Geneseo’s popular Artwalk is back and better than ever in 2022! The Geneseo Artwalk showcases local art and is Saturday April 30, 2022, in Downtown Geneseo. Downtown Geneseo springs to life during the Artwalk, welcoming Spring and offering outstanding shopping and dining options. Many stores will host art performances in stores, featuring original works and live art demonstrations such as painting, sculpting, wood-working and more. Live music, interactive exhibits and food trucks will also be featured. Shake off the cabin fever and join us in downtown Geneseo on Saturday April 30 to help... Read More

Join the Quad City Singers for a night of drinks, hors devours & jazz favorites, including Moonglow, Come Rain or Come Shine, Taking a Chance on Love, Come Fly with Me, Operator and many more! Old Oaks Winery. May 26 Cocktails at 6:00 PM Concert at 7:00 PM Get your tickets here: HEAR THE PEOPLE SING  Read More

Check out The Nines – a mixed media art event – this Friday at DeSoto Pottery Studio in Rock Island! Check out all the details here: DESOTO POTTERY STUDIO PRESENT THE NINES  Read More

MACOMB/MOLINE, IL – – Western Illinois University’s Museum Studies Program will host “Museums in Progress” at noon Friday, March 18 at the WIU-QC Riverfront Hall, room 111. The symposium, which will also be hosted virtually, will include a discussion with museum professionals Hannah Mason Macklin and Professor Dan Hicks. Attendees will be able to discuss, learn and debate how curators are increasingly using anticolonial practices to engage with objects that have been plundered or defined through colonial ideologies. Macklin is currently an education manager at the... Read More

Exciting announcement! Thanks to a major corporate gift from Quad City Bank & Trust, the Figge Art Museum has added The Everyday by artist Latoya Hobbs to its growing permanent collection. The gift was inspired by the Figge’s Diversity and Equity Art Fund, established last year to combat the systemic inequality in the art world. The Everyday is part of a series done by Hobbs which centers “modern matriarchs” and reinforces the artist’s belief that Black women are the preservers of their families, communities, and culture. – Image Credit: The Everyday Medium: Acrylic and... Read More

Artists like Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Stuart Curry may be familiar names in the American Scene style. However, the Bettendorf Public Library is offering an inside look into another of the genre’s artists who happened to have local roots. Doris Lee, born in Aledo, Illinois, was one of the top female artists in the mid-1930s through the 1950s. On Saturday, March 5th at 3:00 PM, the Bettendorf Public Library will host a virtual Art Talk with Carol Ehlers. The presentation accompanies the Figge’s current exhibition, “Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee.” Thanks to the support... Read More

Longtime Davenport artist Cathy Bolkcom will be exhibiting her latest paintings at an art reception and sale at the new West Davenport Arts Council gallery wall at Metropolitan community Church in Davenport on Saturday, March 5 from 1 to 4 pm. Bolkcom is excited to share new work after being away from painting for a number of years, when she worked to help put her kids to college and start a non-profit community citizens group. Her latest paintings further her investigation and into landscape, spiritual seeking, gates and pathways and windows. Says Bolkcom, “Being creative and connecting to my... Read More

Artists like Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Stuart Curry may be familiar names in the American Scene style. However, the Bettendorf Public Library is offering an inside look into another of the genre’s artists who happened to have local roots. Doris Lee, born in Aledo, Illinois, was one of the top female artists in the mid-1930s through the 1950s. On Saturday, March 5th at 3:00 PM, the Bettendorf Public Library will host a virtual Art Talk with Carol Ehlers. The presentation accompanies the Figge’s current exhibition, “Simple Pleasures: The Art of Doris Lee.” Thanks to the support... Read More

St. Louis artist Michael Darough will have his solo exhibition, “The Talk: A Conversation about Race in America,” on display Tuesday, Feb. 22-Friday, March 25, at the Western Illinois University Art Gallery. Darough graduated from the University of Memphis, earning an MFA in photography in 2011, and his BFA in photography from Arizona State University in 2007. His work explores the intersection of personal and cultural identity through tableau and portraiture. He is a nationally and internationally exhibiting artist whose work has recently been shown at the Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis,... Read More

“I may be busier in retirement than I was when I was working”, said Robert “Bob” Johnson, a 1978 graduate of the Western Illinois University Department of Art and Design. His 37 years as curator for the WIU Museum of Geology came to an end in 2017, but he still has plenty of projects he intends to accomplish. Retirement has not slowed him, or his creativity for that matter, down. He is adamant that in order for it to be enjoyable, retirement requires a plan. He was fortunate enough to have one: creating more art. Much like his days lately as a retiree, many of his recent... Read More