Throughout the Elmhurst Art Museum’s 25th year of inspiring its community, the Museum will host a year-long celebration, with a focus on the three major hallmarks of its mission: architecture (Spring), education (Summer), and art (Fall). Central to the Summer season is the interactive, family-friendly exhibition, Nature’s Blueprints: Biomimicry in Art and Design, open June 18 – August 14, 2022. The exhibition includes an installation by Chicago architect Alicia Ponce about how her architectural structures emulate patterns, forms, and processes found in nature. Two additional exhibitions at the museum will complement the nationally traveling show: a solo show by Chicago painter Raúl Ortiz within the Museum’s historic McCormick House and approximately 35 local artists will participate in the Elmhurst Artists’ Guild Summer Members Show. The Museum has also announced exhibition-related programming for all ages including STEAM-focused family programs plus architecture and gallery tours to reveal how art, design, and environmental science can lead to extraordinary inventions that improve lives. Children under 18 visit free, as always, and tickets are available at elmhurstartmuseum.org.
Nature’s Blueprints features a dozen sensory stations that use sound, touch, and interactive games to make connections between nature, art and design such as: how burrs from a forest informed velcro, the shape of a beetle’s teeth helped an inventor create a more efficient chainsaw, bird and bat wing shapes aided the early flight tests, spiderwebs inspired suspension bridges, and more.
Curated especially for this venue of Nature’s Blueprints are process-related drawings and photos by award-winning Chicago architect Alicia Ponce, Founder and Principal of APMonarch, and author of Latinas in Architecture: Stories of raising the 1% one Latina at a time. The installation illustrates Ponce’s sustainable building practices and techniques of biomimicry in her designs.
Complementary to the exhibition is the solo show More is More, by Chicago-based artist Raúl Ortiz, located in the Museum’s historic Mies van der Rohe McCormick House. While a fan of modernist design and architecture, Ortiz’s paintings do not prescribe to the “less is more” philosophy credited to Mies van der Rohe. With a penchant for color and contrast, Ortiz draws inspiration from botanical forms in nature and his finished paintings reflect a collage-like process of overlapping layering, obliterating, and refinement of images with decidedly contemporary color choices.
Registration is required for exhibition-related summer programming, free with museum admission unless otherwise noted:
● Family Day: Exploring Butterflies
Saturday, June 25, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
Families are invited to discover the exciting world of butterflies through activities that include creating an artistic booklet, drawing inspiration from symmetry, and more. Guests who complete four different hands-on activities win a special prize!
Co-presented by the Goethe-Institut Chicago
● Modern Architecture Walking Tours
Sunday, June 26, 1:00-2:30 pm; Saturday, August 13, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Elmhurst-based architect and designer Erica Blawat takes visitors on a walking architecture tour of the surprisingly architecturally rich City of Elmhurst—the only city with houses by Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Blawat provides historic context and fun facts about architectural gems by Wright, Mies, Walter Burley Griffin, R. Harold Zook, Dirk Lohan, and more.
● Gallery Tour: More is More led by Raúl Ortiz
Saturday, July 16, 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Ortiz takes visitors through his exhibition, More is More, located in the Museum’s historic McCormick House. Ortiz will answer visitor questions and share the thought process behind his work, including how architectural elements, color, pattern, and nature inspire his work.
● Family Day: Patterns and Nature with Raúl Ortiz
Saturday, July 30, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
While overlooking beautiful Wilder Park, kids create their own nature-inspired paintings. The family day is led by Museum’s exhibiting artist, Raúl Ortiz, known for layered and colorful paintings with a variety of collage-like effects.
● Family Day: Animal Architects
Saturday, August 6, 1:00 – 4:00 pm
This special STEAM family program explores why and how different animals build such vastly different types of homes, using a variety of materials. Kids will use found natural materials to build their own versions of animal homes during this workshop led by Amy Philips Coffman from partnering organization The Conservation Foundation in Naperville.
Nature’s Blueprints is sponsored by the Explore Elmhurst grant program. The traveling exhibition is a program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition first debuted in September 2021 at Putnam Museum and Science Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate.
About the Elmhurst Art Museum
Throughout the Elmhurst Art Museum’s 25th year of inspiring its community, the Museum will host a year-long celebration, with a focus on the three major hallmarks of its mission: architecture (Spring), education (Summer), and art (Fall). The Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). On the museum’s campus is the McCormick House, a single-family home designed in 1952 by Mies van der Rohe, one of the great architects of the 20th Century. The McCormick House is one of only three residences designed and built by Mies in the United States – and one of only two open to the public.
Admission for children under 18 is Free. Admission for adults over 18 is $15; for seniors, $12.
The Elmhurst Art Museum is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from noon to 5 p.m. and on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. No timed entry is required, but advanced ticket purchase is encouraged.
For more information, call 630.834.0202 or visit elmhurstartmuseum.org.