On Saturday, September 26, paintings, photography, sculpture, handmade work and live performances spread across Beverly and Morgan Park. More than 150 artists took part in the 13th annual Beverly Art Walk, using 43 neighborhood venues that included businesses, studios, schools and community spaces. The Beverly Area Arts Alliance organized the free event, which it described as family-friendly. Rather than bringing everyone to one gallery, the walk sent visitors through places they might already know and into studios they might never have seen.
The Alliance’s event page laid out a self-guided route that could begin at any participating venue. In its September 27 report, The Reporter described visitors moving among locations and meeting a different mix of artists, styles and mediums at each stop. That structure made the neighborhood itself part of the experience: art appeared in homes, businesses, a school and established arts venues, giving visitors several ways to join without following a single prescribed path.
Some artists opened their homes and studios to the public for the first time. The Reporter highlighted portrait artist John Bakker, ceramic sculptor and painter Francelia Herron Cotton, multimedia artist Phil Cotton and apparel designer Indre Vepstas among those welcoming visitors. Their studios offered a view of creative work in familiar neighborhood settings, alongside gallery exhibitions and public spaces. The event put working artists’ work in front of residents and visitors, in places where much of the work is usually made rather than displayed.
Students and staff from Saint Xavier University’s Art Department showed work in an exhibition called “Equalateral,” organized around the idea of squares. The display included collaborative paintings, photographs and individual self-portraits. The Reporter said some of the group paintings came from campus paint-jam sessions, where students made work together. Department chair Nathan Peck described the Art Walk as an opportunity for students to meet a live audience.
One of those paintings, “Just Us Two,” was made by Alejandra Rodriguez, an administrative assistant in the university’s Art Department. She told The Reporter that the piece began with two birds and grew as she kept adding to it. The finished painting combined abstract shapes and colors. Its presence at the Art Walk placed a student-and-staff exhibition beside the work of established neighborhood artists, allowing visitors to encounter several stages and forms of artmaking during the same afternoon.
Other venues put the focus on making and sharing art in different ways. At Sutherland School, families gathered at the Family Fun Park for the school’s annual I Madonnari sidewalk-chalk festival. The program also included art activities with reclaimed materials from the Creative Chicago Reuse Exchange, a DJ and line dancing. At Running Excels, visitors could sit for quick, deliberately rough “Terrible Portraits.” The organizer’s page also listed a craft market, live music and art activities among the day’s offerings.
Exhibitions at the Beverly Arts Center and Vanderpoel Museum at Ridge Park Field House added more stops. At Vanderpoel, Chicago collage artists Paloma Trecka, Nellie Seigel and Lisa Barcy presented “Incantations,” a show exploring devotion, memory and humor. The Arts Center included a student exhibition and “Holding Space: Grounded,” which brought together work by 26 artists around self-care. Visitors could move from these curated shows to home studios, school activities and neighborhood businesses without leaving the Art Walk.
The day finished with an after-party at Nicky’s of Beverly. The Reporter said the Chicago band Mucca Pazza, known for combining marching-band traditions with street theater and rock, headlined, with Reilly Downes & The Acid Cowboys also performing. Earlier, the Alliance had listed the after-party and performers as part of the event program. Together, the stops joined visual art, music, performances and hands-on activities in one neighborhood-wide event.
Alliance co-founder Sal Campbell told The Reporter that the walk lets people encounter local artists in places they already visit. For the artists, the open doors meant showing work in home studios, schools, businesses and galleries; for students, it meant sharing work with an audience; and for families, it meant art-making alongside exhibitions and music. Across 43 venues, visitors could encounter the artists and creative work already present in Beverly and Morgan Park.
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