Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynn Basa.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Born in Pittsburgh, raised in the country outside of Bloomington, Indiana with horses and dogs, moved to Seattle to go to grad school and stayed for a while. I moved to Chicago in 2002 because I wanted to live in a real city. I think that being born in Pittsburgh imprinted rust-belt cities on me. No place else feels as much like home to me as Chicago. I keep waiting to get tired of it, but this city gives me joy — even when it snows in the middle of April like it is today!
I’ve been an artist the whole time. Out of grad school I supported myself as a curator and arts administrator while continuing to develop my studio and public art practice. Eventually it got to the point where I was actually losing opportunities for my artwork by working for someone else. So, I quit my day job, dream job as it was as the director of the art program at the University of Washington Medical Center and took the leap to become a full-time artist in 1999 and never looked back. I’ve “gone feral” as a friend of mine said.
Please tell us about your art.
My art practice is complicated to explain, even for me. It consists of painting (encaustic abstracts), site-specific public art installations around the country, and The Corner Project. The Corner Project grew out of the gallery space I ran out of the corner storefront of my studio on Milwaukee Avenue in Avondale. It began in 2014 as my MFA thesis project based on John Dewey’s “Art as Experience.” My idea was that if I created residencies for artists whose work was experiential and related to everyday life that it would draw in people from the neighborhood.
I built it but they did not come. Despite every effort by gallery director Grace Needlman who curated immersive installations by artists such as Edra Soto, Katie Vota, Kelly Lloyd, and Dana Major, the art community turned out in droves (thank you!), but not the people who walked by every day. The biggest response we got was from projects that took place out on the street such as the Frankentoy Mobile, Kimmy Noonen’s project where she invited people to live in full-view inside the storefront two days at a time and host dinner parties and, Art Girl (Susan Kruger-Barber) who did a series of tactical urbanism projects with piñatas to make the crosswalk safer.
But it all worked out okay because it made me understand that it wasn’t that my neighbors weren’t interested in art, it’s that what I was doing wasn’t as relevant to them as it could be. In response, I started The Corner Project. I looked for what I can do about what needs to be done right outside my front door on three blocks of Milwaukee Avenue between Diversey and Central Park. What I saw when I put on my artist and critical-thinking goggles, was three blocks of a fairly well-preserved, 100-year old traditional, immigrant working-class main street in Avondale, the “neighborhood that built Chicago.”
I saw the mom-and-pops dying or retiring and their stores sitting vacant and deteriorating, even though we’re supposedly the “next hot neighborhood.” I felt like if I could use what I’ve got to offer as an artist to connect people to each other and to these three blocks that we share, we could start understanding this street as an ecosystem, rather than a bunch of old buildings that happen to be next to each other; that change isn’t something that just happens to us, but that it can be done by us.
Right now, The Corner Project is in its first phase, research and relationship building. I’m working with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, Logan Square Preservation, Avondale Neighborhood Association, Alderman Carlos Rosa, and numerous individual residents, business and cultural leaders to connect us to opportunities that address all aspects of livability on our street.
The next phase, which we’re starting now, involves quick-start low-cost projects. While these artworks are going to look innocently folksy and homemade, they’re an important first step of a powerful strategy to build community unity and identity to prepare us to tackle issues like disinvestment and displacement, safety and walkability.
Meanwhile, I’m also busy in my studio making paintings and working on public art commissions around the country. I’m in a show at Stuart & Co curated by Robin Dluzen, and about to install work at the Hyde Park Art Center in a group show curated by Mike Nourse and Allison Peters Quinn. Any day now I’ll be working with my team to install a sculpture based on the Chicago workers cottage at the intersection of Milwaukee and Wood sponsored by the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce.
Like I said, my practice is a little complicated to explain. Sometimes I wish I could just say, “I’m a painter.”
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
Wherever you are, whatever your practice, look outside of your studio and ask yourself, “What can I do with who I am and what I have to make my community a better place?” You will be surprised to find out how much you actually have to offer and how much of a difference you can make. Artists have a unique set of skills, agency, access, and privilege that can be of much more use to society than we’ve been led to think.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Current exhibitions:
Images on File:
Group Show Curated by Robin Dluzen
April 7 – May 19, 2018
Stuart & Co.
2250 W. Ohio St.
Chicago, IL
by appointment
312.487.1850
info@stuartandco.com
Fugitive Narratives
Curated by Mike Nourse and Allison Peters Quinn
April 22 – August 5, 2018
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell
Chicago, IL
MON – TH 9AM – 8PM // FRI & SAT 9AM – 5PM // SUN 12PM – 5PM
The Dangerous Professors
Curated by Ruslana Lichtzier
May 3 – May 27, 2018
Flatland Gallery
1709 Westheimer Road
Houston, Texas
MON-SUN 8AM – 11PM
Public art commissions in progress:
Chicago: Milwaukee Ave. and Wood Street, sculpture, Fall 2018
Baltimore: Purple Line, College Park station, sculpture, Spring 2020
Iowa City: University of Iowa Brain Sciences, mosaic, Spring 2019
Oro Valley, AZ: Nakoma Sky, mosaic, Spring 2019
Portland, OR: Multnomah County Courthouse, mosaic, Spring 2020
Contact Info:
- Address: 2912 N. Milwaukee (storefront)
Chicago, IL 60618 - Website: www.lynnbasa.com
- Email: lynnbasa@lynnbasa.com
- Instagram: @lynn.basa
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CornerChicago/
- Other: www.cornerchicago.com
Image Credit:
Doug vanderHoof, Tom Van Eynde, David Bader, James Prinz
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