WOODLAWN — Interdisciplinary artist Max Li has lived in Woodlawn since he came to Chicago. So when he started looking for an art studio, he wanted to stay in the neighborhood.
One day in 2021, Li went biking and passed by The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago at 6400 S. Kimbark Ave. and stopped to take photos. By chance, the pastor happened to come out and give him a tour. They kept talking and soon agreed Li could base his studio inside the church. He’s been there ever since.
Li’s partnership with the church happened via serendipity. But now, one new Chicago program is working to develop these relationships on a larger scale. South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces — which was founded by Arts Alliance Illinois, Bustling Spaces and Partners for Sacred Places — launched its training program in the fall to teach South Side houses of worship and artists about the benefits and logistics of working together.
The trainings have recently wrapped up, and South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces is beginning to fund new partnerships.
To the program leaders, the advantages of pairing artists and houses of worship are clear. Especially post-pandemic, artists are struggling to find affordable work spaces. Houses of worship are seeing their congregations shrink, leaving them with empty space. Matching them up just makes sense.
“We’re interested in filling the congregational spaces with life so that they can actually be used as they were really meant to be, which is as community centers,” said Karen DiLossi, the director of strategic partnerships at Partners for Sacred Places.
The program’s training sessions started in October and finished in mid-January. In total, 18 congregations and 44 artists and arts groups took part, said the Rev. Sarah Jones, Partners’ associate director of community engagement.
The trainings largely focused on the financial side of artist-congregation partnerships. South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces leaders talked about negotiating contracts and even brought in the county assessor’s office to speak.
To DiLossi, it was important to fully explain the details of the partnerships, including financials.
“These are not people that are in it for the money. They just want to do the work, whether that work is spiritually based or artistically based,” she said. “They’re not thinking about taxes or legal forms … and we want to make sure that they’re crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s.”
Li, the interdisciplinary artist at The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, joined the trainings even though he already has a studio set up. The Rev. David Black, the pastor of that church, took part, too.
Although several artists already work out of Black’s church, Black and Li said they appreciated learning about the financial considerations of these partnerships in more detail. In college and at seminary school, money was treated as an “ugly necessity,” Black said.
In contrast, South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces “taught us how to think about space-sharing agreements, how to think about the value of a space and also the value that’s created by the use of the space,” he said. “It completely changes the conversation.”
Partners for Sacred Places has helped connect artists and faith groups across the country, but this is its first program that offers grant money to participants.
South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces received $235,000 through the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Using that money, some participating artists are beginning to receive funds from South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces for renting a studio at a house of worship.
Meanwhile, participating congregations can apply for capital improvement funds. Faith leaders will work in tandem with artist partners to figure out how to improve their building for the arts.
“Perhaps you have an unused room … and a couple of artists really want to use it as a recording studio, but they don’t have the equipment to do that,” Jones said. “This money can help purchase some of that equipment.”
Henry Wishcamper, founder of Bustling Spaces, said he knows several relationships have already begun to form. One house of worship is connecting with an arts group that creates opportunities for artists with disabilities, he said. A theater production is negotiating with another church on the Far South Side. Musicians are finding performance spaces and visual artists are finding studios.
“At this point, people are really taking advantage of having met each other — and knowing that there is a little bit of cash to jumpstart these relationships — to really explore what the best matches are,” Wishcamper said. “It’s exciting.”
Wishcamper, Jones and DiLossi said they hope to offer the program again and expand it to the West Side; it’s just a matter of finding the funding.
In the meantime, Black and other faith leaders are using what they learned from South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces to redefine what houses of worship can do for everyday citizens. Attendance at houses of worship has dwindled. Black thinks turning them back into public spaces requires inviting in the arts, and South Side Artists in Sacred Spaces is helping him do that.
“We’ve made a lot of connections with artists and with other faith communities that are thinking about adapting their buildings in similar ways. And it’s been really beautiful,” Black said. “It’s really creating more — a stronger and more resilient cultural community.”
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