Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild
Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild Meeting Room Gallery at Civic Center
The Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild, in partnership with the City of Evanston, will be displaying art work soon in the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center.
The donated art work from the Guild representing the Black Experience will be on display in the second floor Meeting Room, Room 2200, on a rotating basis.
The Guild has agreed to donate artwork to the meeting room gallery. The gallery will be accessible during regular city business hours.
The opening of the Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild Meeting Gallery Room marks the beginning of a new initiative by the City of Evanston to use the Morton Civic Center as a place for more regular exhibits of art that hallmark the Evanston community.
The Fleetwood –Jourdain Art Guild is the first Evanston minority, non-profit Arts Corporation of its kind. The Guild has been instrumental in the conservation, preservation and documentation of Evanston Black history through the creation of a museum and gallery on the second floor of the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center, located at 1655 Foster Street. The gallery has served as a source of pride and ethnic identity for the community.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild and the City of Evanston. The exhibition is free and open to the public from March 26 to April 27, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Exhibition visits can be arranged by contacting Shanee Weston at 847/448-8266 or by email at sweston@cityofevanston.org.
Exhibition artists: Richard Halstead, Raymond Chen, Jan Spivey Gilchrest, Jay S. Sperman, A. Terrell, Jag, Martin Mancera, and many others.
Exhibition organizers: Patricia A. Vance, Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild President; Britany Scurry, Interior Designer Intern; Wally Bobkiewicz; Shanee Weston; and Betsy Jenkins.
View a short video of the opening here>>> and enjoy the photos of the opening below:
Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild Museum & Art Gallery at Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center
The Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild is Evanston's only minority, non-profit, tax exempt arts corporation. It has brought the goal of a permanent exhibit of the Black experience to fruition. Housed on the second level of the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center, the Guild serves as a source of pride and ethnic identity for the community.
The idea for the Guild was inspired in 1987. That year, at the Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. community birthday celebration, a community organization called C.H.O.I.C.E./STUDENT ACTION COUNCIL donated an enlarged framed photograph of the Salem to Montgomery Civil Rights March. The community's response was overwhelming. Pride and appreciation were expressed by many.
The year brought two more gifts. The Foster Senior Club donated a picture titled "Mother and Child" by Margaret Bourrough, the founder of Chicago's DuSable Museum. Soon after, the Fleetwood-Jourdain Advisory Board presented an oil painting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. titled, "The Study." Its painter, A. Terrell, was an Evanstonian.
In March of 1987, the Fleetwood-Jourdain Advisory Board established a standing committee for the arts. It consisted of community members with an interest in expanding the visual arts program at the Center. It was the Art Committee's vision of a permanent exhibit space that sparked the idea of converting the Center's second level, which was then a pool room, into a gallery and library. The committee obtained funding from the City's Community Development Block Grant Committee.
In March of 1987, the Arts Committee formalized its commitment to create and preserve the history of Black Evanston through the arts, by officially incorporating as the Fleetwood-Jourdain Art Guild and on December 13, 1987, the Art Guild received its 501-C(3) taxexempt status. This vision was the "brain child" of the Public Arts Movement in Evanston.
For eight. years, the Guild has been instrumental in the conservation, preservation and documentation of Evanston Black history through the creation of a museum and gallery. Commissioned and donated works of art are proudly displayed on the second floor of the Fleetwood-jourdain Community Center, 1655 Foster Street.
Each year a deserving Black citizen is honored via a cammissioned work of art for their contributions and accomplishment in the elevation of the standard of living for Blacks in Evanston. The selection criteria and person selected is usually determined by the theme of the Guild-sponsored community celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and his dream of cultural diversity and racial harmony.