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Monday 8:30am - 5pm Tuesday 8:30am - 5pm Wednesday 8:30am - 5pm Thursday 8:30am - 5pm Friday 8:30am - 5pm

Illinois Arts Council, 115 S. LaSalle Street , Ste. 2202, Chicago, IL (2026)

04/10/2026

Opportunity for Artists:
Request for Proposals - Public Mural in Aledo, IL
Quad City Arts /
Proposals shall be submitted no later than Monday, April 20, 2026 at 9:00am via online form through Jotform or by email at rfq@quadcityarts.com.

The Windborn Group and Quad City Arts, with support from the Illinois Arts Council in celebration of America at 250, are seeking an Illinois-based artist for the design and installation of a public mural in Aledo, Illinois. The mural will be on the south-facing wall of the building at 114 E. Main St. in historic downtown Aledo. This mural will serve as a public record of the history of Illinois’s creativity and values and show how art can energize local economics and deepen our sense of place across Illinois.

In the spirit of the 250th, this mural project seeks to honor the history of Aledo and Mercer County, specifically of the rich artistic heritage of artists Gertrude Abercrombie or Doris Lee, both of whom have ties to Aledo. The mural could incorporate the artists themselves, or use their themes, colors, and motifs to honor their contributions to the art world at large.

- Artist MUST be an Illinois resident.
- The paintable surface of the wall is approximately: 24’ W x 18’ H.
- $8,500 — 50% to be paid upon contract ex*****on and 50% within 30 days of completion of the mural. This fee includes all associated costs of creation (i.e., design, materials, paint, etc.). Local lodging provided as needed, and a transportation stipend will be provided at federal milage rates.
Commissioners to prep wall (power wash/prime) ahead of mural installation, and an anti-graffiti coat applied following completion. Elevation solutions, if needed, will be provided by Quad City Arts.

To learn more and submit your qualifications before April 20th! www.quadcityarts.com/aledo-mural-rfq
www.quadcityarts.com/public-sculpture.html

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04/10/2026

Grantee News: Artbus to Complete 144 Locations Goal
Written by Amy Gugger

The Macoupin Art Collective (the “Mac”) is close to completing a major goal to reach every one of 144 communities within the service area of the Mac. This goal was set during the original construction of the outreach program with the mobile art studio to reach all of the communities with limited access to art opportunities due to closing schools and lack of transportation to larger communities for art programs.

A mobile studio was created out of a used bus and it was loaded with art materials, tables, seats, and a detailed plan to serve those who could not get to the Mac in Staunton.

One hundred forty-four communities were identified and the Artbus began to take the materials, equipment, and an instructor to schools, community centers, and such in the different communities. Funding was awarded for much of the program and programs were provided for anyone from small children to senior citizens. As the Artbus visited different places, the Governor of Illinois invited the Artbus to appear at the Illinois State Fair multiple times, private citizens and organizations hired the Artbus to provide activities for a group, and the Artbus appeared at community festivals, schools, and events.

During this time, the Artbus kept contacting each community that lacked the resources and making arrangements to share art with those who did not have access to art classes or even materials to make art. And now the Artbus program is approaching the goal to serve all and there are 13 remaining locations that the Artbus is scheduled to visit this year. The Artbus will continue to serve all, but the particular goal to visit every community is about to be met in 2026.

The Mac needs funding for the final $10,000 costs for some of the final 13 out of 144 occasions.

Anyone who is interested in learning more about the Mac and the Artbus can visit our website at https://www.macart.org/ or visit our donation page at https://www.macart.org/donate.

The Macoupin Art Collective is deeply appreciative of the support for this program as well as the overall target of getting Art to All.

04/10/2026

FREE Opportunity for Organizations:
/ Creative West
Tuesday, April 14, 2026, 4 p.m. MT
Online Zoom presentation: Succession Planning & Knowledge Transfer
Prepare for leadership transitions and keep your organization’s knowledge strong.

Join Creative West on April 14, 2026 for their latest capacity building webinar! Learn how to protect your legacy, support your team, and plan leadership transitions with care.

This session is tailored for arts organizations seeking to strengthen their foundations, leaders who are new to succession planning, and nonprofits that need strategies to document institutional knowledge.

Established in 1974 as a nonprofit U.S. Regional Arts Organization (USRAO), Creative West was founded on the belief that place matters to the creative process. Fifty years later, communities of place, practice, experience, and identity remain fundamental to our work, framing our understanding of how culture is creatively produced and collectively experienced.

Follow the link to register and to learn more: www.tinyurl.com/y3f5yz7u
Questions? Email: events@wearecreativewest.org

04/10/2026

The Muse Illinois Artist Spotlight: Zack Browning, FY26 IAC Creative Accelerator Fund Recipient

Zack Browning is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois and founder and former director of the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award. Besides being a composer, he is an accomplished trumpet player, having played in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and an enthusiastic jazz/funk piano player, having played in several jazz trios. Browning also played, coached, and officiated soccer for over 20 years. His original compositions can be found on several albums, including five portrait albums.

Released this past February, Zack’s recent album, Rock Galaxy has earned international acclaim, with reviews highlighting its surreal, genre-defying nature. The recording features collaborations with 20 musicians from Central Illinois, including the Millikin University Percussion Ensemble, the Eastern Illinois University Woodwind Quintet, and the Jupiter String Quartet. Publications like Amplified and the Recording Artists Guild Digital Magazine praise Browning's ability to blend sophisticated art music with accessible energy.

Since the 1980’s, Zack has used planetary magic squares as a source of musical material and organization. Browning explains. "In 2008, I discovered the Flying Star System of feng shui, which uses the rotations of the 3x3 Lo Shu Square to predict and represent the flow of energy. This discovery allowed me to personalize commissions based on the energy from birth dates and significant events. I also incorporate the magic square of the ruling planet for those dates. The compositions on Rock Galaxy adhere to these feng shui principles. Thanks to the Illinois Arts Council's Creative Accelerator Grant, I was able to document and distribute this album on Neuma Records, showcasing the talents of Central Illinois musicians."

LEARN MORE: www.zackbrowning.com

If you want to receive more stories like this, consider signing up for our Muse Newsletter! Visit our homepage and look for CONNECT WITH US

04/09/2026

Opportunity for Teaching Artists:
/ Young Cultural Stewards
Chicago Park District /
ArtSeed is hiring teaching artists rooted in Chicago neighborhoods

Type: Part-time, contract
Pay rate: $35/hour
Hours: 24-28 hrs per week
Contract Dates: June 2nd -July 31
Total Contract Amount: $8,400
Apply By: April 12, 2026
Expected interview dates: April 16 - April 22

ArtSeed Teaching Artists work in pairs to co-create curriculum and co-facilitate community-based arts and nature programming in Chicago Park District parks for day camp youth ages 5-15.

Their programming is focused on the themes of environmental justice and nature-based arts and play.

ArtSeed teaching artists will participate in 2.5 weeks of training from June 2nd - June 18th and will facilitate ArtSeed programming from June 22nd - July 31st. They are looking for teaching artists who have backgrounds in community-based arts practices, environmental justice, popular education, and nature-based healing modalities.

SEE FULL POSITION DESCRIPTION IN APPLICATION BEFORE APPLYING.

Follow the link for more information and to apply: www.docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWtM6qn8_4UMika54TPXM2bSlq805vFcRzA1RZL7Hsif6unQ/viewform
IG users: Please visit Young Cultural Stewards linktree via their IG bio

Email gabriela.garay@chicagoparkdistrict.com regarding any questions with the position.

04/09/2026

Opportunity for Artists:
CALL for ART
Woman Made Gallery /
Entry Due Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Entry Fee: $20

Routes & Roots: A Virtual Exhibition: May 18 – Jun 30, 2026
Open to women and non-binary artists to submit work that reflects on immigration and migration in all their complexity: voluntary and forced movement, diaspora, refuge, exile, resettlement, documentation and bureaucracy, belonging and unbelonging, intergenerational stories, cultural hybridity, cultural assimilation, and the ways identity shifts across places and time.

Juror: Eliana Miranda

For more information and to apply, follow the link: www.womanmade.org/call-for-art/

Questions? Email: general@womanmade.org

04/09/2026

In Celebration with National Poetry Month
Opportunity for Poets:
Open Call for Work
Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine /

Submitting to Poetry is free. Please send only one submission at a time per category and wait until you receive a response before uploading a new submission. The Poetry Foundation is eager to provide ample time and space for everyone’s voices to be considered, so additional submissions will be archived unread and will receive no response.

They will consider only previously unpublished work. Work that has appeared online for any reason, including social media posts, is considered previously published and should not be submitted.

To ensure you receive their response, set your spam filter to allow emails from submissions@poetrymagazine.org.

All published work will be compensated with these rates as of our March 2026 issue:
Text poems: $500 per poem;
Visual poems: $500 per poem;
Video poems: $600 per poem;
Prose: $400 per published page.

Submissions close from June 15 to September 15 annually.

The Poetry Foundation uses Submittable to collect submissions to Poetry. Please visit their Submittable page for our full submission guidelines and open calls for work. www.poetry.submittable.com/submit

If you cannot use Submittable (poetry.submittable.com) and would like to submit your work by mail, please send your submission to 61 W. Superior St, Chicago, IL 60654, and include a self-addressed return envelope. If you do not include a return envelope, your submission will not receive a response.

Questions? Email: info@poetryfoundation.org

04/09/2026

Opportunity for Executive Directors, Organizational Leaders, Program Managers, Arts Administrators, Teaching Artists, Funders and other Members of the Philanthropic Community, Arts Advocates and Supporters

State of the Arts Convening 2026
The Art Institute of Chicago, Rubloff Auditorium
Chicago, IL, Wednesday, April 29, 2026

12:00 PM - 12:45 PM: Check-in, food and refreshments, and connection time
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM: State of the Arts - Main Session

Join Ingenuity for a pivotal gathering for stakeholders in the Chicago arts education community.

Don’t miss this opportunity to come together with the arts education community to explore the future of Chicago Public Schools arts education and strengthen our shared commitment to ensuring equitable access to high-quality arts education for every student, in every grade, at every CPS school.

Don’t miss this opportunity to come together with the arts education community to explore the future of Chicago Public Schools arts education and strengthen our shared commitment to ensuring equitable access to high-quality arts education for every student, in every grade, at every CPS school.

Together, you will:
- Learn about and make meaning of the latest Ingenuity State of the Arts data report
- Reflect on what the data reveals about progress, gaps, and opportunities
- Celebrate the collective work of our arts education community, and
- Clarify our shared call to action in service of Chicago Public School students and schools:
- Learn about and make meaning of the latest Ingenuity State of the Arts data report
- Reflect on what the data reveals about progress, gaps, and opportunities
- Celebrate the collective work of our arts education community, and
- Clarify our shared call to action in service of Chicago Public School students and schools

Register here or visit 's IG Linktree
For more information, follow the link: www.ingenuity-inc.org
Questions? Contact: www.ingenuity-inc.org/contact

04/09/2026

Opportunity for Artists:
/
Joan Mitchell Center / Joan Mitchell Foundation

The Joan Mitchell Center is now accepting applications for 2027 visual artist residencies. The application deadline is May 29, 2026.

To be eligible to apply, artists must either be based in New Orleans (for the last five years) or native to New Orleans, or be a former grant recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation based anywhere in the United States. Former Artists-in-Residence of the Center are not eligible to apply. See further eligibility details on their website.

Selected artists will receive private studio space at the Center for 10 weeks in either the Spring or Fall 2027 residency sessions or for 6 weeks during the Summer 2027 session. Artists-in-Residence also receive a $150 weekly stipend, weekday communal meals, and opportunities to participate in professional development and community events.

Follow the link in bio to our website to learn more about the program, access the online application, and read the detailed guidelines and FAQs.

The Joan Mitchell Center will be hosting a virtual info session and campus tours to answer all your questions:
Virtual info session: Wednesday, April 15, 3pm CT
Campus tours: April 16 & 17

One-on-one application support session available by appointment May 4-28

Registration links and all details on their website: www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/residencies

For more information or support with the application process, please contact program@joanmitchellcenter.org

Pictured here: Artist-in-Residence Ivelisse Jiménez working in a studio at the Joan Mitchell Center, 2025.Photo by Cfreedom Photography.

04/09/2026

Opportunity for Artists:
The Illinois Arts Council has partnered with the Capital Development Board’s Art-in-Architecture Program (CDB/AIA) to promote an opportunity for Illinois artists.
Illinois Capital Development Board /

Illinois Department of Transportation
District 5: Farmland Rest Areas
Farmers City, Illinois (DeWitt County)
630-497-002

CALL TO ARTISTS
The Art-in-Architecture Program of the Capital Development Board is pleased to announce a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to Illinois professional artists to create permanent original public art for the Illinois Department of Transportation Farmland Rest Areas in Farmers City, Illinois (DeWitt County).

These public art commissions and potential purchases are open to all professional artists, artisans, or artist-led teams that live and work in the state of Illinois.
• An artist/artisan is defined as a skilled practitioner that generates designs and concepts for creative works that reflect form, beauty, and aesthetic perception. All artists on a team must be from Illinois.
• Subcontractors may be used and are defined as those providing technical implementation such as construction, fabrication, and/or assembly for portions or all of a finished product under direct supervision and control of an artist.

The Fine Arts Review Committee will review the portfolios of eligible applicants. At
least three artists/teams will be selected as semi-finalists and paid a fee of $1,000
each to develop and present a site specific proposal.

The project budget is $40,000

Email portfolio materials to CDB.ArtinArchitecture@illinois.gov no later than Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 3:00 P.M. Any portfolio submitted after the deadline will not be considered for this project.

For questions, contact the Art-in-Architecture Program at: CDB.ArtinArchitecture@illinois.gov.

Link to the RFQ Document:
https://cdb.illinois.gov/professionalgrowth/art/commissionopportunities.html

04/08/2026

Opportunity for Artists:
OPEN CALL for the Latinx Festival of the Arts 2026, “City of Many Arrivals: Latine Brilliance,” is now live!
/ Oh Art Foundation
Submission available : April 6th - July 19th 2026

Produced by the OH Art Foundation, a group exhibition curated by Cristobal Alday and Michelle Ruiz

Migration to Chicago often begins as a family story—shared at kitchen tables, carried across generations, and preserved through memory, ritual, and care. This exhibition invites artists to draw from these intimate archives, transforming personal histories into visual language and storytelling into worldbuilding.
We are seeking artists whose work engages themes of migration, family history, ritual, entrepreneurship, cultural transmission, and joy within Latine communities in Chicago. Families arrived carrying more than suitcases—they brought dreams, skills, songs, and ancestral knowledge, practicing hacer hogar: the ongoing act of making home wherever one lands. Small businesses become landmarks, and everyday acts of care become blueprints for survival and imagination.

This exhibition embraces play, tenderness, and wonder, inviting artists to approach memory as layered and nonlinear—where past, present, and future coexist. It honors Chicago as a city shaped by Latine communities, connecting generations while imagining expansive futures.

Submissions across all media are welcome, including video, short films, and recorded performances.��
Follow the link to apply: www.ohartfoundation.org/opencall

📸 Image Credits: El Nopal Bakery (Francisco Bonilla Jr.); Perez Family; BoriquenoConSabor (YouTube); Saray Lopez Special thanks to .chicago.archives Additional images courtesy of respective rights holders.

Inquiries - info@ohartfoundation.org

04/08/2026

In Celebration with National Poetry Month
Opportunity for Poets:
City of Joliet Special Events
City of Joliet Special Events
Saturday, April 11, 2026, 6-10PM
Joliet's 3rd Annual National Poetry Month Open Mic
Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Indoor Theatre
201 W Jefferson Street, Joliet, IL 60435

Poets and Musicians Are Welcome - sign-up email below!

That time of year again! This years National Poetry Month Open Mic will feature none other than Chicago’s new Poet Laureate
If you have never seen her work, you have no idea what you’re in for. The melodic verses and cultural depth of her performances captivate audiences far and wide.
, Inaugural Poet Laureate of Joliet and Spoken Word Artist will also be in attendance!

This open mic welcomes performers of poetry and music alike on Bicentennial’s indoor theatre stage.
Early sign-ups are available by emailing writewithuxmar@gmail.com or sign up at the door!

All attendees and performers get a free journal!

Illinois Arts Council

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Monday	8:30am - 5pm
Tuesday	8:30am - 5pm
Wednesday	8:30am - 5pm
Thursday	8:30am - 5pm
Friday	8:30am - 5pm