UPDATE on Partners:
Chicago Office
We All Come Together As One, a mural by Gamaliel Ramirez and South Chicago youth.
Arts in Sacred Places Comes to Chicago
Following the model launched by Partners in
Philadelphia in 2010, and working closely with Karen
DiLossi, Director of the Arts in Sacred Places (AiSP)
program, the Chicago Office launched its AiSP program
in June 2011 with the support of the Richard H.
Driehaus Foundation.
The program already has buy-in from the Chicago
League of Theaters (CLT), Voice of the City (VoC), and I
Am Logan Square, three local arts service organizations.
Deb Clapp, Executive Dircector of CLT, and Dawn Marie
Galtieri, Executive and Artistic Director of VoC, sit
on the Chicago AiSP Advisory Board, and I Am Logan
Chicago Advisory Board
Rolf Achilles, Co-Chair
Corlis Moody, Co-Chair
Rabbi Michael Balinsky
Joel D. Bookman
Jay Braatz, Ed.D.
The Very Reverend
Msgr. John F. Canary
Bishop Demetrios
of Mokissos
Steve Edwards
Suzanne Germann
Gunny Harboe, AIA
Nevin Hedlund, AIA
Marilyn Hennessy
Lisa Klein
Jody Kretzmann
The Reverend
George A. Lane, S.J.
Ken Marchetti
The Reverend
James M. Moody, Sr.
Michael P. Mosher, Esq.
Andrew Perlman
Joan Pomaranc
David Sauerman
13 • Sacred Places • www.sacredplaces.org • Fall 2011
Square has offered to collaborate with Partners on its
Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival, an annual event that
draws more than 25,000 people. For the first time in
the festival’s history, churches will serve as venues for
visual and performing arts, introducing AiSP to a large
new audience.
Using protocols developed for the pilot program in
Philadelphia, staff and interns spent the summer
surveying over 50 artists and faith leaders in the
city about existing partnerships and the potential
for new and stronger relationships between the two
communities in Chicago. We found overwhelming
enthusiasm from both sides. Congregations and artists
are eager to work together – and not just as landlord
and tenant. There is great interest in new dialogue and
collaborative projects that build a relationship between
two groups that otherwise have very little interaction.
Speaking about the promise of AiSP, Pastor Doug Harris
of North Shore Baptist Church said, “Churches have
historically been tremendous patrons of the arts. We
have only hurt ourselves by abandoning that tradition.
This is a chance to turn it around.”
Building on \