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Arts of Life

A collective space for artists with ID/D to expand their practice & strengthen their leadership. Non-Profit Arts Community

09/03/2026

We hope you can join us at our next Circle Contemporary exposition, Walking on an Airy Road, guest curated by Anna Kunz and Carie Lassman

The show brings together artists whose practices share a common thread – an engagement with material exploration and a free, gerund, process-oriented approach to finding and making simultaneously. The exhibition frames this through the lens of “flow state” as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: the absorbed, generative condition that emerges when a practice is fully inhabited.

Anna Kunz Anna Kunz received an MFA from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Kunz participated as an artist-in-residence in the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, and the Monira Foundation at Mana Contemporary, New Jersey. He work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in the public collections. Recent nominations include The Joan Mitchell Foundation and Anonymous was a Woman. Kunz lives and works in Buchanan, Michigan.
Carie Lassman is a Chicago-based painter consumed by color relationships, line, and surface history. Her work hovers somewhere between abstraction and representation—suggestions of landscapes, architecture, plaid—exploring how physical and emotional structures can both support and constrain, where messy personal histories are caught within structural systems. Each painting is a physical record of its own making

Opening Reception: October 2, 2026 5:00 – 8:00 pm

09/02/2026

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!

Don’t miss our biggest fundraising event of the year. Our annual Benefit Auction takes place at Venue West in just a few weeks! Join us on Saturday, September 19th for a Cosmic Rodeo themed party. Bring home original artwork and prizes while supporting artists with disabilities.

TICKET LINK https://artsoflife.org/event/cosmicrodeo/

09/01/2026

Join us Tuesday, October 6th from 6-9PM, for the opening of People Who Do Wrong to Other People Burn in Hell. Guest curated by Fabulous and Zander Raymond Zander Raymond

FEATURED ARTISTS:
Candace Turner – Deaudre Steele – Tim Stone – Isamu Guy Conners – Marvin Young – Richard Auth

ABOUT:
Zander Raymond is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and curator living and working in Chicago, IL. In his visual work, he improvises with found materials from his day to day to make collages and sculptures that serve as an autobiographical record of experience while pointing toward the unseen. His music is similarly rooted in improvisation, utilizing synthesizers, field recorders, and open-source sound computers to sample, warp, and build sonic images that embrace serendipity and highlight the musicality of the ordinary. In early 2026 he started a curatorial project called fabulous, which primarily is operated out of his apartment. Past Projects have been hosted by Regards (Chicago, IL), Devening Projects (Chicago, IL), Weatherproof (Chicago, IL), Switch Hook Projects (Chicago, IL), and Agatha’s (Buffalo, NY). He’s released music on Love All Day, Moon Glyph, Florabelle, Cached.media, among others. He holds a BFA in studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

WHEN:
Opening Reception:
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026
6:00 – 9:00 PM CST

WHERE:
Lula Cafe
2537 N. Kedzie
Chicago, IL 60647

08/26/2026

Lewis Sandoboe’s playful and distinctive drawings turn everyday visual references into something entirely his own. Drawing from years of watching television commercials, news clips, and other pieces of Chicago pop culture, Lewis brings familiar logos and characters back into focus through bold color, energetic lines, and a unique sense of rhythm. His work invites us to look again at the logos and symbols we may recognize and experience them in an unexpected way.

08/21/2026

Arts of Life is thrilled to participate in Art Enables 20th annual exhibition of work by self-taught artists, Outside Forces, in Washington DC! The exhibition will feature pieces by Arts of Life artists Laura Greenberg, Bobby Nafisi, and Angel Sanders, alongside contributions from independent artists and art studios nationwide.

Participating Studios and Independent Artists: Art Enables, Art Explorers, Artists First, Arts of Life (South Side), Arts of Life (North Shore), Center for Creative Works, Community Access Art Collective, Creative Citizen Studios, Creativity Explored, ECF Art Centers, Fresh Eye Arts, Imagine That!, Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts, Make Studio, North Pole Studio, PASC, Project Onward, Pure Vision Arts, SAGE Studio & Gallery, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, Spindleworks, Starlight Studio and Art Gallery, Studio IN-Sight, Tierra del Sol Gallery, VaultArt Studio, Vibrant Palette Arts Center, VisAbility Art Lab, Visionaries + Voices, Avantika, Electra B, Charles Drakeford, Muskanpreet Kaur, Cazoshay Marie, shurjo mukhi, Andrew Wohl

WHEN:
August 22 - October 17
Gallery hours: Monday – Saturday, 10AM – 4PM

Opening reception: Saturday, September 12, 5PM – 7PM

WHERE:
Art Enables
2204 Rhode Island Ave NE
Washington DC, DC 20018

08/18/2026

Anne Skaug, West Town Studio Coordinator, describes Arts of Life as an inclusive professional environment where “you are very much allowed to be yourself and have whatever quirks or interests or idiosyncrasies that you want.”

Anne always knew she wanted to work in the arts and pursue a meaningful career in which she could be of service to others. She first learned about Arts of Life when a guest artist visited her graduate studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After discussing Anne’s artwork and professional goals, the visiting artist brought her attention to the blooming careers of artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) at progressive art studios across the country. The visiting artist turned out to be Vincent Uribe, Head of Art Partnerships and Events, and the rest is history.

Now, Anne plays an integral role at Arts of Life, ensuring that day-to-day studio operations run equitably and efficiently. From working one-on-one with artists, to supporting group field trips, to creating daily schedules, Anne’s knack for logistics and relationship building helps her juggle many moving parts with grace.

Within her own art practice, Anne is interested in the interrelationships between materials. She combines materials such as textiles, plaster, concrete, metal, and encaustic in an experimental fashion, resulting in a deeply satisfying combination of texture and tone. For the last year and a half, Anne’s practice has centered around brocade, a decorative upholstery fabric found in her childhood home. The familiar is often familial, and Anne gravitates towards the use of brocade as an inherited aesthetic taste. Read the full Article via link in here -> https://artsoflife.org/staff-spotlight-anne-skaug/

08/13/2026

Thank you to everyone that came out to the opening of Death Magic curated by R.M. Pfeiffer, It was a blast! If you couldn’t attend, the exhibition runs through September 25th, 2026, set up an appointment today to mark your spot!

***Special thanks to the Intuit Art Museum, John Corbett and The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, without whose generous support this exhibition would not have been made possible.
 Featured Artists: Ron Athey, Marquis Von Bayros, Rachael Bos, Jamie Fletcher, Danny Frownfelter, Norbet Kox, Bill Lilly, Monika Plioplyte, Sun Ra, Philipp Schöpke, Jon Serl, Bronislaw “Bruno” Sowa, Maria Vanik, Jean Wilson, and Albert Zahn.

About:
Pray, carve, bleed, sing. Insist that to look death in the face, ritually and repeatedly, is how one kisses life on the lips. This is magic understood plainly: not sleight of hand, but the discipline of transformation, and religion in its most degraded form.

The sacred, in this view, is not piety but rupture: sacrifice, ecstasy, laughter, daemonic entities, and the co**se. Death here is not simply a subject but a method. Art becomes the site where the restricted economy of production and survival is deliberately breached, where a sovereign act of wasting oneself – bleeding, praying, dancing, carving toward no useful end – recovers a continuity between beings that ordinary, bounded selfhood forecloses. The works gathered here stage exactly this breach: each refuses the discreteness the self is supposed to maintain, offering itself instead as a willful expenditure, a controlled burn of the prairie’s boundary – on the border where the living meet the dead. (Read more on Arts of Life’s event links)

Exhibition Duration: August 7- September 25, 2026  WHERE: Circle Contemporary - West Town 2010 W. Carroll Ave Chicago, IL 60612

 Kinsey Institute  Intuit Art Museum  Corbett vs. Dempsey Rebecca Fasman sick nchutzenhofer
Circle Contemporary

08/11/2026

Thank you everyone who showed up, cheered, marched along side of us and watched Van GoGo perform during this year’s Chicago Disability Pride parade! We had so much fun sharing and celebrating our pride with you!

Check out some photo highlights from the parade.

The Chicago Disability Pride Parade
Self Advocacy Group at Arts of Life

08/06/2026

Check out this wonderful install!!! We’re almost ready! DEATH MAGIC, curated by Ryan M. Pfeiffer, opens this Friday 8/7. Stop by the opening reception at Circle Contemporary from 5-8pm.

FEATURED ARTISTS:
Ron Athey – Marquis Von Bayros – Rachael Bos – Jamie Fletcher – Danny Frownfelter – Norbet Kox – Bill Lilly – Monika Plioplyte – Philipp Schopke – Jon Serl – Bronislaw “Bruno” Sowa – Maria Vanik – Jean Wilson – Albert Zahn - Sun Ra

WHEN:
Opening Reception:
August 7, 2026
5:00 – 8:00 pm

Exhibition Duration: August 7- September 25, 2026

WHERE:
Circle Contemporary - West Town
2010 W. Carroll Ave
Chicago, IL 60612

08/05/2026

🤠 Annual Benefit Auction & Dance Party EARLY BIRD BUNDLE DEAL: Save $70 before August 14! ✨

Join us for an out-of-this-world Annual Benefit Auction & Dance Party honoring Scott Speh (Western Exhibitions) in support of artists with disabilities.

Early Bird Bundle: Just $300 (Ends Aug 14)
⁃ 2 General Admission Tickets
⁃ 2 Raffle Tickets
Includes: Food, drinks, dancing, music, and unique auction experiences!

When:
Saturday, Sept 19 | 6 PM – 11 PM

Where:
Venue West
221 N Paulina St, Chicago, IL

Act Now! Grab your tickets now before prices go up! 🪩🌵 [Link to Buy Tickets in bio]

Address

2010 W Carroll Avenue
Chicago, IL
60612

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 4pm
Tuesday	9am - 4pm
Wednesday	9am - 4pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 4pm

Telephone

+13128292787

Website

http://www.artsoflife.org/

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