Meet 2023 3Arts Community Awardee Jacinda Billie! “As a sage burning Muslim mom of three athletes, and partner to Chicago Public School math teacher and Hip-Hop lyricist, I know the importance of having access to healthy expression. These co-conspirator relations challenge toxic norms and encourage me to facilitate creative remedies that instigate art making. My medicines are performing, hosting, writing, producing, moving, sharing stories, collaging colorful visuals, supporting birth work, and engaging in radical love play.”
Meet 2023 3Arts/SIF Fund at The Chicago Community Foundation Awardee Nancy García Loza! Nancy García Loza (she/her/ella) is an award-winning, self-taught, and self-proclaimed pocha playwright rooted in Chicago, Illinois and Jalisco, México. Her play, Pénjamo: A Pocha Road Trip Story, is a new commission by the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA), with major support by the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2022 Joyce Award. She is also currently developing work for Steppenwolf Theatre Company and has received recognition from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals ArtsForward Award, the Dramatists’ Guild Council’s Lanford Wilson Award, and American Theatre magazine’s podcast series, “The Subtext.”
Meet 2023 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee Donnetta “LilBit” Jackson! Donnetta “LilBit” Jackson (she/her) is a versatile dance performer, instructor, choreographer, and actress. Born and raised on the Southeast Side of Chicago, she began dancing at The Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre at the age of seven. At 11 years old, she became one of the original members of the prestigious M.A.D.D. Rhythms tap company and later joined the Chicago Footwork crew, Creation Battle Clique/Creation Global. She choreographs for and performs with Grammy award-winning artist Chance the Rapper. Recently acknowledged as a “sister with superpowers” by Rolling Outmagazine, Jackson has also footworked internationally, for corporations like Nike and Jordan, and has competed on Season 6 of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew with the Chicago FootworKINGz.
Musician and vocalist Nashon Holloway is working on the release of her sophomore album entitled Taste the Wild Summer, a soulful, rhythmic, and passion-filled journey into layers of love and lovingkindness. Sonically, this work is where modern jazz meets soul, gospel, and Holloway’s own interpretations of world music. As artists help us make sense of a world full of uncertainty, war, and darkness, musicians like Holloway are creating the soundscapes that journey alongside the transcendent experiences of finding loving human connection.
Meet 2023 3Arts/Chandler Family Awardee Jenny Kendler! Jenny Kendler (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, naturalist, wild forager, and environmental activist based in Chicago and various forests. Her work aims to reconnect us to the natural world—and asks us to de-center the human, making space for the radical, transformative ‘otherness’ of our biodiverse Earth. Her practice is also informed by her identities as a queer woman, a Jew, a feminist, and a single parent.
Meet 2023 3Arts/Alison Zehr Awardee Eric Hotchkiss! Eric Hotchkiss (he/him) is an interdisciplinary designer, engineer, and educator based in Chicago. With a commitment to community design, his practice is a blend of artistry, collaboration, and transformation. Eric believes in the art of ‘making’ as a conduit for empathy, forging meaningful connections with others. Through collaboration, he engages with colleagues, clients, and neighbors to craft designs that resonate deeply within unique spaces and communities.
Meet 2023 3Arts/Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Awardee Avreeayl Ra! Avreeayl Ra Amen (he/him), born Arthur L. O’Neil in Chicago on May 21, 1947, has become a local legend in the rich, progressive Chicago avant-garde jazz scene, with a career spanning more than half a century. John Kelman of IndieJazz.com (http://indiejazz.com/) described his solos as “part Tony Williams, part Evan Jones, and all RA.” The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) describes him as a “master drummer” and claims him as a longtime member. Ra represents one of Illinois’s most treasured cultural exports as a home-grown jazz musician; he has played in various African nations, Austria, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
Meet 2023 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee Rashada Dawan! Rashada Dawan (she/they/them) is a native of the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. When she was 3 years old, her mother was killed in a hit-and-run by a drunk driver. And because she was raised by her amazing father and a wonderful village of family members, she believes her mother died saving her life to make something good of it. This is why her life’s mission is simply, “make it worth it.”
“This is an incredible and unique platform that is a privilege to have access to. Raising money is hard. Asking people for money is harder than ever. To know that a portion will be covered by this program helps artists move past barriers.”
— Fawzia Mirza, 3AP Project: Five Times a Day, $18,201 raised in 2019
Alt text: Image reading "3AP (3Arts Projects) is a crowdfunding platform with a built-in match that helps artists finance new creative work. 3Arts matches one-third of each project's funding goal, charges no fees to artists,
produces the project videos, and provides coaching before, during, and after campaigns. #Thisis3AP" The text lies inside a circle with one third of the circle unshaded, representing the one third match from 3Arts.
2023 3Arts Awards Teaser
It’s about that time! We are so excited to invite you to the 2023 3Arts Awards: For the Love of Artists.
The first in-person celebration since 2019, this year’s 3Arts Awards will honor 25 artists with more than $500,000 in unrestricted awards. You’re not going to want to miss out on the performances, community, and joy of celebrating artists at the heart of our city. Purchase your tickets via the #LinkInOurBio.
Meet 3Arts/Reva & David Logan Foundation Awardee Rozalinda Borcilă! Rozalinda Borcilă is a Romanian immigrant, artist, researcher, and activist. She develops long-term territorial projects that combine analytic and embodied modes of artistic research and take the form of publications, video essays, installations, media/web platforms, and experimental learning walks. Her work traces the ways racialized banishment, ecocide, Indigenous dispossession, and extractive violence are encoded in settler colonial placemaking.
Meet 2022 3Arts/Gary & Denise Gardner Fund Awardee zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal. zakkiyyah najeebah dumas-o'neal’s work is most often initiated by personal and social histories related to family, queer identities, self interiority, and belonging. Within her projects there's an overlying theme of trying to make sense of, and complicating, what and who she belongs to across time, location, and space.
See her film “to render the infinite” at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts through October 21.
Meet 2022 3Arts/SIF Fund Awardee Omer Abbas Salem. Omer is an actor and playwright working in Chicago. He was recently named a 2023 New Harmony Project Writer, receiving support from The Project’s artistic team in the development of a new play.
2022 3Arts/Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Awardee Sarita Smith Childs is a Chicago-based choreographer and teaching artist. A native of Chicago’s West Side, Sarita is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, where she received a BA degree with concentrations in Dance and Economics. Currently, she is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Northern Illinois University and a part-time instructor at Loyola University Chicago.
Meet 2022 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee Winifred Haun. Winifred is the founder, choreographer, and artistic director of her own modern dance company, Winifred Haun & Dancers. Since establishing the Company in the 1990’s, Ms. Haun has created over 75 new dance works, including one full length ballet and four dance films. She has received numerous awards and accolades for her choreography, including a 2016 MacArthur Foundation Award to create a new work in collaboration with renowned Australian Circus Artist, Emma Serjeant. Ms. Haun’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, Dance Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times, SeeChicagoDance, and many others.