A new art exhibition opening at the McLean County Arts Center this week commemorates the United States' 250th birthday by reflecting on history and memory, who is American — and who gets to decide.
It's a joint collaboration between the arts center and the McLean County Museum of History called A More Perfect Union, a collection of contributed pieces by local artists responding to probing questions about the history of the country.
McLean County Museum of History Executive Director Julie Emig said there were two sources for inspiration for A More Perfect Union.
One: the exhibition runs alongside other America250 initiatives taking place across the country to mark the Semiquincentennial.
The other is the American Association for State and Local History.
“They do history right,” Emig said. “As in, let’s get the methodology right, let’s get the inclusivity right, as well as honoring very diverse renderings of past events.”
Many museums, including the McLean County Museum of History, continue to grapple with the role they played presenting history in what Emig described as a “very monochrome way.”
White-walled art galleries, too, have sought to unwind their own baggage regarding who is invited in.
McLean County Arts Center Executive Director Doug Johnson said despite both institutions’ efforts to welcome diverse perspectives, tackling a topic as complex as American history in a single exhibition is — tricky.
Concepts of “America” are both collective and individual, informed by personal experiences and lenses, what we've been told and taught — and what we choose to remember.
“Frankly that was one of the challenges of this exhibition,” Johnson said. “A lot of people thought if it’s an America250 show, that it must somehow be in league with the current administration.”
America250 is a national nonpartisan organization organized by Congress, not the same as Freedom 250. The latter is an initiative of President Trump's, behind the recent UFC fight on the White House lawn, for example, and the Great American State Fair at the National Mall.
Mistaking the two isn't unusual. Musical artists slated to perform in the president’s state fair like Martina McBride, Young MC, the Commodores and the living half of Milli Vanilli have pulled out. Some said they initially though it was nonpartisan, a “Go America” type event. Six states, including Illinois, have also declined to participate in any official capacity.
Meanwhile in Bloomington-Normal, Johnson said concerns about A More Perfect Union came in from all sides of the political spectrum.
“We received several complaints from people that were anxious about us representing a whitewashed version of American history,” he said.
Others worried the show would merely be a Democratic rebuke of President Trump.
“There’s so much divisiveness,” said Emig. “We wanted to receive submissions from kids in schools, locally, and we reached out to all of the art teachers.”
They envisioned a collage of kid-created pieces accompanying the exhibition, posing the question of what it means to be an American to the younger generation.
It's not happening.
“Immediately, teachers expressed concern because of what was happening with immigration in this country,” Emig said, with teachers noting many of their students are immigrants, some undocumented.
For Bloomington photographer David Proeber, the tension around immigration was exactly the spark for his submission to the exhibition.
“The question that I grappled with: Who is a ‘proper’ U.S. citizen, or who can become a ‘proper’ U.S. citizen?” he said.
Proeber's large-scale photo collage combines a backdrop of No Kings protests and recent uprisings railing against the current administration's immigration raids. Next to them are portraits of a president. Two, actually: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
After all, they deported more people than President Trump has. They just did it more quietly.
“It’s interesting to look at the writings of Washington and Madison, and Jefferson and Franklin,” Proeber said. “They were all for open immigration. They had a large country that was really sparsely populated at that time, and they wanted to see more people here.”
At some point, Proeber said, America lost sight of that, with a critical mass now characterizing the “ideal immigrant” as white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.
“It’s really disappointing that we’ve backslid from what the original thinking was about who immigrants could be in this country,” he said.
A history in contrast
For his submission to A More Perfect Union, Dave Buxton from Normal painted a replica of a World War II photograph. Buxton's brother-in-law, Eric, gave him the image of 10 service members posed in front of their plane before heading out on a mission. Eric's grandfather was the plane's bombardier.
“Of the 10 guys I painted, only two of them came home,” he said.
While it's a conventionally patriotic image, Buxton said while painting it, he thought about the contrasts of the war.
There were positives:
“It brought us out of the Great Depression. We were able to defeat fascism. And because of the demands of the war, it did create opportunities for minorities and women to work in the defense industry — and I think paved the way for the civil rights and women’s rights movements that happened later on,” Buxton said.
But also, he said, the troops were segregated. Japanese Americans and others were placed in internment camps on American soil. Buxton said those contrasts are the history of America.
“I love my country,” he said. “I think over the course of time of these 250 years, we’ve generally been a force for good in the world. But, we have these things we’ve had to work on.”
The big picture
Cathie Haab from Hudson has done art since grade school. She even took a few college classes.
“And then I got busy with all my family and working years,” she said.
That includes 14 years working for the Bloomington elections board. Haab said the prompts may have discouraged some artists from submitting.
“It was challenging,” she said. “It really made you think.”
She was drawn to the one about revolutionary moments, drawing inspiration from emancipation.
“I really have an attachment to [Abraham] Lincoln,” she said. “To me, it’s so interesting to read the early history of McLean County.”
Haab and Robbi Muir of Bloomington said they kept “the big picture” in mind when creating their pieces, choosing to focus on positive moments in the country’s history, while, like Paxton and Proeber, not ignoring the challenges.
Muir spent her career at State Farm, but said she's been an artist her whole life.
“As I retired and had more time, it’s like I’m coming back to life,” she said.
Muir typically paints watercolors. To meet the deadline for A More Perfect Union, she made a collage. It centers the Statue of Liberty beside prominent changemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Harriet Tubman. She knows not all of them are perfect. Muir said American progress is just that: progress. We’re all aiming for a more perfect union, so to speak.
“I think you can be a patriot and be a questioner,” she said. “You’re wanting your country to be better.”
Muir said that’s a sentiment that doesn’t have to align with any political party. It’s one she learned a long time ago as a student in Peter Parmantie’s class at University High School in Normal.
“[He] had us read all these books, literature, over the years, that questioned things and helped you think of the big picture,” Muir said. “We want to be doing that for each other, all the time.”
A More Perfect Union runs through July 31 at the McLean County Arts Center, 601 N. East St. An opening reception takes place on Friday, June 19, from 5-7 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public whenever the arts center is open. More America250 programming by the McLean County Museum of History is listed at mchistory.org/250.
