Slow Art Day at The Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space April 11 Noon to 6pm

Jeff Williams:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR, Illinois. I'm your co-host, Jeff Williams. In the studio today, we have Jeff Ladd. Jeff, how's it going?
Geoff Ladd:
Great to see you again, Jeff.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, it's been a long time. We are in Jacksonville, right? A million years ago.
Geoff Ladd:
Yes, I guess the 90s is a million years ago.
Jeff Williams:
A million years ago is way back playing in a community park on Morton Street in Jacksonville, Illinois. Sometimes play, nil8.
Geoff Ladd:
The Howl.
Jeff Williams:
The Howl, yeah! So, the Slow Art Route 66 Festival, it's gonna be at The Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space, right, in Springfield.
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, that's a new location. It started out as just 20 or so Bloomington Normal artists. Yeah, for sure. It got a lot of international attention this year because Slow Art Day is an international event. It was started in 2008 by a gentleman named Phil Terry. And he was interested in people taking their time visiting art centers, you know, art galleries, and maybe just taking 5 pictures from a museum and spending all your time there that day concentrating on those. Absolutely. Instead of just whipping through the whole exhibit. This year, we got a lot of attention on the international scene. It expanded out on Illinois Route 66. It included Lexington.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, they have, there was a gallery or some up space in Lexington.
Geoff Ladd:
A brand new exhibit that's going to be in Pontiac, Illinois. That's the first time they're part of Slow Art Day. And then The Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space, as you mentioned, in Springfield, being a part of the main.
Jeff Williams:
Part of the whole thing.
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, that's cool. The main April 11th event. As you know, right now they have a Bob Waldmire exhibit, and they just added a David Schwartz photography exhibit.
Jeff Williams:
I saw that I hadn't been there to check that out yet, but I saw that was in there too.
Geoff Ladd:
Block of photos are being used on the special Route 66 Centennial stamps coming out from the post office this year.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, that's fantastic.
Geoff Ladd:
So, The Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space, and you can go there anytime, has that exhibit and the Bob Waldmire exhibit concurrently running.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, I love that. So yeah, so the slow art, it's not just in a way localized. That's also, it's all like a movement all over, right?
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, and it's a very grassroots kind of movement. It really started just like a museum here and there announcing they were going to be a part of this. And then it started building up in this community space. And I credit Bloomington Normal for really helping boost the whole community aspect of Slow Art Day. And now, as we've taken it and expanded it into this multiple range of communities, all of them on Route 66 in Illinois.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, that's awesome.
Geoff Ladd:
So it's really cool. I didn't really have the concept in my head very well. So, I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to get to every single location. I got to make sure I look at every piece of art. And that was like the antithesis of Slow Art Day. Right, you’re supposed to take your time and just focus on piece. So it was impossible to do in one day. And I thought, oh, this is great. I get it now. I've got the next several years to just keep going back and keep going to different galleries each time and getting a new experience every single year. But here's some of the cool galleries that are participating. 410 Sculpture Park But you can go there anytime.
Jeff Williams:
That's the sculpture park in like downtown Bloomington, right?
Geoff Ladd:
Under the old viaduct.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, by Centers and Center Street in Maine, kind of right in there.
Geoff Ladd:
So 66, by the way.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, right on the old Route 66, right through there. Yeah, that's really cool to see how that's come together and developed and keeps getting added on to over the years. Each time you go there to that sculpture park, it's different, new, and huge, man. It's really cool to see all those big pieces.
Geoff Ladd:
You can go there anytime.
Jeff Williams:
Anytime, right? Yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
Anytime. So I love that place. It's part of Powerhouse Art, which is such a cool place. But then our friend Janean Baird, who's the de facto leader of BN Artist Group. Her studio, Art Vortex Studio, taking part. Beluga Press Art Gallery. We mentioned downtown Lexington, Illinois. Our friends Herb and Pam Eaton at the Eaton Gallery.
Jeff Williams:
Okay.
Geoff Ladd:
Of course, Illinois Art Station.
Jeff Williams:
And then when you mentioned the Eaton Gallery, where's that located at?
Geoff Ladd:
It's on Center Street Downtown.
Jeff Williams:
On Center Street, downtown Bloomington, also. Okay, gotcha.
Geoff Ladd:
Great folks. Herb just put out a book about Route 66.
Jeff Williams:
Like if people are going to, from Springfield, leave and take a little road trip, up along Route 66 and see some of the galleries along here, that's good for them to know.
Geoff Ladd:
And these galleries are open and they all have regular hours. So if you're not part of Slow Art Day, you can go up there.
Jeff Williams:
They still can go up there, sure.
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah. The big thing was adding the pharmacy gallery here in Springfield this year, which is really cool. Well, it's really about Just the participation, so they're just part of Slow Art Day this year, so.
Jeff Williams:
You can go in anytime, like anytime it's open, just to, but just don't just focus on a couple of pieces. You can go back later and focus on some more at some other time, but just when you get there, in this case, the pharmacy gallery and art space, Springfield area, but just chill out. Don't try to rush through the whole thing. Just pick a couple of pieces and sit with them, literally and figuratively, so you can just really get into that. When you do take in a piece like that, and you can just be at one with the piece, And really you can like, you just let your thoughts clear in a way of all the stuff. You're not been thinking about stuff that you just did before you walked in and stuff that you have to do later. You can just sit with that piece for a while. It's nice. It's meditative in a way. You know, you just sit there and you kind of explore your approach to this piece, but then also you start to then in a way get in the mind of the artist who made it as you're looking at it, because you're not just analyzing it in a very literal sense. You kind of just your mind almost in a way, it kind of can link up with the other artist's mind as you're looking at it in a way. Sorry to blather on about that, but.
Geoff Ladd:
No, I think you're exactly right. Right. And invariably, you end up with, oh, I think this is my favorite piece by this artist, right? So you're made an assessment and you've locked on to something. And you and I being both original musicians in our past, it happens too, right? But it's, you know, art is art, whether it's music or actual art. So And I totally am into the concept. My mother was an artist. She was schooled at the Art Institute of Chicago. And so art had got... all of her art from when she passed away. She would have been 100 years old on March 25th. So that was really cool. So it's in my blood.
Jeff Williams:
So was she was she an artist in the Bloomington-Normal area or was up in Chicago?
Geoff Ladd:
Chicago and then when we lived in Jacksonville too.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, in Jacksonville too. Okay, so when you were in Jacksonville too, so you got area roots then, man, right?
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah.
Jeff Williams:
But once again, we're in the studio with Jeff Ladd representing the Slow Art Movement and Slow Art Route 66, which in a way, well, The Pharmacy Gallery and Art Space here in Springfield, Illinois linked up, which is it one particular gallery.
Geoff Ladd:
Actually, I think Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway had a lot to do with that because they were, all these artists were just meeting loosely, and they didn't really have any kind of organization. and the executive director where I work, Casey, was working with them. And then her duties came to a point where she's like, I need you to work with them. these artists, right? So, I'm like, okay. And so we were just trying to figure out how they could fit into the byway and how the byway promotes. And that's when they decide, oh, we're going to call ourselves BN artists.
Jeff Williams:
Okay, yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
And actually, collectively work under that umbrella and have formal meetings and things like that. So I think we were a little bit of a a backbone to making that happen.
Jeff Williams:
Okay, cool. Well, because I do remember one time when I was, when the Hanger Gallery, Santino's Gallery, when it was still in, like located in downtown Spring, or downtown Bloomington, I remember that, I can't remember who it was, but it was a person sort of just making it where it is this Ave. of, you know, of connectivity for, in this case, for creatives and stuff, where it's just kind of like this pipeline or Ave. I remember her talking about that in the initial stages. It's got to be, I can't remember who it was, but it had to be somebody who's involved directly with getting this together now. So, in the earlier.
Geoff Ladd:
It could have very well been my counterpart that had something to do with that. may have been who you met.
Jeff Williams:
And that's Casey you said. Yeah, Casey.
Geoff Ladd:
We're just a small non-profit, 501C3, and so we're covering all of Illinois Route 66, 421 miles of territory, 92 communities, including from Chicago to East St. Louis.
Jeff Williams:
Okay, yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
And when you add that up, that's 2,450 square miles of territory. And I bring that up because she and I have to constantly kind of shift our roles in order to accommodate the various groups that we work with. So I was excited when she passed the baton to me.
Jeff Williams:
Oh yeah, for sure. Isn't there the down, it's sort of near, I don't know if you've gotten down that far yet around Staunton, Illinois, I think. I can't remember if that's it or not, but it's the, I think it's called the MAC. It's a gallery that's down there, like Macoupin County Artists. It's just off of the Route 66. So at some point you might come across them or talk to them. It's a little further south, getting closer to the St. Louis Metro East area, you know. But yeah, and I wonder also there was a gallery in East St. Louis that I had looked into and I was going to reach out to see about like becoming part or involved with that down there too. So just kind of along that whole corridor, you know, just because I also remember being up at And like you'd mentioned Pontiac, but where, Bob Waldmeier has at least for a while had his, it was like a mural area dedicated to him and also he had his bus there for a while. I'm not sure if that was a permanent thing or not.
Geoff Ladd:
It's still there, yeah.
Jeff Williams:
Is it? Okay, cool.
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, it's, you know, Pontiac, we consider to be probably one of the top Illinois, Route 66 communities may be on the whole road just because it's so well organized. It's so well put together. It's packaged for tours. It's just really top notch. And it's a small enough town where you can really kind of do the whole thing and a whole day and then maybe stay overnight.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, it does. It seems like it, you know, it's like it's got enough of a downtown, but still small enough. It seems like everybody seems to be, buying into, trying to make a strong community for the downtown Pontiac. Is there an art gallery there in Pontiac that people could check out too if they're on the road?
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, and the one that's participating in is the Greater Livingston County Arts Council on Madison.
Jeff Williams:
On Madison in downtown Pontiac.
Geoff Ladd:
Yeah, A Reverence for Visions or Essence and Echo by John Betkin. So, and that exhibit goes through May 28th.
Jeff Williams:
Okay.
Geoff Ladd:
Which is the cool part about all of Slow Art Day is Even if you can't make it, even if you're hearing about some of this after the fact, these places are open all the time. You just need to look up the hours and you're ready to go.
Jeff Williams:
Exactly. Love it.
Geoff Ladd:
Especially the pharmacy through December is the Bob Waldmeyer exhibit and the David Schwartz US stamp exhibit. So you've got a long time to catch that.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, I know that. So that's nice for sure. So Right on. Love it. Well, once again, Jeff Ladd, thanks a lot for coming in and filling us in with some of the backstory of slow art in particular, but especially along this Route 66 corridor where you can kind of just go and check out the art in galleries along the way and just enjoy, just get into the moment, sit with a couple of pieces. Don't try to see rush through and see the whole thing. I know I'm guilty of that. Sometimes you've just got a little bit of time and it's like, I want to see everything but you're boom, boom, boom. But I do try to go back later when I have more time and explore it a lot more too.
Geoff Ladd:
The International Slow Art Day was very excited about this. They put out an article saying Illinois hosts the first region-wide slow art day in the world.
Jeff Williams:
Wow, that's great.
Geoff Ladd:
So, what started out as just little galleries and museums doing this turned into communities. And now through the power of Illinois 66 and the folks that be an artist, we're the first that's doing it region-wide.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, well, it's great too, because if you're able to have that, you've got the local presence, but also the international presence with the allure of Route 66. And if you're an art lover, or even if you're not, if you want to get into it, this is a great way to do it, because you can kind of, if your passion is like Route 66, you can also have this other thing that you get into of seeing area artists and what they're producing along the way, which kind of gives you a read on that, the communities as you go through them, you know?
Geoff Ladd:
Exactly. And this is one of the things that we have had issues with over the years is folks come over and there's a huge international group of people that come over for 66. But they want to do all eight states, 2,441 miles in like a week. And you're going to just end up seeing pavement on the road. I mean, it's the stuff along the way, all the goofy, crazy stuff. So we want people to take a slow art day approach to traveling Route 66. I would do it in a month if you're going to do the whole thing. Absolutely. I would do all of Illinois in at least a week.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
There's so much to see. It's like a traveling, exhibit attraction that goes 2,400 miles. There's nothing like it in the world. And this is the year. All our key events are going to have that centennial, 100th anniversary feel to them. So we've got red carpet corridor coming up in May in the northern part of Illinois. We've got a big presence out at the state fair this year with the new exhibit out there. Of course, the Mother Road Festival is going to have a big oomph to it this year. And this conference, annual conference called Route 66, Miles of Possibilities in Springfield this year, October 9th through 11th.
Jeff Williams:
Love it, yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
Big announcement there. The father of Route 66 in terms of book and authorship, Michael Wallace, is going to be there. Okay. And then we have the Byway is doing a big event on November 11th, veteran's day out at Motorheads.
Jeff Williams:
Okay, yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
November 11th is the official day. at 66 turns 100. So we're having a huge event out there that day. Details to come. Those are still not public yet. Right, But a lot of cool things coming up this year for the Centennial.
Jeff Williams:
Once again, Jeff Ladd, thanks a lot for giving us all this information. This is fantastic.
Geoff Ladd:
Yes, order a copy of our new visitor guide, which you have.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah.
Geoff Ladd:
Illinoisroute66.org.
Jeff Williams:
Dot org, right on. Thanks A lot. All right, well, thanks a lot for coming in, Jeff.
Geoff Ladd:
You bet, Jeff. Good seeing you again.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah, great to see you again.
Geoff Ladd:
It's only been a few decades.
Jeff Williams:
It's only a couple of decades, that's all, you know. All right, thank you. Bye.