ART IN ACTION: SUPPORTING CHICAGO’S AT–RISK YOUTH photography to social responsibility. The organization has recently launched The Artist Roster, which exhibits art from local emerging and teaching artists and alumni. Marwen sees art as a vehicle for social change, leadership development, and a path to employment and seeks to inspire young people to build their future through art.
THE 2020 YOUTH ART WINNER DISPLAYS HER WORK AT THE CHICAGO URBAN ART RETREAT CENTER’S YOUTH FEST
A former student testified, “Marwen made me more comfortable with myself and helped me become more involved in my community.” CHICAGO URBAN ART RETREAT CENTER
By JACQUELINE LEWIS
North Lawndale’s Chicago Urban Art Retreat Center (CUARC) offers workshops, women’s retreats, and volunteer It’s difficult, maybe impossible now, to go one day without seeing opportunities, in addition to free youth programs that work heartbreaking news about violence and fear rippling through with students where they are, at any age, and whether or Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods. However, the plague of not they are in school. crime and grief in the city can obscure notable successes borne from a great deal of resilient creativity and love of culture. Director and Board President Dianna C. Long shared a story Many collectors and arts patrons in Chicago, as well as around the world, are familiar with the groundbreaking art and community efforts of artist Theaster Gates, who has founded multiple arts organizations in areas facing challenges foreign to most neighborhoods in the city – Gates’s Dorchester Art & Housing Collaborative, Chicago Arts & Industry Commons, Rebuild Foundation, and the Stony Island Arts Bank have become dynamic spaces for artists as well as their communities.
with CGN about the program’s impact on just one student, emphasizing that tangible successes are what these organizations hope to accomplish.
“Demarcus and his older brother Chris came into our art program when they were 6 and 7 years-old. Demarcus clearly enjoyed making art. I remember we were working on writing and illustrating a little book about family for each child, and Demarcus was very frustrated. When I offered to help, he told me that he could not spell or write. I had him CGN wanted to share the missions and efforts of several additional tell his story to me so I could put the words into his book area arts organizations, many of which have been operating for and he made the pictures. He revealed that this dad was in decades to support Chicago’s youth one student at a time. Each prison, and his mom was in a drug treatment center. He and one is devoted to cultivating and facilitating impactful programs his siblings were living with his grandmother. while utilizing arts education as a vehicle through which to bolster underserved communities. By harnessing their energies towards After a year, I noticed that Chris no longer came to art, and furthering their education through creativity, who knows, one of the Demarcus told me Chris had joined a gang and had also students in these programs could become the next Theaster Gates. said he was too old for art. Demarcus learned to read and MARWEN Located at the top edge of River North, Marwen offers free visual arts classes and college career programming to Chicago’s middle and high schoolers, with courses ranging from color theory to 36 | CGN | Fall 2021
write, and he continued to enjoy making art. Quite a long time later, a very tall Demarcus came to the door with his family for our Christmas giveaway. I didn’t recognize him, but he remembered me. It was a tearful reunion. I was so happy to see him. He never joined a gang or been in trouble with the law.”
