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WNIJ's summary of news items around our state.

This Is 'Your Art Collection' - New Exhibition Opening This Weekend At Northern Illinois Museum

Provided by Jason Judd

A northern Illinois art museum is thanking its patrons for their generous donations. It’s doing this by having an art exhibition.

Jason Judd is the executive director of the Freeport Art Museum. He said the museum just finished an incredible fundraising season.  

“We raised over $30,000. And what better way to kind of thank those donors and those people that support us, to put on view some of the wildest, biggest, most, maybe adventurous pieces that we have in the collection," he suggested. 

Judd said the show is going to be a blockbuster.  

“Is that too much to say?" Judd asked. "I don't know. But putting it together, right, I'm a new director. So, this is my first time really kind of delving into the collection."

He admitted that he is excited about the pieces. One includes a fire dance mask from Papua New Guinea, an island north of Australia.  

“And that mask is used for initiations of young men turning dusk," Judd mentioned. "There's thumping and kind of chanting that goes along with it."

He shared that some of the pieces have never been put on display.   

He also said the collection is for the community.

"And I would like Freeport to know like, this is their art collection. Right? 'Your art collection,'" he said.  "You don't have to have it in your house. We have it here for you."

Selections from the Collections will display from Aug. 22 through Oct. 31.  

  • Yvonne Boose is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
Yvonne covers artistic, cultural, and spiritual expressions in the COVID-19 era. This could include how members of community cultural groups are finding creative and innovative ways to enrich their personal lives through these expressions individually and within the context of their larger communities. Boose is a recent graduate of the Illinois Media School and returns to journalism after a career in the corporate world.