credit: Tom Harris Photography
Public Programs Registration
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) hosts programs for the North Lawndale community in the 12th-floor classroom at Nichols Tower in Homan Square. We offer free classes, workshops, and events in a variety of art genres for adults (ages 18+), youth (ages 14-18), and intergenerational groups (ages 13 and up; children ages 12 and under are welcome to attend with an adult).
Our workshops are often led by local art instructors and provide participants with the opportunity to learn a specific art skill or technique.
Sign Up for Classes Today
2025 Spring Arts Club
Date(s): Every Thursday, September 16–March 2025
Time: 3:30–5:30 p.m.
Teen Arts Club
Join us for Teen Arts Club (youth 13-18) at SAIC Homan Square with teaching artist Brittany Harthan.
Enjoy free and fun art-making workshops, explore, relax, and work on personal art projects using a wide variety of art materials.
Brittany will be in the studio to offer art demonstrations in crafting, photography, fashion, building, drawing, and painting with a variety of materials.
November Makers Meetup
Find Your Focus with Fall Flowers!
The workshop will build connections by looking at what inspires lasting creative communities through guided goal setting, crafting, and painting.
Meet up with other artists and Westside creatives, and explore creativity and important conversations while enjoying refreshments.
Time: Wednesday, November 13, 6–8 p.m.
Address: 906 South Homan Avenue, 12th Floor
For questions, please contact us at homansquare@saic.edu or artwestchicago@gmail.com.
Our Makers Meetups are designed to experience painting, crafting, and making connections. Alexie Young will lead an exploratory art-making and networking gathering using design prompts and questions for deep conversations that inspire. Alexie uses a holistic strategy using art to relax, “dump the stress,” and reflect by giving power to questions, with no pressure to have the answers when painting what comes to mind. She creates space to capture what is coming through with mindfulness.
Art From the Garden
Adult and family art sessions to make and share, while learning about activating the creation of a Sukkah for the teen garden: by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Douglass Library, and the Sukkah Design Festival.
Be inspired by the garden and all its gifts from food to flowers, and learn how to use plants and flowers pressing and pounding to make designs on paper and scarves. Then expand to art-making using old recipe cards using printmaking, and collages. Taught by Brittany Harthan and Shonna Pryor.
Thursday, August 22, 6–7:30 p.m.
Thursday, August 29, 6–7:30 p.m.
Along with a special Children's Art Workshop:
Thursday, September 5, 3:30–5 p.m.
The workshops are all free and all supplies are included.
The LostAndFound Family Reunion Film Screenings
Date(s): Saturdays, July 6–July20
Time: 11:00 a.m.– 2:00 p.m.
The LostAndFound Family Reunion Project will lead the resident participants of Lawndale on a journey that deep dives into ancestral roots to recover lost bloodline relatives and their legacies. The project is inspired by the docuseries Finding Your Roots by Henry Louis Gates as well as the story of the Bruce Beach heirs in California. The project will have multiple programming components, starting with film screenings.
July 6: Finding Your Roots by Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.
July 13: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by George C. Wolfe
July 20: The Cost of Inheritance by Yoruba Richen (PBS)
The LostAndFound Family Reunion Workshop
Date(s): Saturdays, July 27-August 24
Time: 11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
The LostAndFound Family Reunion Project will lead the resident participants of Lawndale on a journey that deep dives into ancestral roots to recover lost bloodline relatives and their legacies. The project is inspired by the docuseries Finding Your Roots by Henry Louis Gates as well as the story of the Bruce Beach heirs in California. The project will have multiple programming components:
Mining: Mining is gathering genealogical information using various platforms such as The National Archives and the Bristol English Project to find family histories.
Art making: The creation of silkscreen t-shirts with individual customized ancestor information and/or photo image transfer under "The LostAndFound Family Reunion" heading. 2D printmedia art-making that features mining.
Mining: July 27, August 3, & August 10
Art Making: August 17 & August 24
The LostAndFound Family Reunion BBQ
Date: Saturday, August 31
Time: 11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
The LostAndFound Family Reunion Project will lead the resident participants of Lawndale on a journey that deep dives into ancestral roots to recover lost bloodline relatives and their legacies. The project is inspired by the docuseries Finding Your Roots by Henry Louis Gates as well as the story of the Bruce Beach heirs in California. Closing of the residency will culminate in an event which includes a LostAndFound Family reunion outdoor BBQ (we’ll be wearing our respective family t-shirts creations!), immediately followed by an outdoor spoken word gathering.