The Evanston Arts Council voted 5-0 Tuesday night to recommend the 2026 Cultural Fund Grants to City Council. The grants provide financial support to artists, non-profit arts organizations and creative businesses in Evanston. The Arts Council also discussed plans for a mural at Northwestern’s new Ryan Field. 

This year’s cultural grant pool totals $135,000, which will be distributed to 30 awardees chosen by a panel of artists with expertise in fields such as dance, visual art and writing. Applicants are evaluated based on artistic excellence and merit, community impact and use of funds. 

Committee member Sarah Long Holland presented three distribution scenarios for discussion. The Arts Council unanimously favored the option which awards the top-ranked applicants 100 percent of the amount they applied for, with a cap at $5,000. The next tier of applicants would receive 96 percent of their requested funding and a third tier would receive 76 percent. The majority of applicants applied for the full $5,000, Holland told The Daily. 

“We had 36 applicants, so we really can fund most of them,” Holland said. “I also wanted to respect the panelists’ input and their time. Doing it in a tiered way respects the variation in the average scoring.”

Other options for fund distribution included reserving $15,000 of the $135,000 for special project grants and distributing the remainder to awardees, or distributing the full amount to applicants up to the $135,000 total until funds run out. The Arts Council ultimately voted to recommend that City Council approves a tiered distribution of funds. 

Committee members also discussed a Request for Qualifications, which will be used to pre-screen potential artists to design a large-scale mural for the southeast exterior wall of the new Ryan Field. Pursuant to a memorandum of understanding with the University, the city will facilitate the project, which will aim to reflect Evanston’s identity, according to Juelle Daley, the arts and culture engagement specialist for the city. 

The artwork will not be a painted mural, but rather a design to be vinyl printed onto the side of the building. 

Committee members calculated that a design would need to go to print by September and receive approval by August in order to be displayed on the building by the Oct. 2 Ryan Field opening, leaving only a few weeks for selection. Several committee members argued that the timeline is incompatible with a thoughtful and engaging selection process.

“This is Evanston. If we’re going to say, this mural needs to represent Evanston, that’s not going to be a month-long process,” committee member Surinder Martignetti said. “If you walk backwards, it needs to be on the building in October, that means it needs to go into fabrication in September, which means it needs to be approved in August.”

Committee member Raissa Bailey proposed a “teaser” mural as a workaround for the expedited timeline.The placeholder mural would be displayed at the time of the stadium’s opening as a promotion for artists to submit designs for the permanent mural at a later date, Bailey said.

Bailey said this would let community members know the Arts Council was seeking applications for a final design. 

“We want to hear from you (about) what represents the community in Evanston,” Bailey said. 

The committee discussed this possibility and sketched out a potential timeline for the permanent art piece. Committee members ultimately outlined a 12-13 month process, which they agreed could be completed at the end of spring 2027. 

Still, committee members expressed frustration with NU’s proposed timeline and asked Daley to relay their feedback to Assistant Vice President of Neighborhood and Community Relations Dave Davis, who is overseeing the project. 

“We don’t feel like this is a timeline that is achievable with the results that they would like for Northwestern, for the Ryan Family and for Evanston,” Martignetti said. “It is a big deal, we need to treat it with the respect that it deserves and give it a timeline it deserves.” 

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