By Judy Carmack Bross
If non-profit organizations re-invent themselves it demands steely risk takers with passion for their communities.
The 2006 decision by the Three Arts Club of Chicago’s board to sell their landmark Holabird and Roche building at Goethe and Dearborn and invest the seed money to benefit artists would surely have made Nobel Prize winning activist Jane Addams, who helped craft the original mission, proud and championing as well of 3Arts grantmaking to artists working in the performing, teaching, and visual arts in the Chicago metropolitan area, including women artists, artists of color, and Deaf and disabled artists.
3Arts Esther Grimm at the recent Awards Celebration at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
Executive Director Esther Grimm explained their awards process:
“Our awards are unrestricted, with no strings attached, so that artists can fuel their creativity and whatever they need to do with it. We should not be dictating to them, rather investing in their brilliant work and freedom to make what they want to make.”
In the 17 years of their reinvention, 3Arts has distributed more than $8.1 million to more than 2,300 Chicagoland artists. 3Arts awardees include 68% women artists, 73% artists of color, and 22% Deaf and disabled artists. “When we conducted research in 2007 we could not find grantmakers that targeted funding for Deaf and disabled artists, so that became one of our priorities,” Grimm said.
Cecilia Beaven, Allison Peters Quinn, William Estrada, Edra Soto, Jenny Kendler
Dana Bassett, WHO, and Bethany Collins |
Gregg Tager, guest, Betsy Fiden |
Angelique Power, Kate Lorenz, and Erika Dudley
The Chicago-based nonprofit organization announced the recipients of the 3Arts Next Level Awards—$50,000 unrestricted awards given to past 3Arts awardees—during the festive 3Arts Awards Celebration held recently at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. While 3Arts has in the past distributed five Next Level Awards, the roster this year was expanded to include one additional award for teaching artists; at $50,000, this is the largest no-strings-attached award for teaching artists in the world. Honoring the powerful work of local artists and their ripple effects in neighborhoods across Chicago, the 2024 Next Level awardees are teaching artists William Estrada, Emily Hooper Lansana, and Andy Slater, and visual artists Rozalinda Borcilă, Bethany Collins, and Riva Lehrer.
Award recipients Riva Lehrer, William Estrada, Emily Hooper Lansana, Andy Slater, Bethany Collins, Rozalinda Borcilă
Co-Chair Michelle T. Boone with 2023 “Next Level” awardee Edra Soto
Co-Chairs Michelle T. Boone, Whitney Hill, and Candace Hunter, and a Host Committee of arts and civic leaders helmed the event.
Awardee Levi J. Wilkins with his mother Catherine Moore.
Although 3Arts—the contemporary reinvention of The Three Arts Club of Chicago, a landmark founded in 1912 by Jane Addams and other female social activists who wanted to change the composition of the male-dominated art world eight years before women could vote—no longer occupies its landmark building, it has expanded on its mission to connect equity and the arts by investing directly in a diversity of Chicago artists.
Guest with A. Martinez and son – WHO
One of eight clubs spanning Europe and the United States—from Paris and London to New York City and Philadelphia—the Chicago branch was the last survivor of the network by the early 1950s. Over time, the local club evolved into an alternative dormitory serving downtown art schools and providing scholarships for nearly 25 years. As those schools began erecting their own state-of-the-art dormitories, the club faced a turning point, with fewer residents, a deteriorating landmark building, and no cash reserves.
Cat and Gregg Tager |
Jacqueline Detry and Imania Detry Fatima |
In 2006, after a plan to restore and renovate the building proved beyond the nonprofit’s resources, the Board of Directors made the tough decision to sell the property in order to preserve and contemporize the organization. By February 2007, the property was sold, and the net proceeds were invested in an operating fund to seed and grow the new purpose.
Grimm explained how 3Arts currently lives out its mission with the Next Level Awards:
“In such a competitive field in which grants and awards for artists are often hard to access, receiving a major award is quite an achievement—but a one-time infusion of support is rarely enough to power artists’ ambitious dreams. Our Next Level Award is a rare second award designed to fuel their work as their careers evolve over time, when they are ready to bring new visionary projects to life. In 2023, we celebrated three Next Level visual artists and two teaching artists. Last night, we announced the addition of a third Next Level Award for teaching artists, expressing our enduring admiration for the artists who work across generations, in schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, prisons, elder care centers, and more. The six new awardees are truly ‘next level.’”
Esther and Luke Grimm
We spoke with Andy Slater, a multi-dimensional blind artist with emphasis in audio arts who received a 3Arts “Bodies of Work” local residency. “We have offered all sorts of residency programs from Maine to California to France with airfare and stipend but realized that that isn’t feasible for some of our artists so this new fellowship was created,” Grimm said. Slater will be using part of his grant to expand his studio.
Slater told us about his desire to make art out of sound since he was 16 and of his passion for French music of the 1940’s: “sort of Sci Fi, a fringe thing.” In addition, he draws, paints and loves the tactile quality of sculpting, putting art for the blind community first.
Rich Robbins and Rachel Bekele
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Gregg Tager, guest, Betsy Fiden
“My blindness is a huge creative tool and is a way of approaching my ADHD. I sort of work my way out when I create. My art isn’t visual but I experience the visual in my own terms. What may seem mysterious to sighted people is totally normal to me.”
He spoke of how a visit to a museum, even those offering touch, can be tremendously disappointing—“I felt totally disregarded as a kid”.
“AI and other technological advances for blind people are making a great difference,” Slater said. “Meta Ray Ban glasses, apps on my IPhone, even technology that triggers smells which artists use, some of it is weird but it makes a difference.”
But to Slater, what makes the most difference is the support he has received from 3Arts.
“3Arts listens and the community is not only interdisciplinary bringing together artists, musicians and dancers, it is like a family. We have meetings and we talk about access. Even on the grant application it asks how would you caption art for someone who cannot see.”
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During the event, 3Arts celebrated ten previously announced 3Arts Awards recipients with $30,000 unrestricted grants and ten artists who were selected by past 3Arts awardees to receive $2,000 unrestricted Make a Wave awards.
The jam-packed awards ceremony featured performances by three past 3Arts awardees, including Rika Lin (2023 awardee) presenting Feedback, an experimental dance work with collaborator Takashi Shallow; Donnetta “LilBit” Jackson (2023 awardee) performing an excerpt from A M.A.D.D. Mixtape, a piece choreographed by Jackson that explores the African diasporic roots of tap and footwork with dancers from M.A.D.D Rhythms; and singer-songwriter Nashon Holloway (2022 awardee) performing the world premiere of Go Awf, an original new song from her forthcoming album.
For further information visit: 3Arts.org
Photos by Richard Rankin Photography
Author’s Photo by Jessica Tampas
