SUMMIT TOGETHER: COMMUNITY VOICES SHAPE THE VISION
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Pigment International joins the creative placemaking process in Summit, Illinois
On Saturday, April 25th, the Summit Community Network’s creative placemaking initiative came alive with color, conversation, and community. Approximately 30 Summit residents gathered for a preliminary visioning session — painting, crafting mosaics, and assembling collages that will directly inform the design direction for one of the neighborhood’s most ambitious public art transformations to date.
The session marked Pigment International’s first active participation in the Summit Together Creative Placemaking project, a collaborative initiative led by The Lights On Collective and supported by SGA Youth & Family Services. The eight-month project will revitalize a basketball court, sheltered pavilion, and community garden spaces at Summit’s public library and local park district — weaving fine art, horticulture, and civic identity into the fabric of daily life.
Pigment International’s Phyliss North is leading a team that includes artists Marlon Tobias, Brenda Dickerson and Jeff Koonz. The artistic vision for the beautification effort will encompass three basketball court design concepts, custom backboard and bleacher designs, pavilion plans, decorative planters, mosaic garden ornaments, and public signage. The project is spearheaded by April Ellison Kates of The Lights On Collective and carries a deeply personal dimension — honoring Summit’s Old Timers Club, of which her father was a member. SGA is represented by Daria Amerik and David Delgado.
Saturday’s session was designed to ensure that resident voices shape every brushstroke. Community members — seniors, families, and young people alike — expressed their vision for what these shared spaces should feel like, look like, and mean. Those ideas will be further refined at a follow-up session, with three design concepts presented to the community May 26th–28th.
The artists begin painting in June. But the community has already begun.
LIFE IN COLOR: NEW LIFE COVENANT CHURCH BLESSES ITS FUTURE GALLERY IN GRAND CROSSING
A House Blessing ceremony marks the beginning of a new cultural chapter on Chicago’s South Side
Before a single painting is hung or a sculpture placed, the floor of Life in Color Gallery was already carrying something sacred.
In a ceremony held ahead of the gallery’s anticipated June opening, community members gathered at 7644 S. Greenwood Avenue in Chicago’s Grand Crossing neighborhood to participate in an Art House Blessing — writing prayers and affirmations directly onto the floor before the permanent installation was laid. The gesture was intentional. Pastor John Hannah of New Life Covenant Church, which owns and will operate the gallery, told those assembled that visitors would be standing on the Word.
Pigment International added its own inscription to the floor: a quote by Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall — Make work about things that matter.
The gallery sits directly across the street from New Life Covenant Church Southeast, and the vision animating it is inseparable from the ministry that drives it. Pastor Hannah has long maintained that art is a powerful means of reaching young people, and Life in Color Gallery is an extension of that conviction. His goal is straightforward: to ensure that the youth New Life ministers to have art in their homes.
Pastor Hannah and his wife are themselves serious collectors, with a substantial collection that includes works acquired across Africa. The church has also emerged as a steward of public art — in October 2024, New Life unveiled “The Movement,” a 13-foot sculpture by Nigerian-born artist Abiola, described as a symbol of progress, unity, resilience and joy, and now among the largest outdoor sculptures in Chicago.
The gallery property itself is a three-story building with a basement slated for classes, a loft, and outdoor space that will feature both permanent and temporary murals. The space is designed to function not only as an exhibition venue but as a neighborhood gathering place — accessible to the community for events and programming.
Daniel Hayes is Director of the project and Kinidee Lanier is Assistant Director and interior designer of the space.
Life in Color Gallery is a declaration — written in community, floor to ceiling — that art belongs to the people of Grand Crossing.
Follow Life in Color Gallery on Instagram: @lifeincolorartgallery for details on the opening.
SALOME JAFFE IS THE PEOPLE’S ARTIST (Pics in drive)
Artist Salome Jaffe enters a new phase of public engagement with her participation in The People’s Artist Award, an initiative led by Johnny Depp in collaboration with The Art of Elysium and Artforum. Distinct from traditional juried competitions, the award is determined entirely by public vote, positioning audience mobilization as the decisive factor in an artist’s advancement.
Jaffe’s work stands apart for its materially driven process — one rooted in chemistry as much as aesthetics. Working with acid, fire, and metal, she orchestrates controlled chemical reactions that yield richly textured surfaces. The rusted patinas that define her pieces are not applied but emerge through oxidation, shaped by variables such as humidity, temperature, and pH levels. This reliance on environmental conditions makes her practice experimental, requiring a carefully controlled studio setting to achieve consistent results.
