This May we have the honor of having Douglas R. Ewart featured in CAFAC’s Nokomis Gallery. Stop by on May 1st at 5 pm as we unveil the exhibit titled “We See, We Feel, We Know, We Unite!” An exhibit featuring the works of Douglas R. Ewart. Light refreshments will be provided. *Update!: Fireside Chat with the artist has been rescheduled to May 24th”

Perhaps best known as a composer, improviser, sculptor and maker of masks and instruments, Douglas R. Ewart is also an educator, lecturer, arts organization consultant and all around visionary. In projects done in diverse media throughout an award-winning and widely-acclaimed 40-year career, Mr. Ewart has woven his remarkably broad gifts into a single sensibility that encourages and celebrates--as an antidote to the divisions and compartmentalization afflicting modern life-the wholeness of individuals in culturally active communities.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1946, Douglas R. Ewart immigrated to Chicago, Illinois in the United States in 1963. His travels throughout the world and interactions with diverse people since then has, again and again confirmed his view that the world is an interdependent entity. An example of his efforts both to study and to contribute to this interdependence is his use of his prestigious 1987 U.S.-Japan Creative Arts Fellowship to study both modern Japanese culture and the traditional Buddhist shakuhachi flute, and also to give public performances while in Japan.

In America, his determination to spread his perspective is part of the inspiration behind his often multi-disciplinary works and their encouragement of artist-audience interactions. It is also the basis of the teaching philosophy with which he guides his classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has taught since 1990, and the basis of the perspective he has brought to his service on advisory boards for institutions such as The National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer (New York City) and Arts Midwest. Mr. Ewart uses his past experience as chairman of the internationally renowned Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) to celebrate and build upon the history and achievements of the organization, and is from this perspective a natural extension of the activities he has been engaged in for the past four decades.

Among his many honors, Ewart received the 2022 McKnight Foundation Distinguished Artist Award, Jamaica Musgrave Silver Medal for Outstanding Merit in the Arts, Education, and Culture 2019, and Chicago’s Outstanding Artist Award. He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Bush Foundation, Jerome Foundation and others.

This exhibit will be available for viewing until May 31st. Check back for added events during his month with us. We can’t wait to see you.