Wisdom Baty

Multidisciplinary Artist, Educator, and Cultural Organizer

2026 3Arts Awards

Teaching Arts

Wisdom Baty (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, curator, cultural organizer, and mother, based on the South Side of Chicago. Her practice centers artist care, collaboration, and community-rooted civic engagement, exploring how cultural spaces can foster connection, creative sustainability, and collective well-being. Baty is the founder of WILD YAMS: Black Mothers Artist Residency, a residency and curatorial platform designed to provide Black artist mothers and caretakers with the time, space, and resources needed to sustain their creative practices. Through WILD YAMS, she has cultivated artist-centered programs, exhibitions, and public engagements that prioritize care, access, rest, and long-term cultural sustainability while uplifting intergenerational community voices and Black matrilineal care. She holds a BFA in Painting from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and an MA in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2023, she was featured in The Chicago Reader’s People’s Issue in recognition of her contributions to Chicago’s cultural landscape as a curator and community arts advocate. Baty was selected as an Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Fellow in 2025. Her work has been featured in Dreaming of a Future, the Threewalls catalog (2025), and her creative practice is discussed in Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect (2021). Baty serves as Program Director at Threewalls, where she leads the development and implementation of programs that support artists and deepen community engagement across Chicago’s contemporary arts ecosystem, with a focus on care, access, and cultural sustainability.

Wisdom Baty's Website

people taking a workshop in a room with tables and crafts.

Featured Artworks

A group of people place their hands in foaming water while making paper.

WILD YAMS at ACRE Paper-Making Workshop, 2025

An artist wearing black with black braids talks to an audience outside on a porch during an artist reception.

Grounding Ritual for Artist Open House, 2024 Photo by Brandy Alpha

An audience listens as two people speak in a room with big bay windows. They are both sitting, one wears a green dress the other wears an orange dress.

WILD YAMS SEED Cohort Orientation, 2024 Photo by A. Martinez

Community Art Class Series, 2025

Small objects and post its line the shelves on a wall in a gallery.

“Word to Your Mother” Interactive Wall Installation, 2025-2026

A large group of people smile and pose outside.

WILD YAMS at ACRE Group Photo, 2025 Photo by Kate Bowen

A group of people sit at white tables outside while observing someone read a story.

Garden Lunch and Intergenerational Story Time, 2023 Photo by Natalie Perkins