Architecture and Design

Hammersley Architecture was founded in 2008. Our studio is located in the historic Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. We explore the potential of architecture through both active projects and speculative works.

J. Lawton Thies Architects Incorporated was established in 2005 to provide high quality architectural design services across a broad spectrum of style and building type.

A visual resource for hotel, retail, and corporate clients specializing in custom design, fabrication, and installation.

Art

I am an abstract painter, working primarily in acrylic on canvas or paper. My work has been juried into exhibits and galleries winning awards locally and nationally. My work is currently on display in Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, VA.

My prints experiment with overlapping organic and linear layers that inform one another and explore the dynamic beauty of relationship. I most enjoy working on a series of monoprints or on variable editions, encouraging happy accidents. Additionally I appreciate building the textures of collagraph prints by using found objects and inking one plate with both intaglio and relief techniques. Abstracting my surrounding landscape is a primary focus, particularly the Niagara Escarpment.

Don Yang is a Chicago-based fine artist trained in representational art at the American Academy of Art (BFA, MFA) where he has been teaching oil painting, figure drawing, and artistic anatomy since 2002.

Frances Lightbound is an interdisciplinary artist from the UK. Her work is informed by architecture and urban design, working with media including print, sculpture and site-responsive installation to explore embedded ideologies and power systems in the urban environment. She received her MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, where she received a New Artist Society Scholarship (2014-2016). She was a 2015-2016 EAGER Grant recipient for Topographies of Defense, a collaborative research project examining defensive architecture and urban design in Chicago. She gained a BA (Hons) from the Glasgow School of Art (Scotland) in 2012, and was a founding member of the Scottish artist collective 2|1|4|1. Her work has been exhibited in venues in Chicago and the Midwest, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Gabrielle Marie Stone is a Chicago-based contemporary abstract painter. Drawing inspiration from Post-Impressionist and Abstract Expressionist works, Stone’s pieces play with figures, objects, and masses, playfully combining the medium’s historical attempt to represent pictorial scenes with its authentic material quality. Using paint to sculpt space rather than to depict a system of designs, Stone welcomes the viewer into a three-dimensional space, and then promptly revokes the invitation.

It’s through this retraction that Stone turns the viewer into a bird, of sorts, and the painting into a closed window. This also exposes a series of contradictions — depth vs surface. Illusion vs honesty. Representation vs abstraction. Age vs newness. Are we really seeing what’s there?  Are we trying too hard to make something out of something else?

Working frequently with interior designers and art consultants, Stone either creates custom pieces or identifies existing works that complement the aesthetics of clients’ homes and corporate spaces while still providing the indulgence and boldness of an original artwork.

Stone studied Studio Art at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She went on to work at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and several galleries in Chicago. Her paintings are in private collections across the United States.

Greg Morrissey is a fine artist focusing on Chicago. His paintings paint a picture of living in an urban metropolis. They focus on the architecture, as well as the emotional alienation of living in a big city. He has limited framed prints, drawings, and original paintings for sale.

The Studio of J. M. Jung is located at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, 410 S. Michigan Ave. #918. We are open during select Second Fridays Open Studios.

Karen Tichy

Studio 701

Karen Tichy is a Chicago abstract mixed media artist known for her encaustic and paper line paintings. She comes from a visual communications design background that is evident in her work. After receiving an MS in Visual Communication from the Institute of Design, IIT, and Chicago, she worked as an interface designer in Boston. There, she also began painting and exploring a variety of media. After returning to her native Chicago in 2008, she established a studio/gallery in the Fine Arts Building where she continues to develop her work through continued experimentation with a variety of media. She has been incorporating encaustic medium with her deconstructed materials since 2009. She has exhibited her work in juried and invited shows in the Boston and now in the Midwest. Karen serves on the leadership committee of the Fine Arts Building Studios Collective and where she established public exhibition spaces and curates art exhibitions. Karen is a member of the Chicago Alliance of Visual Artists, Fused Chicago, a Midwest encaustic artist group, and a studio artist in Studio 701 Gallery in the Fine Arts Building in Chicago.

Katie McLoughlin is an illustrator based in the United States. Her work has appeared in galleries around the US and she is open to commissions and children’s media illustration projects.

Welcome to L. H. Selman Ltd., a name that has been synonymous with the finest antique and contemporary paperweights for over 50 years. As the country’s premier dealer in fine art glass paperweights, we maintain an expansive paperweight gallery and museum at the Fine Arts Building, with the largest collection of antique and contemporary paperweights anywhere.

Linda Arnold is an award-winning landscape painter, whose recent work captures the dynamic tension between representation and abstraction.

Paintings and Drawings, Portait Commissions. My artwork explores symbolic, figurative fairytales and portraits in mixed media paintings and drawings.

Matt Bodett’s art disrupts the historical and material connections between Madness, privilege, and confinement.

Patrice Olsen Fine Art – Drawing, Painting and Photography for Social Justice.

For most of our world’s history, those who are deemed “different” are isolated, medicalized, murdered, or institutionalized. It is our belief that this radical mistreatment comes from the lack of ability to recognize the cultural importance of divergent being. The purpose of this center is to offer a new narrative, one running in opposition to the dominant medical model we know as “mental health.”

The Center for Mad Cultural offers events which cluster around the idea of culture making – art, poetry, performance, etc.

The Center also offers a unique and growing mad library which is available to the public. This library centers around mad and disability studies, and will be used to help place the conversations that occur in the space within a larger context.

Robin Lachman Lee is a painter, muralist, and apparel designer who practices her passion for art in a variety of mediums.

See Robin’s work at wontree.art and zippity.style

I see potential in broken and discarded objects. I find joy in transforming them into art. I work intuitively creating works on canvas. My paintings begin by applying a variety of found objects and natural composites, such as black lava and shattered auto glass to the surface. While working soft pastels or layers of acrylic over the textures I eschew brushes and palette knives for my favorite mark-making tools; my hands and my credit cards. Using a credit card to create art began as a symbolic act to put plastic to better use. Now, it is my tool of choice to sculpt, carve and manipulate the paint into a texture that is visually intriguing.

Tiffany Gholar

Studio 632F

Vanessa L. Smith is a Chicago artist working primarily in ceramics.

I usually work in two separate modes: contemporary abstract art and traditional Chinese painting. My recent work bridges these abstract and figurative approaches to show their relationship. I hope to create work that is visually interesting and moves people to see the things around them from an abstract point of view.

Dance

Mandala connects our audiences and students with the vibrancy, flavors, and colors of the performing arts traditions of South Asia.

Natya Dance Theatre is one of the most critically acclaimed and culturally treasured Indian dance companies in the United States. The highly innovative work of NDT offers profound and subtle expressions of humanity’s deepest questions and values in the context of our present-day lives.

Windy City Wedding Dance is responsible for teaching couples ballroom dance lessons all over Chicagoland. We also work with corporate professionals in Fortune 500 companies to produce their best team buildings yet, and teach dance classes all around Chicago at some of the world’s largest conventions.

Film and Theater

We are a SAG-AFTRA, AEA and non union agency with a long-standing relationship with casting directors, producers and production companies in Chicago, New York & Los Angeles.

Alexander Attea is a Chicago-based playwright, actor, musician, and the artistic director of Avalanche Theatre.

​His plays include Grape Leaves, Arabia, Arabia!, Work in Progress, Gut, Where the Air Meets the Water, Generation Red, The Creators, Socks & Co., and others.

His work has been developed and performed with Jackalope Theatre, The Plagiarists, Eclectic Full Contact Theatre, Three Brothers Theatre, Bower Theatre Ensemble, the International Museum of Surgical Science, Platform (a production company), Avalanche Theatre, Benchmark Theatre, Boston University, Illinois State University, and others. He has held residencies with the Mackinac State Historic Parks and with Three Brothers Theatre, and has been named a Semi-Finalist for the UCross + Blank Theatre Future of Playwriting Prize 2022. Select plays have been published by Next Stage Press.​

The Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival is the nation’s most substantial puppet fest, an oasis of fascination and artistry — representing a breadth of style, quality of work and spectacular depth of artistic achievement from the US and abroad. It is the largest festival of its kind in the nation and celebrated for consistently excellent and unforgettable puppetry experiences.

Chicago Opera Theater (COT) is a company laser-focused on living its values: expanding the tradition of opera as a living art form, producing high-quality works new to Chicago audiences, identifying top-tier casts and creative talent at the beginning of grand operatic careers, and following through on commitments to equity and access – behind the scenes, on the stage, and in the audience.

A new community rental space for rehearsals, classes, workshops, auditions, and more.

Alexandra Kassouf teaches voice, movement, and the Alexander Technique. What is the Alexander Technique? It is a way of learning to find more ease by undoing your habitual tensions. It isn’t a discipline or a set of exercises. It also isn’t something you have done to you. By participating in a lesson, you are learning to think in activity and can begin to change your habits. The Alexander Technique can help you to improve your level of comfort and efficiency in whatever activities you are already doing.

Literature

Exile in Bookville is a bookseller located on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building. Come in and check out our recommended reads, some of which will come from talented booksellers, authors, and other book and music folk from across the multiverse. At Exile in Bookville (a nod to Liz Phair’s 1993 debut album Exile in Guyville) we believe that books and music are synonymous and carry that over into our store.

Keir Graff writes thrillers, mysteries, and contemporary fiction for adults, and adventure novels for younger readers. Recent works include The Three Mrs. Wrights and Drowning with Others, both of which were coauthored with Linda Joffe Hull under the name Linda Keir. He is also the author of four middle-grade novels, including The Tiny MansionThe Phantom Tower (a Chicago Tribune Best Children’s Book) and The Matchstick Castle (an Illinois Reads official selection). He is the editor of the anthology A Million Acres: Montana Writers Reflect on Land and Open Space and coeditor (with James Grady) of the crime-fiction anthology Montana Noir (one of Parade‘s “Books We Love”). The former executive editor of Booklist, he lives in Chicago, where he is the cofounder and cohost of the much-loved literary gathering Publishing Cocktails.

Music

Dr. Yulia Lipmanovich ​is a Russian-born concert pianist and distinguished piano teacher.​ As the Executive Director and Founder of The Art of Piano Playing & Performing Arts Inc., located at the Fine Arts Building of downtown Chicago, she maintains a teaching studio open to all who wish to learn and grow as pianists.

Balu Musik

Studio 408-ME

Since 1976, Bein & Fushi has taken its place as the world’s premier dealer and restorer of fine stringed instruments. We have accomplished this by establishing a firm in the tradition of the greatest shops of the past. Bein & Fushi offers the broadest selection of fine antique and modern instruments for students, professionals, and collectors as well as world-class repair and restoration services.

Critically acclaimed as “a passionate pianist and scholar,” Svetlana Belsky is a highly regarded recitalist, chamber pianist, and recording artist, noted for her remarkable rapport with audiences and stylistic versatility.

Five generations of experience and craftsmanship in the making, repair, and restoration of stringed instruments (violins, violas, and cellos).

Carolyn Jean Brady maintains a private voice studio of students and clients who sing in a multitude of styles around the country and world, both online and in the landmark Fine Arts Building at 410 South Michigan in Chicago.

Michael Ruiz, Instructor of Advanced Piano

Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ mission is to inspire and cultivate personal excellence through music. After 75 years of music-making, CYSO continues to shape generations of young leaders and musicians. We are committed to educating, encouraging, and empowering each young musicians so that they may pursue personal excellence both on and off the stage.

As a native Chicagoan, growing up on the west side of Chicago, Derrick Bounds begin studying the piano, mostly through private study at various schools and more recently the Chicago Conservatory of Music.  Derrick’s range of music genres include Jazz, Classical, Ragtime, and Pop, Gospel, Blues…. but not limited to either. Visit derrickboundsmusic.com for more.

Gordon Woodwinds is the premier source in the Chicago area for fine handmade flutes and piccolos, as well as a state of the art facility for woodwind instrument repair.

Repair of fine flutes and piccolos – by appointment

Widely recognized as one of “Chicago’s Top Music Educators,” Frank J. Rumoro’s highly structured method / course is tailored to the individual needs of each student regardless of level, whether beginner, intermediate, or very advanced, in order to create the complete musician prepared to perform in any setting or style of music.

Goldston Music Studio offers piano lessons for all ages and levels, online and in-person at the historic Fine Arts Building in Chicago’s South Loop. In addition to piano instruction, Christopher offers coaching in composition, pedagogy and teacher training.

Dealers, restorers, makers of fine violins, violas, cellos, and bows.

Richard Heiberger MM, Classical and Jazz piano.

John K. Becker & Company, founded in 1994, is located in the historic Frank Lloyd Wright studio of the Fine Arts Building in Chicago. Becker and his staff offer the highest level of restoration, instrument maintenance, and tonal adjustments.

Piano lessons available for all ages. I have been teaching locally at the Fine Arts Building and in private sessions for over 32 years.

The Liederstube was founded by Eugenia Cheng in 2013 as an oasis for art song in the Fine Arts Building, in downtown Chicago. Our mission is to present and enjoy classical music in an intimate and informal setting. In doing so we provide a relaxed environment for musicians to enjoy sharing music they love, and for audiences to enjoy classical music without the formality so often associated with it.

Ms. Swisher devotes herself equally to teaching voice and choral conducting. Her extensive experience as a conductor ranges from leading community choruses to professional ensembles, children’s choirs and church choruses.

Maker, dealer, and restorer of fine violins and bows.

We aim to provide the finest music instruction in Chicago and beyond by offering a comprehensive, unconstrained and engaging music learning experience delivered by world-class faculty with maximum convenience and affordability.

A vibrant music studio specializing in booking customized chamber music for live events and classical string instruction for teens and adults.

 

Artistic Director at Ossia Musical Forum, violist, Nora Williams “…brings excitement and passion to every work she performs.” A varied performer with a penchant for chamber music, Nora delights in exploring and introduciing her audiences to hidden gems in the chamber music repertoire. During the 2020 pandemic, Nora has presented several small house concerts to audiences starved for live music. Nora is principal viola with the Highland Park Strings from 2004-2020, founder and violist with the contemporary string quartet Red Riding Hood, guest soloist with the South Loop Symphony, and past principal viola and soloist with the Bach and Beyond Chamber Orchestra. Nora spent seven years as a member of the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, and has made appearances with the Northwest Indiana Symphony, the New Philharmonic, Chicago Chamber Orchestra, da Corneto Opera, L’Opera Piccola and Light Opera Works. Nora has maintained a private teaching studio in Chicago since 1998.

Nora is a past board member of the Musicians Club of Woman and the Steering Committee of the Fine Arts Building Studios Collective where she participates regularly in Chicago Loop Alliance, and Chicago Cultural Mile functions. Since 2012, she has been on the faculty of the Interharmony International Music Festival in Acidosso, Tuscany, Italy.

Nora is a native of the San Francisco Bay area and received a bachelor’s degree in music from Stanford University. Her teachers and mentors include: Bernard Zaslav, Alan deVeritch, Serge Collot, and Burton Kaplan. Nora has enjoyed participating in many summer festivals, Kneisel Hall, Britt, Idyllwild, the Paillard Academie, and Magic Mountain, and considers them a key component to her artistic growth and continued inspiration. Nora was a 2007 Artist-in Residence at the Cliff Dwellers Club, and arts-based club in downtown Chicago that recently celebrated its 100 year anniversary.

Nora loves the variety of the Chicago music scene and enjoys performing popular music with the Don Cagen Orchestra (including at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration), as well as local indie bands and headline acts coming through Chicago on tour. Nora’s hobbies include gardening, triathlons, reading and cooking, and she loved sharing many of these with her late husband, Shawn Quaid, a Chicago area chef.

Nora plays on a viola made by Benoit Fleury, 1749 from Paris.

– Last updated July 2022.

Professional brass mouthpieces for trumpet, trombone, horn, & tuba. Interchangeable rims, cups, backbores, tops, & underparts.

Paul W. Thompson teaches musical theater voice, popular vocal styles, music improv, traditional and contemporary piano, and the situations in which these arts overlap.

Performers Music is a classical sheet music store located in the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue. We are the oldest sheet music purveyor in the city. We cater to professional performers, teachers, and students of all levels. Our selection of sheet music is mostly classical but we also carry jazz, vocal standards, and showtunes, with a wide variety of method books and studies.

Salon Des Artistes is a collective comprised of a highly experienced, world-class pianists, organists, string players and vocalists for every need of your special event, wedding, or religious service, with expertise in Jewish and Christian liturgies and services.

William Harris Lee & Company was established in 1978. As makers of fine string instruments, we developed an unmistakable style in sound and design which has revolutionized the industry.

Other

Artistic Fundraising Group provides fundraising strategies and resources to small and midsized nonprofit organizations with our own hybrid model of project execution and traditional consulting. We offer services in all areas of nonprofit fundraising, including major gift strategies, individual giving campaigns, freelance grant writing and proposal review/editing, fundraising training for organizational leadership, multi-year development plans, and foundational workshops in all areas of contributed revenue. In alignment with our values of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Antiracism, and Accessibility (IDEAA), we employ a community-centric fundraising model that invests in equitable relationships between the philanthropic sector and the organizations we serve. Our methodology has proven results, as we raise millions of dollars annually for our clients.

We generate growth in all areas of contributed revenue by building comprehensive, custom fundraising strategies. We take pride in effectively and collaboratively working with each client to develop unique, achievable fundraising solutions that truly work for each organization. Today, Artistic Fundraising Group supports a wide range of nonprofit arts and culture organizations in all artistic disciplines, including theatre, dance, music, independent film, creative writing, and visual art. Our client base has also expanded beyond the arts to include organizations that intersect with education, healthcare, youth development, journalism, and the disability sector.

We’re a creative digital transformation business. Our award-winning team of strategists, designers, and engineers is here for a simple reason: to make a positive impact on our partners and communities through the power of creativity (and to lead fulfilling lives while we do it).

Love, Sugar and Grace is a bakery in Chicago, Illinois offering services locally and now shipping nationwide.

L2 Advisers is committed to meeting your real estate needs with an in-depth, customized approach. We build long-term relationships with clients, bringing over 25 years of experience in Chicago. L2 Advisers provides tenant representation, portfolio review, financial analysis, strategy and real estate consulting services.

Monsieur Pamplemousse was created in 2002 by Alex Agudo.

The brand’s name means Mr. Grapefruit in French, a nickname that was given to him by his French teacher and classmates in high school, because of his love of grapefruit.

Alex was born in Chicago, but lived most of his childhood in the city of El Empalme in Ecuador. There he discovered his love of nature, which inspires his designs. He returned to Chicago at the age of 12, but continued to travel throughout South America.

His fascination with other cultures also inspires his designs. Incorporating techniques and elements from countries like Brazil, Ghana, and India, he provides the wearer with a globally-inspired piece.

His pieces feature mixed metals and colorful gemstones that are arranged in an asymmetrical fashion. He believes nothing in nature is perfect, everything has beautiful imperfections.

His motto is “There are no mistakes in life, they are simply artistic interpretations”.

Ponder & Co. is a leading financial and strategic advisory firm focused exclusively on the healthcare industry. We have been providing advisory services to not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare systems for more than 45 years.

PrimeMovers is a firm of highly experienced, successful, collaborative negotiation practitioners. We deliver results through strategic advice, training, coaching, and mediation in collaboration and conflict management.

The customer review system for florists.

Photography

Larry Snider has been making photographs around the world for thirty years, documenting the people and landscape of a particular region.

Expert headshot photography with Garret Buckley, Chicago’s headshot specialist.

Wellness

DK Therapy

Studios 920, 921, 925, 928

DK Therapy, LLC is mental health group private practice in downtown Chicago. Our clients experience us as professional, personable, and non-judgmental, creating a comfortable and safe therapeutic environment. We recognize that not every person will fit with just one therapeutic approach and works with our clients to collaboratively develop a treatment approach to fit our clients’ needs.

Inner Discovery Services offers Integral Bodywork, a deep therapeutic bodywork system that is an aid for attaining relief from physical or emotional discomfort in order to break through personal barriers. This process develops physical awareness and uses intention to confront limitations and release held tension.

Since its opening in 2003, KYL has offered exclusively Kundalini Yoga and Meditation classes, workshops, courses and teacher trainings.

Stephanie Pinsler is the founder, lead clinician, and treatment plan director at Namasport.

She is a Behavioral Therapist, Sport Psychology Consultant, Experienced Yoga instructor, Pilates instructor, and meditation specialist. With the collaboration of these backgrounds, the Namasport method was created to integrate clinical therapy, movement, and breath-work. She earned her Master’s degree in Counseling with a specialization in Sport and Health Psychology at Adler University in Chicago and holds a certification in integrative meditation from Westminster University in London. Stephanie’s therapeutic orientation is a combined method of Solution Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Art Therapy, and Sound Therapy.

She believes that by bridging the gap between the mind and body, a deeper connection with oneself is created and is imperative to mental health. Stephanie splits her time between Colorado and Illinois with goals of expanding Namasport to additional communities in the future.

Dr. Cheryl Hurst is a licensed health psychologist and a certified yoga therapist in Chicago, Illinois. When she integrates psychotherapy with yoga therapy, her clients’ benefit is doubled by an individualized holistic treatment to improve physical strength, balance, flexibility, and circulation, while fostering clarity, ease and relaxation, relieving pain, and building resilience to stress.

Thrive Art Therapy is a small art therapy practice focused on reaching those who have been touched by trauma and are willing to explore their needs through creative self-expression.

Fine Arts Building Property Management office, Suite 910.

 

Property Manager

Joaquin Williams

 

Assistant Property Manager

Idalis Huerta

 

Contact the office here.

Arts Entertainment LLC is the management and rentals of Studebaker Theater, the Annex Studios, and the Little Studio.

 

Managing Artistic Director

Jacob Harvey

(312) 753-3210 ext.101

 

General Manager

Travis Whitlock

(312) 753-3210 ext.104

 

Box Office Manager

Megan Shehorn Young

(312) 753-3210 ext.102

tickets@fineartsbuilding.com

 

Assistant Box Office Manager

Taylor Hobart

 

Audience Services Manager

Matthew Lightfoot

(312) 753-3210 ext.103

fronthouse@fineartsbuilding.com

 

Technical Director

Kevin Scott

(312) 753-3210 ext.105

 

Associate Technical Director

Nathan Knapke

(312) 753-3210 ext.105

 

Manager of Marketing & Communications

Alexander Attea

(312) 753-3210 ext.106

marketing@fineartsbuilding.com

 

Rentals and Office Coordinator

Daniel Ackman

rentals@fineartsbuilding.com