Family Day | Comfy Cozy

Access Information

ASL interpretation is provided at this event.

To request additional accessibility services like audio description, please contact us via email at Accessibility@mcachicago.org or call 312-397-4076.

About the Artists

Juan Arango Palacios is an artist whose vibrant visual narratives build a world of sanctuary and celebration. Highlighting the experience of marginalized communities, the artist’s works are centered on uplifting the queer experience—while also exploring the artist’s experiences growing up in a post-colonial context in Colombia and the United States. Raised in a traditional Catholic community in Colombia, a series of migrations brought Arango Palacios and their family to the American South in search of a better life. Moving through Louisiana and Texas, their sense of identity and belonging began to be skewed by their lack of knowledge of the English language, their unfamiliarity with American culture, and their internal struggle with a queer identity. Arango Palacios graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 and has developed an interdisciplinary artistic practice exploring drawing, painting, textile-making, and ceramic sculpture. Arango Palacios’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Gaa, New York, NY; Spinello Projects, Miami, FL; Selenas Mountain, Queens, NY; and New Image Art, Los Angeles, CA. They have participated in artist residencies at The Macedonia Institute in Chatham, NY; the Bed Stuy Art Residency in Brooklyn, NY; and the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art Residency at Yale University in Norfolk, CT.

Lucia Calderon Arrieta (they/them) is an artist + educator residing in the traditional unceded lands of the Potowatomi, Peoria, Miami, Ojibwe, and Oglala Sioux. Calderon Arrieta learned to sew from Abuelita and learned to call it fiber art from academia. They were raised by South American immigrants in the deep American South. Their work reflects their experience as a queer (cuir), Latine/x, chronically ill, neurodivergent human creature by materializing metaphors of body, skin, and ocean. They explore visibility, vulnerability, and community through fiber art and worldbuilding. Calderon Arrieta holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from Birmingham-Southern College. They have served as an educator across academic, museum, and community organizations. These roles include: museum educator at the Art Institute of Chicago, teaching artist at the Museum of Contemporary Art, adjunct lecturer at Chicago State University, teaching artist at the Allied Media Conference, and facilitator for incarcerated artists with the Youth Arts Alliance! Calderon Arrieta has shown work in venues including The Hyde Park Arts Center (Chicago, IL), Heaven Gallery (Chicago, IL), The South Haven Center for the Arts (South Haven, MI), Durbin Gallery (Birmingham, AL), Flophouse Gallery (Berkeley, MI), and SOFA 2014 (Chicago, IL).

Cherish Hicks is the founder of BEYOND, a wellness collective offering classes, workshops, and one-on-one coaching to help people start and sustain their journey to a healthier lifestyle. Hicks discovered profound healing and transformation through studying mindfulness, meditation, and journaling. Out of this process she developed a method of self empowering meditation, eventually founding BEYOND as a way to cultivate safe, inclusive spaces dedicated to the restoration of mind, body, and spirit through all mediums connected to mindfulness.

Funding

Support for Family Programs is provided in part by the MCA Women’s Board Family Education Initiative, Northern Trust, and Peoples Gas Community Fund.