For Slow Art Day 2025, Bloomington–Normal, Illinois once again led a citywide Slow Art Day – they were the first to pioneer citywide events several years ago. Led by Pamela Eaton of Eaton Studio Gallery, the citywide Slow Art Day has grown into a statewide collaboration with a number of sponsors and leaders coming together. See the beautiful poster below.
The collaborative citywide scope of the event was documented by the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway. These photographs captured the range of venues and the conversations taking place across the city during the Slow Art Day weekend.
Here are a few reports we received from across the 2025 Citywide.
Eaton Studio Gallery At the Eaton Gallery, their Slow Art Day event centered on Star Crossed Pollinators, a refurbished sculpture by artist Herb Eaton originally created in 2000 for Bloomington’s Sesquicentennial celebrations. The work was on view during Slow Art Day as part of its refurbishment process ahead of its planned move to a permanent location at the McLean County Museum of History.
Photos below are of artist Herb Eaton with the original sculpture in 2000 on the left, and the new version in 2025 on the right.
Inside Out Accessible Art (IOAA) IOAA hosted artists demonstrating their techniques alongside other artists who brought individual works to discuss with patrons. The open format encouraged dialogue and allowed visitors to spend time with both artistic process and finished work. Photographs of the event below were taken by Shelley Schultz.
Red Raccoon Games Red Racoon in downtown Bloomington hosted artist Gina LaMonica, whose works were shown via the table setup below.
The Bloomington–Normal Slow Art Day demonstrated how a coordinated, multi-site approach can support slow looking at scale while remaining grounded in local artists, studios, and shared civic spaces. We thank Pamela Eaton, Eaton Studio Gallery, Inside Out Accessible Art, and all participating organizations and artists for making this citywide Slow Art Day possible. We look forward to seeing what they come up with for their citywide Slow Art Day in 2026.
The fourth annual citywide Slow Art Day on Route 66 is being hosted by the twin cities of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois this year.
** 20 ** local arts organizations are coming together for their citywide Slow Art Day, led by BN Artists, the grassroots, artist-led coalition of small business owners, nonprofit workers, and other culturally engaged citizens working collaboratively to promote the vibrant art scene in Bloomington-Normal.
Led by Pamala Eaton and others, BN Artists pioneered citywide events and have inspired other cities around the world to do it, including Rome and Mexico City (Mexico City is also their first citywide this year and bringing together 20 galleries and museums and they specifically cited Bloomington-Normal).
In Bloomington-Normal, guests will have a chance to explore the art studios and galleries of Downtown Bloomington artists, enter a world built of discarded machinery and scrap parts at 410 Sculpture Park and the House on Garling, and experience art viewing and artmaking in Normal at Illinois Art Station, the Children’s Discovery Museum, and Ryburn Place at Sprague’s Super Service.
See the wonderful poster below –
Santino Lamancusa, owner of The Hangar Art Company (who also designed the poster) explained his passion for Slow Art Day: “You don’t have to know anything about art to be able to enjoy it. Slow Art Day’s purpose is to allow you the time to look and make your own discoveries about what you see and how art makes you feel. It’s all about your interaction with the artist and what your experience is with their art. It’s not about anyone else’s opinion but your own. Slow Art Day is an opportunity to experience art for yourself.”
Pamala Eaton, gallerist and owner of Herb Eaton Studio and Gallery said Slow Art Day has helped to build the local art scene, “Collaborating with the other artists and galleries in our community for Slow Art Day has given our local art scene more visibility and we are now attracting more local and out of town visitors to our art locations.”
We at Slow Art Day love what Pamala, Santino, and others have done to get the whole city involved.
They are truly an inspiration for the world!
– Phyl and the Slow Art Day team
P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park or movie theater here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/
As many of you get ready for Slow Art Day 2023, we wanted to share this exciting news: the Bloomington-Normal, Illinois art community currently has *15* locations signed up for their citywide Slow Art Day 2023.
Located on the historic Route 66, these Bloomington artists and galleries are banding together to make Slow Art Day a full citywide celebration of art (and they designed a great poster, as you can see below).
Poster courtesy of Santino Lamancusa
Pamala Eaton of Eaton Studio Gallery started Slow Art Day in Bloomington several years ago.
This year Pamala’s colleagues, photographer Santino Lamancusa, owner of the The Hangar Art Gallery, and Janean Baird from Art Vortex, have met regularly to encourage and include other artists and galleries to join the now 15-site citywide, including:
For their first Slow Art Day – Slow Art Weekend, actually – the McLean County Museum of History, along with eight other downtown Bloomington, Illinois partners, held a Ready, Set, SLOW! event.
Hosted by Hannah Johnson, Education Program Coordinator at McLean, this Slow Art Day, organized with nine participating locations, was a true citywide event.
Inspired by the Downtown’s First Friday theme, visitors were invited to engage in an evening of egg hunting and art viewing at the Museum. Two posters were created for the event, including prompts for the attendees to consider, and small cards for each image were handed out. Literal and figurative Easter eggs were hidden in reproduction art works from the Museum’s collection for a Slow Art and egg hunt inspired seek-and-find.
We love the playful nature of their event design.
Below you can find examples of the various poster formats they used. Educators and curators around the world should feel free to copy elements of what they have done with their event (and posters).
Photo credit: Hannah Johnson
Original works from the Museum’s collection complete with Slow Art appropriate prompts were on display the entire weekend, along with an annual installation of the Clothesline Project in partnership with YWCA McLean County Stepping Stones.
Emily Aminta Howard, Painting of Grapes and Apples, Oil on Canvas, c. 1890/1900
Rupert Kilgore, Abstract Portrait, Oil on Canvas, c. 1955/65
Takashi Ode, Mountain Scene, Watercolor, c. 1980/90
T-shirts decorated by local sexual assault survivors were also displayed as testimony to their survival and the chronic problem of violence against women in recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
The McLean County Museum of History traces its roots back to 1892, and is a nationally-accredited award-winning museum with five permanent exhibit galleries and two rotating galleries.
Photo credit: Hannah Johnson
We look forward to what innovative approach McLean County Museum of History comes up with for next year’s Slow Art Day.
In what we hope is the beginning of a global trend, Bloomington, Illinois was home this year to the first planned citywide Slow Art Day event.
Nine galleries across this town, including the non-profit art collective Inside Out Accessible Art, Inc (IOAA), participated in what they called their Route 66 Slow Art Day initiative (Eaton, Illinois is situated on the historic Route 66 highway in the U.S.).
In addition to what IOAA and each of the other galleries did, the big win here of course is the way longtime host Pamala Eaton organized the first citywide Slow Art Day (see this earlier post and this local media coverage for more information).
The IOAA’s design for Slow Art Day was simple.
Visitors were invited to slowly look at the art of six local artists and then talk with each of the artists, who were invited to spend the day with slow lookers.
The six artists who participated were the following:
Photo credits: Shelley SchultzSlow Art Day 2022 at IOAA. Photo credits: Shelley Schultz
At Slow Art Day HQ we look forward to publishing the reports from the other eight galleries, and to writing a wrap-up analysis of Bloomington’s citywide event, including what other cities might learn about doing something similar.
Of course, we also hope that the IOAA will host another Slow Art Day in 2023, and that next year’s event will be part of yet another citywide experience.
– Johanna, Jessica, Ashley and Phyl
Ps. The IOAA is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit that has a physical gallery space for artists, provides art classes and events and works cooperatively with others in the community to provide art experiences. Check them out online or Facebook.
