‘you shouldn’t have your studios here; we need a logo; we need this and we need that’. The original founding partner that Beate opened with, Kelly Hensen, never really intended to have a gallery. She bowed out quickly and I stepped in. Our idea was to create a place that attracted people to come and show. It was not so much we were going to be important or fit into the art world, but whatever we did, or whatever women we thought were doing great things, we were going to create our own place of power; and people came.

We felt that it was important to do everything perfectly and professionally. There couldn’t be a typo and there couldn’t be dirt on the wall; everything would have to get repainted for every show. What we observed about women was how they acted about their work, how they would bring stuff and it was falling apart; or their pictures were just so terrible or their attitudes were unprofessional. We weren’t really sure if men were having these issues, but it wasn’t that we really knew what being professional was, rather we learned quickly by all the mistakes other people made.

Q:  Was that helpful in gathering material for what not to do in your professionalism workshops?

A:  Exactly. I also used it to my advantage in my own career because I could see quickly if your behavior came across a certain way, either arrogant or too meek, it was a real turn off. You had to have your act together. We did it with empathy, however, because we realized that no one had really been taught these things; we had never been taught this in school. Beate and I looked at it as a way to help other artists.

Q:  Back to your educational interest. 

A:  That was my aim. We wondered if the people submitting for shows had any clue as to what they were doing wrong. The reason our workshops were successful is that they are self-explanatory when you tell people what you experience. The workshops on professionalism were developed to show by example. The key to the learning process is to say their artistic statement out loud. You can hear it right away. I’m repeating it five times and I’m not saying anything important. It is a gentle way of giving a lesson vs. saying this is bad.

Q:  That you can realize that’s how to give the lesson is vital. 

A:  That comes from a lot of years of doing it. I have sat with people and looked at their work and thought about their work a long time; that is a benefit. I tell people if you’re not willing to look at a lot of art, to read about art, you’re not going to understand art as well as someone who does. I’ve looked at so much art and had to find ways to critique it that I feel I’m concise about it at this point. It’s a skill that you can develop. Maybe I just have the artist side too; I think I understand what the artist is trying to do. It’s always enlightening however when you do a critique with someone and all this content is discussed; then you read their statement and it has nothing to do with anything they sent us.

Q:  What was your first break as an artist?

A:  The person who gave me my first break was Michael Wier of Lyons Wier Gallery; he gave me my first solo show of note. But honestly, I really think my first break was meeting Beate because that changed my life in terms of the whole trajectory of what I would pursue. She really had an impact. I consider Beate a mentor and one of the most influential people in my life. We did empower each other. She believed in my artwork to a point that reaffirmed for me that I had something important to say.

Q:  What challenges did you face as an artist when you started at Woman Made, and what challenges do artists face today?

A:  My challenge was finding time for my work and also a place to show my work and get some sort of validation for it. I don’t know if it was so much that I was looking to differentiate myself; that was a given. Twenty years later, art schools are pumping out such good artists that it‘s mindboggling. People are coming out with so much ability in their painting skills. In that way art schools are doing their job. I should say the big art schools because, if you go to the smaller schools, that quality of work is not happening. With all the styles prevalent today and people being masterful in so many types of work, I wonder if it would be difficult to be an emerging artist today. I think some challenges remain: people still want their work seen, their voices heard, and they struggle to find time to do their work and make a living.

Q:  Do you think there is still discrimination against women?

A:  I really do think we’ve made a lot of progress. However, I don’t think that race and gender will cease to be issues. What has changed in the art world in the last twenty years is that there are many more women curators, female writers, museum directors. That has changed things a lot.  It won’t change the history that has been, but it will change future history. There’s a new wave of feminism but in the 1990s and early 2000s there was a huge backlash against it. People didn’t want that label.

Q:  Maybe it needs to be redefined.

A:  I think it’s defined as equality for the sexes: gender equality in economic, social and political issues.  Others think it means something else. In 1996, I taught Women in Art, Music and Literature at Columbia College. All the women in the class, young college students now in their 40s, were all of the opinion, ‘Aren’t all feminists ugly? Don’t they look like Betty Friedan?’ I was thinking ‘What century is this? Where are we living? This is Chicago.’ I found that shocking. Those kinds of attitudes are not gone; they can resurface at any point. We still have biases against aggressive women, whether it is Hillary Clinton or whoever. People don’t like pushy aggressive women, which is gender bias.  Actually people don’t like pushy aggressive black men either, which is racial bias. So we have a very genteel president. There is a fear of black men. Traits that white mainstream middle-aged men would consider assertive and confident, are considered frightening and out of place when viewed in the black male.

Q:  Who are your favorite women artists in Chicago? 

A:  That is really tough as I like so many. Martina Nehrling/ZG Gallery, her work is simple. I just love those brush strokes: I like that the brush stroke is what it is. Others include Amy Casey/ZG Gallery, Sarah Krepp/Roy Boyd Gallery, and Michele Thrane/FusedChicago. I like the whimsical work of Alicia LaChance who used to exhibit at Melanee Cooper Gallery. Some recent work at Woman Made Gallery knocked me out: It was a drawing by Wilmette artist Claire Rosean. I love Mary Ellen Croteau, and was inspired by her bottle cap painting that was similar to Chuck Close. I thought it was brilliant. There was also a dress made from collected objects by Judi Krew titled She was Labeled as a Child. A lot of the work at Woman Made makes me laugh; it’s a great gallery. I really loved Brenda Moore’s postcard for her new exhibition at Linda Warren Projects. I like happier work, and work that has complexity of space; I like work that has a contemporary feel and strong sense of decoration. I admire artists devoted to their vision.

Q:  What are you currently reading?

A:  It’s hard for me to get through The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller. It’s a bit depressing and when I put it down for a couple days, I have to make myself go back to it. I almost know where it is going and I don’t want it to go there. But it’s a really good book. A lot of times I just read trashy books!

Q:  If you could have lunch with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be?

A:  Marcel Duchamp. I love that time in history when there was a surge of stuff going on that’s going to change the course of history. He was at the center of it, from the mastery of Nude Descending a Staircaseto the readymades. He’s also handsome; when I was younger I had a crush on him from the art books!

Interview by Kathleen Waterloo

Kathleen had an 18-year career in interior architecture in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1996 and is currently an artist in Chicago.