 | Calm Before the Storm
Micki LeMieux
May 5, 2006 - May 1, 2007
The grounds of the Evanston Art Center provide a particularly appropriate stage for Chicago artist Micki LeMieux who created the sculptural installation, Calm Before the Storm, for the 2006-2007 Sculpture on the Grounds program. In her hands, the Art Center's front lawn becomes a fanciful garden of oversized protean organisms whose elastic sky-blue bodies bloom into exaggerated antennae of unknown origin. LeMieux' professional experience in mold-making, creating specialty sculpture and displays has provided her with the skills for creating hyper-realities in which color, scale, form and texture are exaggerated to create worlds that are dramatically delineated from everyday experience. |
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 | Bird’s Nest
Decker and Andersson
Through June 2008
Our invitation to visitors to “be a part of the art” takes on new meaning in the 2007-2008 Sculpture on the Grounds installation. Created by Chicago artist Shawn Decker and Finnish artist Jan-Erik Andersson, the gigantic structure resembling a bird's nest enables viewers to enter an interior space, where they may listen to gentle sounds emanating from the surrounding matrix of bright yellow wooden beams.
Evanston Art Center's “Bird's Nest”, inspired by the nest of the Baltimore Oriole, is the seventh work in this on-going international collaboration between the two artists, and is the largest to date. Jan-Erik Andersson, who lives in Turku, Finland and exhibits widely throughout Europe, is fascinated by the organic approach to architecture seen in nests built by birds. He has designed a number of unconventional buildings based on organic forms and even ideas from folk tales. Shawn Decker, who has a doctorate in music composition from Northwestern University, creates a sound component that is unique to each project. Initially concerned about the possible impact of the cicada emergence on the sound of Evanston's “Bird's Nest”, when the cicadas failed to appear in large numbers, Decker developed a unique and subtle sound for the work, evocative of the cicada's song.
The “Birds Nest” project has received an Access to Artistic Excellence grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a grant from the Governors International Arts Exchange program through the Illinois Arts Council. The work will remain on display until the spring of 2008. |
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 | "The Nereid Beckon"
Matt Dehaemers
June 2008 - May 2009
Opening Reception: June 1, 2 - 4pm
Matt Dehaemer’s installation “The Nereid Beckon” floats on the lawn of the Evanston Art Center metaphorically transporting the viewer toward the historic Gross Point Lighthouse. The site-specific installation of five, 16 foot ship-like bottles is composed of approximately 6,000 small, clear plastic bottles. Thousands of people have written messages attesting to their attachment, dependence, fear of or reverence for Lake Michigan.
During the day viewers are drawn to the messages, clearly visible through the individual bottles. Moving from one to the next can be mesmerizing. The cumulative effect is the gathering of expressions from a diverse community of people who have personal sentiments or little known facts to say about the Great Lake that they share...Lake Michigan.
At night. a different sight emerges, as the fleet of bottles, lit from within, becomes almost a single presence appearing to drift toward the lighthouse.
Messages include drawings from the children at Sunny Days Child Care and written memories from senior citizens at the Levy Center and Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center, both visual and written messages from children of District 65 Schools: Walker, Orrington, Lincolnwood, Willard, Dawes, Lincoln, Washington elementary schools and Nichols, Chute, Oakton & Haven middle schools. Messages also come from students & teachers at the Music Institute of Chicago, Roycemore School, Baker Demonstration School, Chiaravalle Montessori School, Dewey School Ecology Club and Girl Scout Troops 745 & 746. In addition, visitors to the Evanston Ecology Center and the YWCA, residents of the Presbyterian Homes, the Mather Pavillion, Mather Homes and 3 Crowns, members of the Osher Life Long Learning Institute groups, Northwestern University, Chris Green’s poetry writing class at Loyola University, Family Focus, Young Evanston Artists, Evanston Youth Job Center, Evanston Library Teen Center, Northeast Association, Evanston Women’s Club, Jr. League of Evanston & the North Shore, Northwestern Settlement House, Open Studio, Evanston Arts Council/Public Arts Council, City of Evanston: Mayor Morton, Council and Staff, Arts & Business Council, NEXT Theater and Evanston Art Center volunteers, staff and students, Wilmette Park District Kindergarten, The Garden Club of Evanston, Ramona School Garden Club, Evanston Current Events Club, Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club, Rotary International and several book clubs have participated. First Bank & Trust of Evanston, Art + Science Salon, Sara Gutheridge, Gerry Macsai, Sandy Brown, realtor, The Homestead Hotel, 800 Condominium Association and The Paper Source solicited messages from their customers and staff. Many unidentified individuals are also part of the art.
This project could not have been realized without the generosity of the City of Evanston’s Community Public Art Program, Community Art Fund, the Illinois Arts Council, Beth & David Hart, Allan Drebin and the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation and the hard work of committee members Beth Hart, Geraldine Macsai, Coni Lyman, Jane Chapman, Katherine Hart, Bill Lampkin, Bruce Rogers, Barbara Blades and EAC staff Paula Danoff, Larry Boswelll, Jyl Bonaguro, Judy Fenton, Bonnie Katz, and Alan Leder, Executive Director.
A special thank you to:
The Homestead Hotel & Quince Restaurant for the gift of hospitality
The Music Institute of Chicago & Aaron Kaplan, cello, Jay Hsu, violin and Jeff Spenner, trumpet for performing Handel’s Water Music
Professor Chris Green of Loyola University for the poetry reading of his students’ writings for “The Nereid Beckon”
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 | "Trickledown"
by Actual Size
Summer 2009 - Spring 2010
Actual Size artists Gail Simpson and Aristotle Georgiades bring a contemporary update to a pastoral image for the grounds of the Evanston Art Center. Inspired by the current economic situation and its effect on our
communities, this large scale sculpture takes the form of a tipped over wooden bucket pouring its contents out onto the ground. A cluster of rooftops is bobbing downstream out of the bucket and collecting in puddles at the mouth of the sculpture. Although the image initially suggests the children’s nursery rhyme of “Jack & Jill” or the phrase “no use crying over spilt milk,” it subsequently challenges our assumptions about the stability of neighborhood, community, and home.
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