Beginning April 1, Illinois Art Station will operate as a Town of Normal program.
The youth arts education nonprofit proposed adding the organization to the town’s cultural arts department, donating its land, building and financial assets as part of a long-term sustainability plan. In exchange, Normal assumes the cost and labor of operating the facility for at least the next two decades.
Council members unanimously approved a resolution accepting the donation at their Monday meeting.
Illinois Art Station [IAS] launched in 2016 as an outreach program of Illinois State University. it became an independent nonprofit in 2020 and moved into its Vernon Avenue location in September 2021. In addition to children’s visual art classes and artmaking sessions, Illinois Art Station offers summer camps, community engagement, public programs and an art gallery.
More recently, the facility along Constitution Trail also has been used as a live music venue. And it's a frequent community partner to other nonprofits, sponsoring satellite studios at Uptown's Children’s Discovery Museum and the Project XV Museum in El Paso. They’ve worked with Fulton County Arts and YWCA McLean County on projects aimed at rural arts access and healing from the effects of mass incarceration.
Executive director Hannah Johnson joined the organization in 2022. In an interview, she said the mission of Illinois Art Station can withstand the test of time, but five years is a critical inflection point for nonprofits — even under ordinary circumstances. IAS’s situation was complicated by its commitment to equity and arts access for all who want it.
“We don’t make the dollars that we need to sustain amazing operations and living wages for expert staff off of youth arts education programming that’s pay-what-you-can,” Johnson said.
Some of the details are still being worked out, including the future of the Illinois Arts Station Foundation that will remain in place in the short term, at least through the end of their fiscal year. Johnson will apply to become a Town of Normal employee reporting to Cultural Arts director Beth Whisman, who oversees the town’s cultural portfolio: Normal Theater, Connie Link Amphitheatre and Children’s Discovery Museum, which Whisman also directs.
“It’s really exciting when you have a gift of this caliber handed to the town,” Whisman said. “The mission will continue, the impact will continue, but it will be able to expand.”
With just 2 1/2 permanent employees, nesting under the town’s management means Johnson no longer has to worry about things like landscaping and snow removal. She hopes to direct that capacity toward programs and continuing to build productive relationships — with added support from municipal government.
The council’s unanimous vote and the town’s public art initiatives are encouraging signs, she said, that IAS will be able to express agency over their programs and weather political and bureaucratic storms.
“There is a certain amount of commitment that has been made to the mission of Illinois Art Station as it’s existed,” said Johnson. “That will continue to guide how we program.”
Town officials estimate a $175,000 annual cost to operating Illinois Art Station. The town also agreed to retain the property for community use for the next 70 years. In other words, the town can’t sell it to a developer to build houses on the three-acre plot until 2095.
