Ray Whitehouse/The Daily Northwestern
Chiara Padgett wants to make art less intimidating.
One of the four founders of Evanston Atelier, 716 Main St., she said the impetus behind opening the new studio was to foster a community for artists.
“A lot of people have creative flairs,” Padgett said. “We wanted to make (the Atelier) user-friendly … for people who have ideas and want to discover creativity or spread a message through art.”
The Atelier opened last fall when the four members of Evanston’s Reba Place Fellowship banded together to create an outlet for local artists. The fellowship is associated with Reba Place Church, and it provided the start-up funds to found the studio.
Andrea Buchanan, manager of the Evanston Atelier, said the fellowship played a vital role in cultivating a sense of support for neighborhood artists.
“(When it opened) last fall, there was a lot of energy and talk about a lot of artists being in the community,” she said. “They really want to give young people and artists ways to express themselves.”
The studio is a division of the neighboring Amish furniture store, Plain & Simple, 713 Main St., which is also a member of the fellowship.
The Atelier is a narrow studio space, with khaki-colored walls serving as the backdrop for its hanging canvases. The current exhibit, titled “Lentil Soup,” features the watercolor and oil paintings of the four founding artists and one mixed-media piece from a community artist.
“Everybody was reflecting on what Lent meant to them,” Buchanan said. “Because the ideas about what it meant to them were so diverse, the name came as a kind of posh-posh idea.”
In the future, the studio is looking to broaden its content to include less conventional forms of visual art, such as film and performance art. The first step towards branching out is the Atelier’s “Docie-Talkie” show, May 1-3, which will showcase documentaries from amateur filmmakers in the Evanston area, Buchanan said.
Among a handful of other projects in the works is an exhibit opening May 30 that will feature pieces from local artist Kirsten Aho, who works with mixed-media materials like film and fabric. The show, called “Animal Spirits,” will feature a series of masks.
For Aho, a recent graduate from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, the upcoming exhibit at the Atelier will be the first time her work is shown outside of her school.
“It’s pretty exciting, being able to get connected with the art community so quickly, since I just moved to Chicago in December,” she said.
Padgett said part of the studio’s vision is to incorporate more community members in the future.
“The other point to the Atelier was to give support and see growth and stimulate work through togetherness, meeting, assigning shows and then having shows,” she said.
To reach out to the community, the studio plans to soon host weekend workshops, live model studios and children’s art classes over the summer, Buchanan said. Memberships are also available for beginning artists.
“The common denominator is what would they like to do with art,” Padgett said. “Change the neighborhood? Or the community, or the world at large?”
