The Great ARTdoors, a collaboration between the Urbana Park District, the Champaign Park District, UIUC College of Fine and Applied Arts, Allerton Park & Retreat Center, Illinois Arboretum, and 40 North, is kicking off a new cycle of awarding selected local artists stipends to create outdoor art installations in several Champaign and Urbana parks and community gardens. This program is once again guided by the belief that public art has the ability to visually and intellectually activate outdoor spaces by reinforcing social connectivity, providing a sense of belonging, and sparking dialogue. This project is also committed to compensating and validating local artists, prioritizing underserved communities, and ensuring accessibility for all.
The selected artworks will remain installed approximately through the end of November.
Nathan Westerman | Covalent Beacon | Victory Park, Urbana
The sculpture is constructed from reclaimed steel fixtures and furniture from Urbana High School, such as desk, filing cabinets, lockers, ets. The materials were thrown away and then collected over a period of years for this project, and others like it. The existing paint on the steel remain on the finished artwork, referencing place and a history of the material. The reclaimed steel is cut and welded into polyhedrons (dodecahedrons, Icosahedrons) attached to a galvanized vertical geometric column, referencing segments of Brancusi’s Endless Column. The structure is body/universe/electromagnetic field/everything/nothing. The rings mimic planetary gravity/bodies/vessels/a focused path. The galvanized shapes are broken segments of infinity or moments.
Jose Vazquez | Love Bug | Chief Shemauger Park, Urbana
My completed piece celebrates the often-overlooked life that thrives in nature, inviting viewers to appreciate the beauty hidden in the smallest details of the natural world. The artwork features a delicate ladybug as its central subject, surrounded by elegant, decorative floral designs that enhance its presence without overshadowing it.
Constructed from multiple layered panels cut into organic, flowing shapes, the composition creates depth, texture, and a sense of movement. Each layer has been fully painted in vibrant, natural colors, bringing the scene to life while emphasizing the intricate details of both the insect and its floral surroundings.
The finished work is displayed within a wooded setting, allowing the artwork to blend with its environment and encouraging viewers to slow down, observe, and reconnect with the small wonders of nature that are so often passed by during everyday walks.
Cameron Raab | Prairie Palette | Meadowbrook Park, Urbana
This installation consists of four arched wooden panels, hand-painted to resemble vibrant stained glass. Each panel celebrates a favorite native plant from a different season, reflecting both my artistic practice and my passion as a certified Master Gardener and advocate for native plants. This concept has lived in my imagination for years and bringing it to life through this installation has been incredibly meaningful.
The work honors native plants as subjects worthy of admiration and reverence, much like the stained glass traditionally used to celebrate people, stories, and places of significance.
The four featured native flowers, from left to right, are Common Violet, Purple Coneflower, Eastern Bluestar, and Black-eyed Susan. Together, they represent the beauty, resilience, and ecological importance of native plants while inviting viewers to appreciate the essential role they play in our environment.
Each panel was cut, painted, and sealed by hand to ensure durability and protection from the elements while providing a lasting public artwork that celebrates the natural beauty of our region.
Amy Kesler | Unsung: The Patience and Persistence of the Overlooked | South Ridge Park, Urbana
This outdoor installation reimagines a traditional clothesline as a celebration of community, labor, art, and the natural world. Constructed with vintage-style clothesline posts, cables, and hardware, the work features large, weather-treated quilts created from discarded work clothing. The quilt surfaces are painted with vibrant, stylized depictions of native plants and animals, using bright colors, shapes, and patterns to invite curiosity and discovery. Suspended like freshly washed laundry, the quilts are shaped to suggest movement in the wind, while painted reverse sides and additional treated garments further enrich the installation.
The materials and imagery carry layered meaning. Repurposed work clothes honor the dignity of all labor, especially the often-overlooked work that sustains communities. The clothesline evokes the traditionally undervalued domestic labor historically performed by women, while the quilts recognize a rich artistic tradition that has too often been dismissed as mere craft despite its cultural and creative significance. By centering native plants and animals, the installation also encourages viewers to appreciate and protect the region’s natural heritage, inviting families and children to identify local species and seek them out in nearby parks and natural spaces. Together, these elements create an artwork that celebrates resilience, connection, and the enduring importance of nature, creativity, and community.
Shawn A. Hensley | PERCH | Robert C. Porter Family Park
PERCH is an interactive sculptural installation that creates a place to rest, talk, reflect, and daydream—an invitation to inhabit nature rather than simply observe it. Composed of a base, a column (seat), and a capital (bird), the work draws from classical architectural forms while grounding it within the landscape. The base, rendered as aged red brick, evokes the state’s neighborhoods, main streets, and industrial corridors, symbolizing the generations of Illinoisans whose labor and stories form the foundation of our shared civic life. Rising from this structure, the column takes the shape of a weathered tree branch painted in rich umbers, ochres, greens, and washed blacks, representing the present moment—organic, textured, and shaped by time—where visitors are invited to sit on a worn red leather cushion that suggests both leadership and collective agency. At the top rests a white-breasted nuthatch, native to Illinois woodlands, a bird known for moving in any direction and foraging cooperatively, symbolizing adaptability, community, and the shared pursuit of happiness rooted in our natural environment. By combining built history, lived experience, and native ecology, the piece lifts local stories while honoring Illinois as a place where democracy is grounded, sustained by nature, and shaped by the people who gather within it.
