BRIEFLY

ART FOR POLITICS' SAKE
Arts Council budget hits record, thanks to politicians' pet projects

On the surface, the Illinois Arts Council's budget soared to record heights this year. In reality, the agency says, the majority of that boost — about $6.4 million — went to politicians' pet projects. In all, eight projects were funded by the legislature, skirting the Arts Council's process of awarding grants through a competitive, peer review procedure. And though the funding procedure was not unusual, the amount of money funneled by lawmakers to projects through the Arts Council is the highest ever, according to council officials. Moreover, some projects were not even related to the arts.

For example, the Illinois Humanities Council, a not-for-profit organization that develops programs and grants to support public understanding of the humanities, received $345,900. That money, says the council's executive director Kristina Valaitis, will go toward several programs, including a living history theater program, a traveling speaker's bureau and summer seminars for K-12 teachers.

The Robert Crown Health and Science Center in Hinsdale received $200,000 for general operating purposes, says the center's president John Zaremba. The center, a not-for-profit organization, is a health education facility for school groups. The remaining millions went to six other projects, all but one in Chicago and all arts-related. "That $6.375 million equals our total grant budget, which serves 1,100 arts organizations and artists statewide," says Kassie Davis, the Illinois Arts Council's executive director. "Our grants are determined by expert peer review panels. When organizations are given grants through line items, they don't apply and nothing is evaluated or reviewed." So, Davis says, to get a true sense of the arts council's budget, look at the base figure. At $7.2 million, it's up $3 million this fiscal year, but still about $2.7 million shy of what it was in fiscal year 1991.

"Every state agency took a hit in the early '90s when we were dealing with the recession and the state's deficit, but most agencies have gone back up. The arts council hasn't," says Davis.

Last fiscal year, Illinois spent 63 cents per person on the arts compared to the national average of $ 1.02.
Jennifer Davis

Tully gets its due

The Tully Monster, a soft- bodied marine animal that lived 280 to 340 million years ago, was designated the state fossil in 1989.Francis J. Tully, a Joliet farmer who collected fossils, discovered an impression of the Tully Monster in 1955. Since then, more than 100 specimens of the as-yet-unidentified animal, between two and 12 inches in length, have been found in Grundy, Kankakee, Will and Fulton counties. Mazon Creek, which winds through Grundy and Fulton counties, is a rich storehouse of fossils, including the Tully Monster. Now Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, which manages the protected fossil preserve area, has published Richardson's Guide to the Fossil Fauna of Mazon Creek, the first comprehensive account of the variety of fossils found there. Edited by Northeastern professor Charles Shabica and associate project curator Andrew A. Hay, the guidebook features experts on the various aspects of fossil life. Shabica initiated the Mazon Creek Project in 1983 to continue the work of Eugene S. Richardson, a former curator of paleontology at Chicago's Field Museum. Richardson, who identified many of the fossils found at the site, envisioned a book that would share the vast findings from the ancient coastal delta.

Beverley Scobell

8/ December 1997 Illinois Issues

ART HISTORY
Collector seeks to fill gap with book on 19th century Illinois artists

Ernest Martin Hennings wasn't born here and didn't die here, yet this 19th century painter has a place in Illinois' art history. That place will soon be detailed in A History of Illinois Painters, 1850-1950, an upcoming reference book featuring more than 1,200 Illinois artists from that period.

Chicago at the River by Ernest Martin Hennings (1886-1956)

Joel Dryer, an art lover and collector, has devoted the past four years to researching Illinois artists born before 1900. He's tracked down surviving family members, unearthed scrapbooks and scoured public records. "I've run through all the material out there," says Dryer, whose quest began when he started collecting paintings by Illinois artists done between 1880 and 1930. "I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of information available on the artists themselves." Hennings, for one. Several biographical dictionaries list Hennings, but few give details about his life. For example, it was Chicago art patron and then-Mayor Carter Harrison who convinced Hennings to go to Taos, N.M. Hennings is known for his Western and Indian-inspired art. Lauren Lessing, a reference librarian at the Ryerson and Burnham libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago, notes there are reference works available now. Esther Sparks' A Biographical Dictionary of Painters and Sculptors in Illinois, 1808-1945 was published in 1971. Artists of Illinois, published two years ago, indexes contemporary artists.

A catalog of other reference sources is available through the Art Institute's web page at http://www.artic.edu.

Dryer can also be reached on the Internet at http://www.enter-act.com/~illart/.
Jennifer Davis

Women writers mark 25 years
Two and a half decades ago, encouraging women's literary expression seemed like a radical idea, even to the writers themselves, So say the members of Brainchild Writers of Springfield in their new collection of prose and poetry. But Brainchild is now 25 years old. And Springfield's longest running writers group marked the event by publishingAll the Women Were Heroes, an anthology of writing by the group's past and current members.

Among the contributors are University of Illinois at Springfield faculty Jacqueline Jackson and Maria Mootry, UIS staff members Tavia Ervin and Marty McGill, Illinois Issues editorial assistant Debi Edmund, former associate editor Peg Knoepfle and contributor Sandra Olivetti Martin.

The anthology was funded in part by a grant from the Springfield Area Arts Council, the Illinois Arts Council and First National Bank. It was published by Rosehill Press in Springfield.
The Editors

Illinois Issues December 1997 /9

BRIEFLY

From the dust

Sculpture to rise from bricks of demolished housing

Representing both a tribute to the past and a gesture toward the future, a sundial sculpture will be created from bricks retrieved from the demolition of Springfield's John Hay Homes public housing (see Illinois Issues, November, page 20). Withrow School children, who are enrolled in the Safe Haven after- school program, will create the sculpture with direction provided by Safe Haven Director Irma Lott and Judy Spencer, a free-lance photographer for Illinois Issues and one of Safe Haven's volunteer art coordinators. A well-known Springfield sculptor, Fred Schaper, is an adviser to the project.

Children of the Sun: A student and staff at Safe Haven depict a sundial. The finished project will include sculpted figures.

"The sundial will be a tribute to the families that lived and thrived at the Hay Homes," Spencer says. "It is an elaboration of the good things the Homes offered to the community." And there were good times. When the Hay Homes housing project was created in Springfield in 1939, it was one of the first public housing projects built in Illinois. Spencer says you can ask any former resident about the early days; they have many good stories to relay. It was not until the 1970s that the atmosphere of public housing began to change. By razing the structures, the hope is that a community — not just housing — will rise from the dust. "Let this sculpture be a springboard for all the good things to come," Spencer says. The sculpture design, developed by schoolchildren, depicts a man, a woman and a child holding hands. Spencer photographed models in various poses representing that idea. After reviewing the final design, Schaper suggested making the sculpture a sundial.

The Hay Homes' bricks (with asbestosremoved) will be ground to a powder and mixed with the concrete used in the sculpture. Pending school district approval, the sculpture will be located at Withrow Early Childhood Center located on the city's East Side.

Spencer says the sculpture is based on the approach to art followed by Mose Tolliver, Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Thornton Dial, all self-taught African- American folk artists and sculptors who use already existing materials to create art "from the soul."

Coordinators say the work will begin in the spring when the weather is more pleasant for outdoor work and daylight hours are longer.
Linda Classen Anderson

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH Visit a famous gallery, exhibit your own etchings Do you have a desire to exhibit your artwork in a real gallery? Want to chat with other artists? Care to visit the Louvre but you don't have enough frequent flyer miles? Head for the web, where a wide world of art and artistic opportunities awaits. Those surfing the WWW for art or artists would be wise to start at The Art Stand, located at http://www.aloha.net/~johnp/ylpg.html. The site is comprehensive and fun. It contains a directory of artists, resources for art teachers and students, art lessons and crafts, online tutorials, interactive art and a page where Kids Rule! The Interactive Art page is worth a visit itself because it contains such links as "Ask the Artist"; an art chat; a Real-time Gallery where you can browse, upload and critique works of art; classified ads; and a Paint online page that invites you to "Java paint your masterpiece." It provides the tools, and promises to display the best art in its online gallery. The Kids Rule page offers links to art activities, the performing arts, dance, young artists, music, cartoons, sculpture, books, painting and stories. In the activities section, kids can visit Dodo Land in Cyberspace, the Electric Origami Shop, which promises "neat images and shapes from IBM technology," a Global Show-n-Tell Museum containing works by kids from toddlers to teens. And they can get a holography lesson and learn How to Cloud Watch. It's a blast for kids (and fun for adults as well). Donald Sevener

10/ December 1997 Illinois Issues

FALL SESSION CHECKLIST

Lawmakers deregulate electric utilities,tighten rules on state contracts and hog farms

Illinois' nine investor-owned power companies will be forced into a fully competitive marketplace in the next decade under legislation sent to the governor's desk. Utility deregulation will be phased in beginning next year if Gov. Jim Edgar signs the plan.

Under the agreement, residential customers of Chicago-based Common- wealth Edison and Illinois Power Co. of Decatur should see their prices go down next winter. Residential rates would drop 15 percent August 1 and another 5 percent in 2002. ComEd and IP, the state's two largest utilities, charge the highest residential prices. In 1995, ComEd's cost per kilowatt hour was 11.39 cents. IP's was 10.10 cents. The Midwest average was 7.77. (See Illinois Issues, October, page 24.)

Peoria-based Central Illinois Light Co. will phase in a 5 percent residential rate cut over three years. At 7.10 cents per kilowatt hour, CILCO's residential customers already pay below the Midwest average. Other investor-owned utilities will drop their residential rates 5 percent next year. Residential customers of investor-owned utilities could begin shopping for power in 2002. Industrial and large business customers could begin shopping as early as 1999. However, all customers would have to pay a "transition fee" for the privilege of switching. Under the plan, those fees will be eliminated in 2006.

State agencies and universities face more extensive purchasing oversight under ethics reforms sent to Edgar. If the governor agrees, most contracts, and changes in contracts, will be open to competition. Exceptions will include supplies that cost less than $10,000, construction projects that run less than $30,000, sole source items and emergency purchases. The measure creates a five-member board to review and recommend procurement rules for the Department of Transportation, Central Management Services, the Capital Development Board and all state universities.

Rep. Jeffrey Schoenberg, an Evanston Democrat who has pushed for the changes for years, called the vote "nothing short of the Cubs winning the pennant, I tell you."

Hog farm opponents gained some ground. Lawmakers sent the governor a measure requiring the Department of Agriculture to conduct regular inspections of the larger operations. It also requires reporting of waste spills within 24 hours of discovery, and notification of county boards when operations plan to build or modify an earthen waste lagoon.

Lawmakers also:
• banned most "partial birth" abortions after agreeing to Edgar's change eliminating a provision allowing biological fathers to sue;

• established a maximum $500 tax credit for families that send their children to nonpublic schools;

• boosted their own office allowances by $10,000.
Jennifer Davis

Illinois Issues December 1997 /11