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Artist in All
Empowerment through Art
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Misericordia Heart of Mercy, located on Chicago’s northside,
supports 600 children and adults with intellectual and
developmental disabilities who choose our community,
providing for them the highest quality residential, training
and employment services. We offer a full continuum of
residential care and a variety of programs designed to
meet each person’s changing needs and maximize his
or her independence, self-determination, interpersonal
relationships and engagement in the community. Through
our dedicated families, employees, volunteers, supporters
and community networks, Misericordia fosters each person’s
spirituality, dignity, respect and quality of life both on its
31-acre Chicago campus and throughout the community.
Misericordia’s art program began in 1985 as a way to
provide work opportunities for our residents. The Coleman
Foundation funded the program’s first project with Fannie
May Candies. Residents created miniature ceramic replicas
of the famous white baskets that contained Fannie May
delectable chocolate. This project revealed wonderful
t
talents among our adult residents and led to a new and
exciting chapter in Misericordia’s history. Today, several
programs comprise the “Heart Studios,” each one focusing
on a different skill, medium or challenge. They are led by
an art instructor, support staff and volunteers who work
side by side with resident artists in a collaborative effort
to create the artwork.
The artist, their family and the professional team work
together to choose the art programs that suit the person’s
interests, abilities, strengths and needs. Misericordia artists
have been invited to display their artwork at exhibitions
across the city of Chicago and are frequently highlighted
at auctions for Misericordia’s fundraising events.
In 1996, Misericordia’s residents were invited to display
artwork at a small gallery named Vedanta located in
Chicago’s West Loop — and the
Artist in All
was born.
The following two years, the benefit was held at the Chicago
Cultural Center, and in 1999 it found a new home at the
Northern Trust Corporation. For more than a decade,
Misericordia’s good friends at Northern Trust hosted
Artist in All
, and the event grew and flourished, eventually
outgrowing its space. Then in 2011, with the support and
introduction by Northern Trust,
Artist in All
again found
a new home in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of
Chicago, a dream come true for any artist.