Illinois Art Station welcomed by community in McLean County Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting

A year and some change after the Illinois Art Station opened its doors the community gathered for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday with the McLean County Chamber of Commerce   

For the past year, the IAS has been providing the Bloomington-Normal community with affordable art classes. Along with classes after school for children, Executive Director Hannah Johnson has curated her space with several exhibits showing off group and children’s projects.   

“It’s so exciting to celebrate our ribbon cutting with the community,” Johnson said. “It’s one opportunity for us to bring in a whole different demographic. Some of the challenges of being a space for young artists is that other folks in the community might feel like we’re not for them and so providing opportunities for our Chamber members and our business and organizational community to come in and see what we do is huge.”  

Jake Sermersheim | Illinois Art Station’s string theory exhibit.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Johnson hosted an open house with everyone welcome to explore IAS’s many features. These features include a chandelier, a yarn exhibit called ‘String Theory’ and more.  

“We’ve got friendly faces on friends of ours from other local organizations, but also new faces and that’s always so exciting,” Johnson said. “We really wanted this ribbon cutting to be an opportunity to bring in other community partners.”   

Johnson partnered with Zeta Coffee, Grove Street Bakery and the Garlic Press to provide attendees with refreshments after the event. Local musician Kyle Yap provided music before and after the ceremony.   

“For us to kind of showcase Illinois Art Station and invite you into our space and we’re really excited that some of our young artists and kiddos are here with us today,” Johnson said. “It took a whole team of folks to make this happen.” 

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