Annual Report 2024
Annual Report 2024
During our 2024 programming season, Comfort Station curated and hosted more than 200 free public events. Our programs included 10 month-long exhibitions, 58 concerts in our weekly Comfort Music series, 20 screenings in our weekly Comfort Film series, as well as a variety of other performances, workshops, installations, and lectures programmed by our staff and in collaboration with outside curators and partner organizations. Our total revenue for the 2024 fiscal year was $190,000 (up from $106,000 in 2023), and our total expenses were $188,000 (up from $127,000 in 2023).
Programming
The majority of this increase in budget was one-time funding to support our largest public art project in the history of our organization, Edra Soto's La Casa de Todos installation and related programming. We were fortunate to receive significant grants from two funders to support this ambitious project: The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Terra Foundation of American Art's Art Design Chicago grant. We're grateful for the resources provided by these two grants to carry out this special project, not only for the ways it benefitted the artists involved and the general public who attended, but also for the opportunity it gave our programmers to creatively curate programming beyond our usual capacity.
Soto’s practice draws from her Puerto Rican roots to instigate conversations about history, diasporic identity, and constructed social orders. La Casa de Todos built on her ongoing project “Graft,” which integrates architectural intervention and social practice. La Casa de Todos, or “Everyone's Home,” reconfigured our SCAFFOLD structure on the lawn (originally designed by Via Chicago Architects + Diseñadores in 2021), transforming its structure by overlapping abstract carved panels, delineating safe zones destined to house public gatherings and moments for celebration. Concurrent with her installation at Comfort Station, Soto debuted a work with a similar motif in New York City's Central Park, in conjunction with the Public Art Fund.
With this public installation, Soto invited the community to celebrate a shared home together. Over the course of six months, a variety of programs were carried out in and around this installation with projects curated by Comfort Station as well as partners at Palenque Logan Square Neighborhood Association, ranging from puppet shows produced with local youth, to drag shows, film screenings, poetry readings, dance and musical performances, a community dinner, and workshops. Other collaborators in this project included Operamatic, Freedom From / Freedom To, the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, The Seldoms Dance Company, and the Chinese American Museum of Chicago.
Alongside this special project, our core programs--Comfort Music, Exhibitions, and Comfort Film--continued to run steadily in 2024. Each of these programs are run by a dedicated team of programmers managing the curation and operations of their respective areas. Since these programs were founded in 2011, it has been a priority of the organization to maintain the sense of autonomy and collaborative structures that each program area has developed organically over the years. Our growth and capacity building in the last five years have focused on long term sustainability as an organization while maintaining the grass roots character of these programs.
Our 2024 Comfort Film programming season was characterized by a wide network of collaborators and partners, a hallmark of the program since its early days. The annual Silent Film with live band accompaniment has become a tradition in Logan Square, attracting large crowds on the lawn, and the 2024 edition was offered in collaboration with the Goethe Institute. The program has also historically acted as an avenue for people in the community to gain experience in film curation, including through a film mentorship month where applicants accepted into the program were given a budget and guidance for screening selections. Comfort Film has been run by lead programmer Raul Benitez since 2013 and has maintained a consistent, tightly knit cohort of programmers over the years, with a current team of members who have been involved for 3-8 years.
Riley Leitch has managed the Comfort Music program since 2021, and in recent years has overseen expansion of the program beyond our usual weekly Thursday program. The 2024 programming season saw a new regular monthly series, Quiet Comfort, focusing on gentler and more contemplative sounds taking advantage of the unique acoustics of our building. 2024 also incorporated guest curators such as Hedra Rowan (Bodymilk Tapes), Not So Secret Showcase, and Homeroom. With 58 concerts over the year, 2024 was the most active year of music at Comfort Station in our history.
Our 2024 season featured 10 solo exhibitions selected from our annual open call, with a jury composed of Comfort Station staff and programmers, past artists, and invited guests from Chicago's visual art world. Caitlin Wagner has overseen our Exhibitions since 2022 and has been instrumental in systematizing all of the moving parts of a complex program, as well as cultivating a dedicated team taking on various aspects of the visual arts programming. 2024 was the second year of our "Artists to Watch" initiative, showcasing the artists whose application made it to the final review round of our selection process. Through hosting an afternoon of artist talks, an online portfolio database, and a social media campaign, we hope to highlight the range of emerging talent in the art scene in Chicago right now and create pathways for more opportunities for artists.
As a public space, our mission has always driven us to not only present free programs, but also act as a porous space for community members, partner orgs, and artists to host creative events of their own. Lauren Grudzien came onto our team in 2023 as our lead Social Engagement programmer, fielding online submissions and managing outreach to various community partners. Our 2024 season included a regular Queer Crafting Potluck, various poetry readings, mindfulness workshops, as well as partnerships with theater groups and literary reviews.
2024 was the third fiscal year since our capacity grew to the point that it could support two part time salaried roles for our executive director Jordan Martins, and artistic director Kitty Rauth. We continued to see the benefits of this investment in the long term sustainability of the organization, not only in terms of the fundraising capacity to sustain our incremental growth, but also the support and leadership that these two roles provide for our core programs, special projects and community partners. 2024 also saw the transition of our founding Board Chair, Sara Slawnik, who established the operations and culture of our board since its founding in 2016. In anticipation of this transition, we had carried out robust board recruitment process going into 2024, bringing on five new members in the beginning of the year: Mariela Acuña (who is our new Board Chair), Alden Burke, Eliseo Fernandez, John Guevarra and Jackie Kazarian. This new cohort was brought on in tandem with a change in our bylaws to increase the maximum slots in order to have a broader base of support from the board as Comfort Station continues to grow.
Fundraising
Like most other arts organizations in Chicago and nationally, 2024 was an uncertain and often challenging year for Comfort Station in terms of funding. As mentioned, we were fortunate to receive significant one-time project grants to support our special project with Edra Soto. Funding from the Terra Foundation and the NEA for this project not only allowed us to carry out an exciting and ambitious public installation and run of programming, but also gave us the resources to offer professional rates to all artists, programmers, performers, event staff, and marketing support.
At the same time, other grant funding (both private and government) that we had relied upon in recent years presented challenges for us in 2024. A foundation that reached out to support us in recent years with ongoing, annual giving (up to 20% of our operating budget) decided to pivot to a different area of funding. And like many peer orgs who had reliably received funding from the City Arts program at the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), we were not awarded a grant last year. This was the first time an application we submitted to this program was not awarded. As a non-profit operating free public programming in a city-owned property, the DCASE grant is the only avenue for us to receive city funding for what we do.
Fortunately, we began a multi-year grant cycle with the Driehaus Foundation that is perhaps the single most impactful funding we have ever received. When we registered as a 501c3 in 2016, the first foundation grant we received was through the MacArthur Driehaus Fund, a program which sunsetted in 2023. We were invited to apply for Driehaus's revamped Arts and Culture grant, an application that was ultimately accepted in support of Comfort Station's role as an arts service organization providing opportunities, mentorship and resources to arts workers. We are also grateful for the continuing support of the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, who have also been funding us annually since 2016, as well as the Illinois Arts Council.
Comfort Station operated three principal fundraisers across 2024: The Logan Square Chef's Dinner, our annual Native Plant Sale, and our inaugural Postscript Gala. As our operating budget has grown and grant funding has proven to be less certain in today's climate, these fundraisers have collectively become an essential source of our annual revenue and one of the main avenues for individual contributions to support our work. The Chef's Dinner has been hosted by Jason Hammel at Lula Cafe annually since 2012, our most consistent source of funding ever since then. The 2024 edition saw contributions from Logan Square's vast culinary talent, including Diana Davila (Mi Tocaya), Joe Frillman (Daisies), Ethan Pikas (Cellar Door Provisions), Matthias Merges (Billy Sunday) and Zeeshan Shah & Yoshi Yamada (Superkhana). Our third annual Native Plant Sale underperformed previous years but remained a solid segment for our fundraising goals. Both the dinner at Lula Cafe and the Native Plant Sale are board-led fundraisers, benefitting from our generous and talented working board.
And we launched our first ever annual Gala, hosted at the Logan Square Auditorium. This new fundraiser was developed in part as a way to smooth out our organization's cash flow by bringing in revenue in the first few months of the year. It was also a product of our increased capacity with board and staff in recent years, in particular our artistic director Kitty Rauth who chaired the gala committee and oversaw all production of the event. The event was a success in large part due to a dedicated committee of programmers, volunteers and board members who planned it, as well as neighborhood sponsors and supporters who helped underwrite the costs.
We are so grateful to all our programmers, staff, board members, artists, donors, partners, and friends for making 2024 such a memorable year.
Expenses
Income
Programmers and Volunteers
Raul Benitez
Riley Leitch
Caitlin Wagner
Jonathan Krohn
Kate Paris Tsan
Marielle Mervau
Lauren Grudzien
Lauren Viera
Emily Perez
Mathew Tapey
Aunty Calhoun
Erica Zhan
Patricia Doyle
Alexandria Knapik
Nadia John
Stephanie Koll
Matthew Siefert
Hedra Rowan
Madelynn Austin
Luna Luxe
Sam Leapley
Mersadi McClure
Adam Shead
Grace DeVies
Nick Meryhew
Sam Aguilar
Izzy Brandli
Gordon Fung
Board of Directors
Mariela Acuña
Alden Burke
Christina Cosío
Eliseo Fernandez
John Guevara
Manya Gupta
Willie Jackson
Jackie Kazarian
Sara Slawnik
Laura Vichick
Adrian Wong
Exhibitions
March – Yaismel Alba Garib
April – Sangwoo Yoo
May – Sayeda Misa Sourour
June – Zulkhairi Zulkiflee and Sheldon Till–Campbell
July – Jonathan Michael Castillo
August – olivier September and Maddie May
October – Ray Madrigal
November – D Rosen
December – Rosemary Holliday Hall and E. Saffronia Downing
Comfort Music Performers
Adam Gabbert
Adam Shead
Alejandro Meola
Alec Watson
Allyson Gonzalez
Ava Brennan
Artemis Octavio
Ben Billington
Blaine Teppema
Brent Penny
Chad Kouri
Christopher Dammann
Christopher Moore
Colleen Deremiah
Craig Davis Pinson
Dan Sullivan
Daniel Wyche
Dustin Laurenzi
Donny Mahlmeister
Elijah Berlow
Emily Beisel
Erik Sowa
Gerrit Hatcher
Graciela Gonzalez
Hannah Frey
Instinct Control
Janna Lee
Jason Stein
Jack Langdon
Jef Frey Michael Austin
Juan Flores
Lia Kohl
Liz Flood
Misa Sourour
Margaret McCarthy
Maya Nguyen
Matthew Daher
Max Reikosky
Meghan Lamb
Mia Arevalo
Morgan Kavanagh
Nick Meryhew
Nicole Alonso
Sarah Clausen
Sarah Lutkenhaus
Sarai
Sydney Léonie Pritchard
Tyler Wagner
Veronica Anne Salinas
Weasel Walter
Wille Yager
Partner organizations and collaborators
Art Design Chicago
Body Milk
Chicago Critique Group
Chicago Film Society
Elastic Arts
First Nations Film & Video Festival
Freedom From Freedom To
Goethe Institut
Homeroom Chicago
Intuit Art Museum
Drag Me to Life
Logan Square Arts Festival
Logan Square Chamber of Commerce
Not So Secret Secret Show
Nothing Without a Company
Operamatic
Palenque Logan Square Neighborhood Association
Parlour Tapes
Queer Craft Potluck
The Runaways Lab
Chinese American Museum of Chicago
The Prairie Review
Mycelium Co-Design
Sacred Harp
Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center
Shakespeare Blood Oath
Stretch Metal
Txa Txa Club
The Bridge
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Wild World Gardens
Zinemercado
Supporters
Aeriz
Asrai Garden
Billy Sunday
Cellar Door Provisions
Chicago Distilling Company
Daisies
Driehaus Foundation
Elizabeth Wall
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Heisler Hospitality
Illinois Arts Council
Logan Square Auditorium
Logan Square Preservation
Lula Cafe
Marz Brewing
Mi Tocaya
Modern Capital Concepts
National Endowment for the Arts
Revolution Brewing
Superkhana
Terra Foundation
Visitor
2024 Friends of Comfort Station
Lorin Adolph
Bruce Anderson
Phil Ashton
Taylor Briggs
Emily Brown
Michael Cadilhac
Lisa Capozzi
Annie Coleman
Megan Hurtuk
Briane Johnson
Jenny Kendler
Sabine Krauss
Meg Leary
Tina Lefauve
Laurie Little
Vicki Logan
Brady Luby
Samuel Macy
Alexander Marianyi
Samuel Macy
Kara Menini
Fabiola Montiel
Kate Moore
Clarence Morgan
Catherine Nelson
Brooke Odem
Libby O'Neill
Aditi Panosh
Andrew Pates
Roger Post
Matthew Pryor
Julia Rickert
Guy Rowley
Andrea Sforza
Jason Shintani
Livy Snyder
Edra Soto
Dan Sullivan
Mona Vashi
Lauren Viera
Tacy Wagner
Michael and Michelle Warner
Lauren Wolf
Elise Zelechowski
Nancy Zwick