Lynn Renee Persin
Having studied photography at the University of Michigan, Lynn Renee Persin has been a part of the Chicago photographic community for over 20 years. Her work has been exhibited at the now defunct Around the Coyote festivals in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood where she picked up a curator’s choice award from Tricia Van Eck, then the associate curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art. In addition she was a chosen artist for The Artist Project, an exhibition that accompanied Chicago’s Art Expo in the Merchandise Mart.
Currently Lynn supports her family in her chosen career of photography, partnering with local non-profits to provide event and marketing photography. Her work is often featured on billboards and bus stops throughout the city and surrounding suburbs, and she spends her evenings photographing fundraisers, her daytimes photographing school programs, and in the summer you can find her up at summer camp hanging out of a canoe with two camera bodies strapped to her chest. And in her free time you can often find her setting up a picnic in the park with her husband, 8 year old son, and her dog named, “Sox.”
Portrait by Abbi Chase
Stories from Lynn Renee Persin
Lynn Renee Persin & Edison Regional Gifted Center
Project Overview
Lynn Renee Persin & Budlong Elementary School
Project Overview
It’s a neighborhood school, a local school, right around the corner from my apartment. There is no lottery or admissions test to get in. And there are no bidding wars just to have a home within its borders. Yet, Budlong Elementary School is offering a well-balanced educational, cultural, and social experience for families of extremely diverse backgrounds on the North Side of the city, just a short hop outside of Lincoln Square. With the youngest learners in preschool just beginning an educational journey that can take them all the way through 8th grade if they choose, where their days are filled with a dedicated staff committed to elevating their spirits every day at Budlong.
In addition to the expected circulars of a day in the Chicago Public School system, students at Budlong have regular art classes with a dedicated art teacher. They have a drama teacher with her own theater room complete with curtains, a stage, and inspirational quotes on the walls. Besides a large gymnasium there is an auditorium with the type of stage I remember from my childhood, that fills with sunlight throughout the day and has chairs that don’t need to be folded up and put away at the end of a concert. There is a second gymnasium on the bottom floor, a library, and two rooms with two different teachers who are dedicated to immersing their students in Mandarin and Chinese culture. On Tuesdays, excited and fresh-faced musicians flow from room to room bringing carts of instruments to get the entire class singing “This Little Light of Mine” as the sun flows through the large windows of this building which dates back to 1918, over 100 years ago.
Walking the hallways at Budlong is a pleasure, despite the extra pressures that COVID has put on an already over-stretched staff, specifically in maintenance where they are often working double-contracts to cover all the schools that need their services. Mondays are COVID testing in the auditorium, and since winter break ended, classes have been rotating in and out to remote learning as the pandemic continues to impact our daily routines. But morale is high, even though the lunchroom might be empty as classes are forced to eat lunch in their rooms or in shifts in the downstairs gymnasium, not quite 6 feet apart. Celebrations are picking up, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, or one of my personal favorites, the Lunar New Year Parade. Even with all the additional stress the school is committed to focusing on the needs of their students and filling their days with learning and reverie.
Lynn Renee Persin & Edison Regional Gifted Center
Project Overview
Being an eight year old is such a unique time in a child’s life, they are mature enough to put complete ideas together but young enough to believe that anything is possible. This was the inspiration I used for this portrait project for the second grade at Edison Regional Gifted Center in the Albany Park neighborhood in Chicago.
My goal was to create portraits that could serve as a time capsule, telling us who they are, what they love, and what they believe in by using their own words in their own handwriting.
Working with their second grade teacher and their art teacher, we put together a writing prompt for them to answer, “what is your favorite thing about yourself and how can you share it with the world?” While they filled out the their answers, I photographed each of them in the hallway by the art class and we discussed the prompts during their portrait sessions. I put a chair down so that they would sit relatively still; they are definitely at that age where their bodies want to move all the time. The chair is positioned sideways to allow each student another voice in this project, a choice in how they sat down and interacted with my camera and me.
While photographing one student the rest were in the art room filling out their answers, which I scanned and placed into the selected portraits. Now viewers can get to know these students on many different levels; they can see how they look, see how they dress, how they sit, read what they wrote, and see their handwriting exactly how it looked on February 5, 2020.
—Lynn Renee Persin
Jeff Phillips & Dorian Sylvain: The BMO Harris x CPS Lives Mural, Summer 2020
Project Overview
“Art can tell stories and change narratives,” says Suzette Bross, Executive Director of CPS Lives. “This mural is an expression of giving back to the community and showing the good in humanity.”
In June 2020, a group of Chicago students transformed the temporary plywood used to cover BMO Harris Bank’s main branch during protests into a work of art that expresses messages of hope and unity, representing the opportunity we all have to create a more inclusive community together.
As protests erupted across Chicago – and the country – and thousands of Chicagoans demonstrated peacefully, CPS Lives and BMO Harris Bank were eager to find ways to support our communities and stand against racial inequality and injustice. BMO – a longstanding supporter of both Chicago’s public schools and the city’s arts community – reached out to CPS Lives and asked if they wanted to create artwork on the plywood around the branch.
“BMO’s values of fairness, equality and inclusion perfectly align with ours,” says Suzette, who founded CPS Lives, a non-profit organization that creates artist residencies in Chicago Public Schools to share honest and positive stories about public schools. Local artists partner with a Chicago Public School during the academic year to collaborate on a project. The art they create gives young people in Chicago a platform to speak about their hopes, dreams, and ideas.
“There are 400,000 students in the CPS system, and many people in the city don’t know anything about them,” says Jeff Phillips, a local artist who works with CPS Lives. “This was an opportunity to give the students their own voice – in a really public way.”
Amplifying voices
Like protest, art can give a louder voice to people who aren’t being heard. The recent protests have given voice to people from all walks of life, joining together to demand change to make society more just and inclusive. Similarly, this group of Chicago Public School students and artists created a powerful public art project to send a message of their own.
“Protest and public art are similar expressions. They’re both a personal statement of values,” says Dorian Sylvain, a Chicago artist and CPS Lives collaborator. “Displaying art in the public spaces goes beyond aesthetics. It creates dialogue – and it’s human nature to want to be heard.”
Suzette reached out to Jeff and Dorian to collaborate, and they quickly got to work on a proposal and a design. Together, they came up with the idea of a mural made up of images and photos from CPS Lives artists and CPS schools, highlighting the proud academic achievements of graduating students – and surrounded by images of life at public schools across the city.
“Highlighting all these beautiful young faces that are usually somewhat anonymous – it not only empowers the kids who see themselves on that mural, but also other people who are like them. That can be very validating,” says Dorian.
Jeff agrees. “We wanted to evoke something positive and emotional, and to do what art is supposed to do – reflect the everyday in a new light.”
A creative collective
Titled “If I Could Show the World,” the mural was named and assembled by students from more than 20 Chicago public schools participating in the CPS Lives program. Hyde Park Art Center donated its space, and more than 75 people came together to create the murals, including students who chose to spend their first day of summer vacation there.
“The experience was festive. We had music playing, it was a beautiful day, the students came in and they brought their friends. We just had a good time,” says Dorian. “The spirit of collective work, and the gratification of producing something together that one person couldn’t have done on their own – it’s so empowering. Sharing, listening, learning from each other – all those principles come out when we work together.”
“It was one of the best experiences of my life,” says Jeff. “To see these kids creating together, and hearing them say things like ‘I feel like an artist’ – it was incredible.”
Inclusion and equality
CPS Lives is the first of several non-profits that will create art for BMO’s main branch windows over the coming months, serving as a visual reminder to continue our progress toward a more inclusive society. The art will be displayed in neighborhoods across Chicago as it rotates out of the bank’s windows.
BMO believes this is not a time to be silent. We will always stand up for a more just society where all people are valued equally. These murals are part of our pledge to speak up for what’s right, and to create space for other voices to be heard.
“Art is such a powerful and direct way to express hope and optimism,” says Jeff. “Public art speaks to the community. The message spreads. If you create something interesting and beautiful, you invite people in to learn more about your world – and that can make all the difference.”
BMO is committed to zero barriers to inclusion, and we strive for that vision by supporting real financial progress for our customers and communities.
Read about BMO’s recent $10 million donation through the United Way of Metro Chicago as part of Chicago’s Invest South/West initiative, our recent donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and Greater Twin Cities United Way, to support social and racial justice, and inclusion.
Learn more about community giving at BMO.
And please, consider donating to CPS Lives as we take on our next endeavors.
