The Three Arts Club of Chicago was founded in 1912 by a group of famous Chicago women to provide a place that girls and women could live while studying and working in the arts. They began by renting an existing large house on LaSalle. In 1914, they had their own building designed and built. It is a grand building. Over the years, the Club opened itself up to women of all ages, and in all disciplines. In recent years, the Club has been home to women from all over the world -- from all over the United States and from every continent. They came to stay for a few days or a few years. The women were working, studying, auditioning, interning. They were in theatre, comedy, film, dance, music, singing, composing, conducting, sculpture, glass art, painting, drawing, performance art, writing of all kinds -- journalism, screenplays, poems, books, plays.
The set-up at the Three Arts Club: the first floor was the group living space: a large drawing room with a fireplace, seating areas, and a grand piano, with French doors out to the courtyard; the library with bookshelves and seating; and several smaller sitting rooms; the ballroom with a small, low stage; the tea room with its coved ceilings and windows in on the courtyard and out to the street; the dining room with its castle-like murals and fountain; the kitchen. All of this surrounded the interior courtyard with a fountain, plants, and cafe tables with chairs. Upstairs were bedrooms with shared or private baths. The fourth, or top floor, had originally been used as art and music studios and maid's quarters. Recently, due to extreme popularity of the Club, the rooms on the fourth floor were used as bedrooms. A painting studio with air system was also on the fourth floor.
The lifestyle: The girls and women at the Three Arts Club shared breakfast and dinner each day in the dining room. They also shared their cultures, languages, and arts. They shared dreams and ideas, and many collaborated on projects. If a resident was a filmmaker and needed an actress, or a music composer, or a writer -- dinner time was a great place to find one!
The residents made friends from all over the world. The Three Arts Club was truly a multicultural, multiracial, multilingual experience. It was like a sorority -- but of seriously creative, intelligent women of all ages, from the whole world.
Since we began our struggle to save the Three Arts Club, we have heard from people in the arts who realize the value of the Club to the world, to women, and to the arts, and especially, to Chicago. Moreso, we have heard from former residents. In the photo of the tea room, the lady shown is a former resident from many years ago. She has fond memories of living at the Three Arts while studying at Goodman Theater School. She was shocked to know that the Three Arts Board members had turned their backs on the mission of the Club. Everyone else tells us the same thing -- that they are shocked. The Club was popular, was filled with residents, and was running in the black. Some repairs were needed, but they were small in comparison to the fact the property was exempt from real estate taxes and was located in the wealthiest and most convenient area of Chicago.
Have you read Virginia Woolf's, "A Room of One's Own"? This is what we all got at the Three Arts Club - a time and a space that was just for us, for our minds, for our creativity. And those rooms were contained in a nurturing, safe community in a gently cloistered setting set amid one of the world's greatest cultural cities -- Chicago.
