Awesome Chicago

Miss our Creative Chicago Expo Workshop? Catch it Online!

johnc — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:41:28 +0000

Small Projects, Big Impact

Some creative projects require years of planning, large staffs, and extensive fundraising campaigns. Others don’t – but that doesn’t mean that smaller projects are easy to accomplish or that they are any less important.

On March 2, 2013, John Carnwath and Derek Sherman of The Chicago Awesome Foundation sat down with Janet Attarian (Chicago Department of Transportation), Katherine Darnstadt (Latent Design / Architecture for Humanity Chicago), and Lindsay Obermeyer (The Red Thread Project®) at the Creative Chicago Expo to discuss Small Projects and Big Impacts.

An audio recording of the discussion is now available online. The panelists discuss small-scale projects of various sorts – “small” being defined variously in terms of physical dimension, budget size, duration, or institutional establishment – asking why people do them, how they get funded, what challenges to expect, and what their impact is.

First Chicago Awesome Hour with Live Pitches a Huge Success

johnc — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 02:34:59 +0000

We thought we’d try something new this month, so instead of picking our winner in the smokey backroom of an undisclosed location like we usually do, we invited six finalists to pitch their project proposals to a live audience and let the crowd decide on the winner. All six of the projects were certainly worthy of a thousand-dollar grant, but after hearing all the pitches and engaging in 20 minutes of intense deliberation the dedicated crowd at the Next Door Café rose to the challenge of selecting a single winner for the night.

Two teenagers from Yollocalli Arts Reach, Elizabeth Ortiz & Gilberto Sandoval, delivered an enthusiastic pitch for their “Clean Graffiti” project that won the audience over. The idea is simple, creative, and compelling: they’re going to make stencils, rent a pressure washer, and blast positive messages into the grime of the city’s sidewalks. In doing so they’re flipping the idea of graffiti on its head, replacing the defacement of public property with an act of civil service (cleaning the sidewalks) and turning the negativity of gang tags into encouraging messages. Congratulations to Elizabeth and Gilberto, and a big nod of recognition to Yollocalli for engaging and fostering such promising kids.

Clean Graffiti: positive messages pressure-washed into the grime of the sidewalk.

Thanks to everyone who came out for our first live pitch event and making it such a huge success! More events like this are sure to follow, so keep your eyes peeled for the announcements!

Live Project Pitches at the “Awesome Hour,” April 11!

johnc — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 05:38:37 +0000

The Chicago Awesome Foundation is teaming up with the Next Door Café to bring you the first Awesome Hour of 2013. This a great chance to hear about exciting new projects here in town, meet the awesome folks behind the projects, and help decide who gets $1000 to make their project happen. The event is free and open to the public.

Here’s the deal: Every month, the local chapter of the Awesome Foundation gives $1000 to a project that will make Chicago a more awesome place. However, the foundation’s trustees have come to suspect that some of the applicants have more awesomeness in mind than can be shoehorned into a written project proposal, so they’ve created a more open application process for their April grant: 5 finalists will be invited to pitch their projects live and in person to the crowd at the Awesome Hour with whatever antics, instrumentation, and/or visual props are deemed necessary. The crowd will then decide who gets our $1000 grant for the month.

Space is limted, so please reserve (free) tickets in advance to be a part of the awesomeness!

Can’t make it to the Awesome Hour, but still want to make Chicago a better place? Submit an application online and let us know what you would do with $1000!

Event details:
April 11, 2013, 7-9pm
Next Door Café, 659 W Diversey Pkwy

Expanding the Awesomeness into NW Indiana

johnc — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:23:27 +0000

Alexandra Schindler is an intern at the Dunes Learning Center in Northwest Indiana. She mostly leads interpretive hikes and other educational programs about the biodiverse ecology of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore where the learning center is located, but she saw an additional opportunity to make the place she works more awesome. Despite efforts to limit waste, with up to 70 students plus staff staying in the cabins on site the Center generates a lot of kitchen scraps. So Alex wants to install an appropriately sized composting facility with an adjacent herb garden. Students will then be able to learn about sustainable practices by composting their own food scraps and using the compost to grow fresh herbs which go straight back into the Learning Center’s kitchen! Not only is it awesome that the 5,000 students who visit the Center annually will get a chance to learn about composting and environmental stewardship, but we love how Alex saw a need, devised a response, and went after the funding to make it happen. We think that is awesome and are happy to support her efforts with our February grant.

Creative Chicago Expo, March 1&2

johnc — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 20:56:49 +0000

Since we had such a good time at the Creative Chicago Expo last year, spreading the word about the Awesome Foundation and talking to to folks about their Awesome new project ideas, we’re going back for more! In addition to having vendor booth where people can stop by to talk to our trustees anytime between 10 and 4pm on both days, we’re hosting a panel discussion on Saturday, March 2, at noon about “Small Project, Big Impacts” with some really great panelists (See details below). And as if that wasn’t enough, we’re also going to be announcing the date for our next Awesome Hour – featuring live project pitches this time!– at the Expo.

The Expo is being held on March 1 & 2 at the Chicago Cultural Center (78 E Randolph).

Panel Discussion with The Awesome Foundation
Saturday March 2, noon to 1pm in the GAR Annex of the Chicago Cultural Center

Small Projects, Big Impacts
Some creative projects require years of planning, large staffs, and extensive fundraising campaigns. Others don’t, but that doesn’t mean that smaller projects are easy to accomplish or that they are any less important. This panel discussion addresses small-scale projects of various sorts–”small” being defined variously in terms of physical dimension, budget size, duration, or institutional establishment–asking why people do them, how they get funded, what challenges to expect, and what their impact is.

Panelists:
Janet Attarian (Chicago Department of Transportation)
Janet L. Attarian, AIA, LEED AP is the Project Director for the Chicago Department of Transportation Streetscape and Sustainable Design Program and works to turn Chicago’s streetscapes, riverwalks, bike facilities and pocket parks into great urban places. She has overseen the design and management of over 100 streetscape and urban design projects. Ms. Attarian’s ability to meld the concepts of complete streets and ecological design led to the development of the City’s Sustainable Streets Program and Green Alley Program, and her commitment to community involvement and placemaking lead to the development of the Make Way For People Program.

Katherine Darnstadt (Latent Design/ Architecture for Humanity Chicago)
Katherine Darnstadt is the founder and principal of Latent Design, a collaborative of individuals whose projects focus on social, economic and environmental impact beyond the building. Latent Design brings community-based participatory design to resource limited environments through a holistic, creative approach to design. Since founding her practice in 2010, Katherine and her firm have been recognized as an emerging leader in the architecture profession and have been published, exhibited and featured widely, most notably at the International Venice Biennale, Core 77 Design Awards, Chicago Ideas Week and on NPR. Katherine also co-directs the Chicago Chapter of Architecture for Humanity.

Lindsey Obermeyer (The Red Thread Project®)
Lindsay Obermeyer is an artist, designer, author and educator with a passion for the textile arts. Since 1988, she has been exhibiting her work in galleries and museums around the world. Her art is in the permanent collections of Sweden’s National Public Art Council, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the Racine Art Museum and among others. It has been featured in numerous books, magazines, radio and television programs including a pilot for PBS.

Derek Sherman (The Awesome Foundation)
Derek Sherman is a co-founder of the Chicago Awesome Foundation, a charity dedicated to awarding grants of $1000 to anyone with an idea to make Chicago a little more awesome. These ideas can be serious, quirky, art or science, or none of the above. Derek is SVP/Group Creative Director at Cramer-Krasselt Advertising. His work has been named among the best of the last 25 years by Archive Magazine. His first novel will be published by Penguin in 2013.

The discussion will be moderated by John Carnwath (The Awesome Foundation/Northwestern University).

The Chicago Awesome Foundation Awards January Grant

johnc — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:53:03 +0000

This week the Chicago Awesome Foundation presented its latest grantee, Matt Litwin, with his $1000 cash award with all the pomp and circumstance that has come to be expected of our award ceremonies.

Brightening Up West Garfield Park

johnc — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:34:04 +0000

We’re starting 2013 off strong with an awesome project on the west side of town. 23-year-old Matt Litwin is a mural artist and a resident of West Garfield Park. For those who don’t know, West Garfield Park has the dubious distinction of being the neighborhood with the highest rate of violent crime in all of Chicago, and Matt wants to do something that brightens up people’s day in this community that sorely needs some love. He’s already gotten in touch with several business and property owners in the neighborhood to discuss themes and imagery for the 8 to 10 murals he plans to complete with the $1000 grant from the Awesome Foundation. Matt is also reaching out to community leaders to organize one or two murals that will be completed by kids from the neighborhood.

December Grant Supporting the Chicago Vocational Career Academy

johnc — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:42:57 +0000

We’ve dutifully been handing out cash to awesome projects over the winter months, but we haven’t always been as diligent about announcing the winners here. (Sorry!) Back in December we selected Charity White, the head of the Fine Arts Department at Chicago Vocational Career Academy, as the winner of our $1000 grant. Even if you’re not familiar with the Avalon Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, you may have noticed the colossal building that houses CVCA off to the side of the Skyway. Over the years the building fell into disrepair, but the school is now in its second year as a turnaround school. To continue the positive development at CVCA, Charity wants to put up a mosaic mural that will highlight the strengths of the students’ vocational majors as well as the new STEM program. The mural will be entirely constructed from tile assemblage and ceramic relief sculptures created by Charity’s students. Two of our trustees, Josh Metnick and Jon Dugan, recently met with Charity to award her the grant and were super impressed by the vision and passion she’s bringing to the project. We’re looking forward to seeing the mural when it’s done, and we’re hoping some of Charity’s students will be inspired to submit applications to us to fund their own awesome ideas.

Colossal Fossil Update

johnc — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:41:34 +0000

David Daniels recently sent us an update on his Jurassic Geriatrics project. He’s already taken his fossil collection to three retirement communities since receiving his Awesome Foundation grant and has more visits planned for 2013.

David Daniels showing off his T-Rex jaw bone.

Retiree holding a genuine piece of fossilized dinosaur poop.

Coming next Spring: Wake Up! Waltz!

johnc — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:51:06 +0000

On her daily commute to the Loop, trans-disciplinary performance artist Josie Davis has often looked out over the expanse of flat rooftops on either side of the L and has seen in them a vast empty stage. In May/June 2013, she plans to fill this stage with dancers performing waltzes in eye-catching costumes to greet commuters on their way to work. The innovative performance and vibrant choreography will sweep Chicagoans to their desks with a lighthearted 1-2-3, 1-2-3 in their steps. The Chicago Awesome Foundation is proud to support this project with its November grant.