Home

Sara Phalen
Museum Director, Co-curator

Thank you to the artists who put their time, creative thought and personal experiences behind their work. The history of West Chicago has been my driving force over the past 13 years at the City Museum. It also inspired me to make my home in West Chicago, and I’m glad it provided such inspiration for you. I know it will also provide a spark for visitors to reflect on their definition of home and places they have called home. It will invite sharing, something I am grateful to witness everyday through this work.  -Sara Phalen, Director

Anni Holm
Co-curator

Home exhibition - Postcards from Home - West Chicago is my home.         

I moved to West Chicago in 2004, when my husband and I bought a condo right by the train station, lured by the ease of commuting into the city. It was our first home together. It smelled brand new and a tiny bit of Burger King and train exhaust. We quickly grew used to the engines rumble, the shrieking breaks and bells clanging, whenever endless freight and commuter trains passed through. While the view was nothing to speak of, (the large gray commuter lot against the white wall of Jel-Sert), a 2 minute walk quickly would engulf you in a visual explosion of vibrant piñatas, papel picado, fresh produce and chip bags at the grocery stores next door.

We bought a house 2 years later in the Old Heidelberg neighborhood. Long known as the area where German immigrants first settled, more recently, it was also known for the perpetual scent of either cereal products or bugles from the General Mills plant down the street, mixed with an occasional hint of chewing gum from the Wrigley flavor factory just across the tracks. Our new home is where we continue to hear the train rumble by, a variety of Mexican music genres blasted on weekends from a party tent somewhere, birds chirping, lawn movers humming and church bells that ring on Sunday mornings. A home surrounded by lots of green grass, huge trees and sidewalks. A home that carried a scent of both the time and the people who lived in it. A home, that since we inhabited it, also has been filled with the accents of many visitors for extended periods of time from both near and far. 

Not having grown up in the United States, neither place actually felt like home - home, even though I’d say that I have a tendency to easily feel at home. For me home was Denmark, but not the Denmark I’d visit since moving here, but the Denmark I grew up in. For a while, I actually felt homeless, or perhaps just unsure as to where my home was. That was until I returned from the hospital after giving birth to my first child. It was as if, this profound experience all of a sudden had caused me to shoot deep and thick roots. Whereas before I had only had a huge, but very delicate network of roots near the surface -ready to be pulled out at any given time, and return to the home - home. West Chicago had now also become by home-home. 

For me, "home" relates to a feeling of connection. We moved houses a lot growing up, and while I felt like each physical structure was my home (after settling in), what really made it home was my family, our routines, and our traditions. One of the places we lived was outside of Houston. The Houston area didn't feel like home in the same way the Chicago area did/does. In terms of place as "home," I was not connected down there, and I still am not. On the other hand, we visited my grandparents in far northern Wisconsin every summer, and "the Lake" felt like home. My connection to that place goes back generations, as my grandpa's grandpa originally bought the land when working as a civil engineer for the railroad, and my family has spent summers up there for over 100 years.

Perhaps this is why my work focuses on connections to West Chicago as a place that is "home." As a non-West Chicagoan who knows much of the history and interacts with the people in my role as museum educator, it has been interesting for me to witness the strong connections people have with this town, whether or not they still live here. The dedication folks have to West Chicago as home has left an impression upon me, and I wanted to try to capture and share some of that dedication though my work.

The historical background that has informed my work has come to me naturally as a result of my position at the museum. The realization that people continue to nurture and deepen their connection to West Chicago as home became clear as I worked on my "West Chicago / Meeting Place" series of paintings in 2016. The way people reacted to my paintings in terms of the memories sparked and shared led me to want to include community voices in this new work. I’m grateful that the folks in the WeGo People Facebook group enthusiastically shared what ties them to West Chicago as a home.

Home can mean many things to many people, for me though “Home” is made up of people, places and things. The people of home consist of family, both immediate and extended. It also includes close friends and acquaintances that become a part of our everyday lives. Both sides of my family have their roots in DuPage County; so West Chicago, Cloverdale, and Wheaton all represent significant locations of “Home”.

For this exhibit I have focused on things that connect us to our family and our past.

Finding an autobiography that my Mom wrote in high school was a gift from the past that took me home - back to her childhood home and her family, but in sharing it with my brothers, sister, children, nieces and nephews, it reconnected my extended family of today.

In the beginning of the project I sought out other past students of WCCHS from the early 1900’s that wrote biographies. I was made aware of about six, and Sandy Gustafson followed through to participate in the project with her father, Belton’s autobiography. Another person, Vicki Gaudette contacted me because her grandfather, Richard “Dick” Sproat was an artist with artwork of West Chicago from the 20’s and 30’s. He is also included in the project, because the artwork just like the biographies are clues to the past, and gifts from the past that take us home.

My hope is that this exhibit will encourage everyone to rethink home and find their connections to the present and the past.

I gave this name to my work of art because “Home” is where we feel comfortable, where we feel in peace, where we can find joy, happiness, and everything we ever desired, where we feel like we belong and it belongs to us, where we feel love. Home is something we feel and keep close to our hearts.

Home is the structure itself, but what it means to us.

It’s a male’s arm and a female’s arm hugging “West Chicago” their “Home”. The reason why I chose a female and male is because it can be you or me, or anyone who feels a connection with West Chicago.

Eden Ünlüata
Affinity Train
wood toy, cardboard, papier-mâché, sidewalk chalk
variable dimensions

Affinity Train is an interactive installation made in response to Home exhibition. The work uses West Chicago’s history as a major intersection for train lines and as a place that welcomed many immigrant families as a jumping off point. I wanted define ‘home’ as a place where your journey takes you and every encounter, every experience on the way acts as a building block. Many of its residence have travelled long distances to make West Chicago a home, and trains continue to have a presence in everyday life.

This work uses a pre-made wood toy base, covered in cardboard, papier-mâché, and fabric. It is painted with chalkboard paint which affords writing/drawing on it. Each of the train cars are in the shape of a house, and contain little bells in them. The train cars are connected to each other and can be pulled around using the hook.

Affinity Train is intended as an interactive piece where audiences will drag the work around with them in the gallery space as they view other works, and will be able to write/draw on it using chalk.

To me the meaning of “home” is a center of support , love,  and safe place to be and feel yourself.

For this exhibit I was inspired by the history of West Chicago and the connection with immigrants.

I come from an immigrant family myself. I wanted portrayed the different paths one may take to find and feel “home.” The paths may not always be clear or in focus. 

But once “home” becomes your center point in life and the rest will ease in.