3Arts Awards

2026 3Arts Awards Celebration

 

 

When: October 26, 2026, 6:30pm
Where: Harris Theater for Music & Dance, 205 E. Randolph Street

Learn about the artwork created for this year's celebration.

The 3Arts Awards Celebration is the only event of its kind, bringing together Chicago’s artists and the greater Chicago arts community for one night only to honor and celebrate the next cohort of extraordinary 3Arts Awards recipients from both the Chicago metropolitan and Carbondale areas. 

Thirty-six artists will be honored at this year’s program with unrestricted awards across three categories: 3Arts Awards($30,000 each), Next Level Awards ($50,000 each), and the peer selected Make a Wave Awards ($2,000 each). This year’s program also features performances by past 3Arts Awardees. 

The evening starts with a welcome reception at 5:30pm. The awards presentation and performances begin at 6:30pm, followed by an after-party at 7:45pm featuring a light dinner buffet and the opportunity to meet and mingle with this year’s Awards recipients. 

 3Arts extends special thanks to the 2026 Award Partners: The HMS Fund, The SIF Fund at the Chicago Community Foundation, Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin, and MSU Federal Credit Union.  

3Arts also recognizes support for the Next Level Awards from the Paul Angell Foundation, an anonymous donor advised fund at The Chicago Community Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

3Arts gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its 2026 event sponsors: Lead Sponsors, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois and Morningstar; and Corporate Friend, Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence.

  • Can’t attend? You can still support 3Arts and its mission by making a donation here.
  • Help sponsor an artist attendance at the Awards Celebration by donating to our Artist Pass Donor Circle here

 

About the 3Arts Awards

The 3Arts Awards express our gratitude to Chicago’s artists for their indisputable contributions to the health and vibrancy of our city. Every year, ten artists who live and work in the six-county metropolitan area receive unrestricted $30,000 awards in dance, music, teaching arts, theater, and visual arts. Artists may use the award in any way that makes a difference to their lives and careers, including paying off debt, purchasing equipment, hiring collaborators, producing new work, and saving for the future.

We invite you to read two reports that compile reflections from artists who have received a 3Arts Award:

We thank our Award Partners and Community Award donors for their generosity in helping 3Arts support and advocate for local artists.

Selection Process

3Arts awardees are selected through a nomination and jury process. More than 100 artists are nominated annually by at least 35 anonymous local nominators--artists, curators, presenters, and advocates--who are acutely knowledgeable about the breadth of artists working in neighborhoods across the metropolitan area.

After the nominees have completed our online application process, five national, discipline-specific panels of jurors convene to select ten awardees from the applicant pool. 3Arts requires panelists to disclose conflicts of interest as part of the selection process. If a strong personal or professional relationship exists between a panelist and a nominated artist that might be an impediment to the integrity of the process, a full recusal from the discussion and vote is implemented.

In honor of the time and energy it takes to apply, all artists who submit an application will receive a $100 honorarium. 

We express our gratitude to the most recent selection panelists. 

Profiles of all 3Arts Awards recipients are accessible further below on this page, or download the PDF awardee list here.

2026

  • A Black woman with natural hair (Afro) who is smiling. She is dressed in earth-toned colors, wearing an African-inspired necklace and gold hanging half moon earrings. Her lipstick is berry-colored. She has dark brown eyes. She/her pronouns.

    Tahirah Whittington

     Collaborative Recording Artist and Cellist 3 Cheers Award in Honor of Esther Grisham Grimm

    Tahirah Whittington (she/her) is a Grammy-nominated cellist and founding member of D-Composed and the Ritz Chamber Players. Her performance career spans Broadway, orchestral, studio, and screen work. She toured nationally as the cellist for Dear Evan Hansen and performed with …

  • Baty with a short fade, large cowrie shell bamboo earrings, and black lipstick. Her face is slightly tilted as she looks directly into the camera with a half-smile. She is wearing a black hoodie that reads “Got Consent.”

    Wisdom Baty

     Multidisciplinary Artist, Educator, and Cultural Organizer MSUFCU Community Award

    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 …

  • A Korean-American person with freckles sitting in front of a black backdrop. She has short black hair with straight across bangs and is wearing a sky blue tank top. Any pronouns appreciated with respect.

    Kara Brody

     Movement Artist and Educator

    Kara Brody (any pronouns) is a Korean American movement artist based in Chicago. Her work is an embodied social connection that uses dance as a site of queer belonging and collaborative inquiry. Approaching movement with a deep sense of tenderness …

  • John Chapman, a Black man with a full beard and black-framed glasses, is shown in a three-quarter profile looking to the right. He wears a green-and-white trucker hat that reads “Chicago Girls Do It Better” in pink lettering and a green-and-white jacket.

    John Chapman

     Teaching Artist, Musician, and Culture Bearer

    John Chapman (he/him) is a Chicago teaching artist, musician, and culture bearer whose practice centers the West African djembe orchestra as an art form and a model for community. For John, the orchestra teaches a way of being together: each …

  • A hispanic woman with wavy medium large brown/gray hair, brown eyes sits in front of a white background; she uses "she "pronoun.

    Luca Cruzat

     Printmaker Artspace Southern Illinois Award

    Luca Cruzat (she/her) is a contemporary printmaker based in Southern Illinois. She holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2006), as well as an MA in Foreign Language and Literature (1993). She works primarily in collagraphy, extending the practice …

  • Silvita is a slender, brown-skinned woman with large brown eyes and a bright smile. She has long, wavy black hair adorned with a yellow flower on the right side of her head. She is wearing long yellow earrings and a sparkling dress.

    Silvita Diaz Brown

     Choreographer, Dancer, and Movement Educator Reva and David Logan Foundation Award

    Silvita Diaz Brown (she/her) is a Mexican-American choreographer, dancer, movement educator, and yoga teacher whose interdisciplinary practice is rooted in contemporary dance, physical theater, acrobatics, and a deep connection to her Mexican heritage. Based in Chicago since 2008, she is …

  • A smiling black woman with thick locks of hair, and brown eyes, and bold jewelry

    Tina Fakhrid-Deen

     Playwright, Author, and Educator SIF Fund at the Chicago Community Foundation Award

    Tina Fakhrid-Deen (she/her) is an artist whose work honors Black communities not as sites of lack, but as places of imagination, contradiction, cultural wealth, tenderness, humor, and radical possibility. She believes that being human is a beautiful, messy practice. As …

  • A Latino woman with long dark brown hair and brown eyes in front of a turquoise wall; she uses she/her pronouns.

    Ana Santos

     Actor, Singer, Director, and Teaching Artist

    Ana Santos (she/her) is an actress, singer, director, costume designer, and teaching artist from Cidra, Puerto Rico. Her work is rooted in the belief that theater is a powerful vehicle for storytelling, cultural preservation, and social transformation. Throughout her career, …

  • Color image of a woman with short cropped hair smiling gently at the camera

    Diana Solís

     Photographer and Educator Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Award

    Diana Solís (she/they) is a Mexican-born photographer, multidisciplinary artist, and educator whose practice encompasses photography, painting, illustration, public murals, and installation. Rooted in Mexican and Chicano culture, memory, and oral and personal histories, her work centers queer identities and narratives …

  • A older black man with no hair and a mustache smiles at the camera.

    Marvin Tate

     Musician, Poet, and Cultural Organizer HMS Fund Award

    Marvin Tate (he/him/they/them) is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist, poet, musician, educator, and community arts activist whose work dissolves the boundaries between spoken word, music, visual art, theater, and social practice. For over three decades, Tate has cultivated a singular artistic …

  • None

    Sandie (Chun-shan) Yi

     Teaching and Fiber Artist

    Sandie (Chunshan) Yi (she/her) is a Chicago-based visual and textile artist, disability culture maker, and educator. Her work explores the disabled bodymind as a site of knowledge, memory, and an agent of cultural transformation. Born in Taiwan with a hereditary …

2026 Judges

Dance
Mesma Belsaré
India Harville
SK Kerastas
Music
Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle
Reginald R. Robinson
Kyla-Rose Smith
Teaching Arts
Lauren Callis
Samuel A. McIntosh
Sarah Ross
Theater
Jesse Cameron Alick
Miranda Gonzalez
Shaunda McDill
Visual Arts
Saj Issa
Sean Lee
Teresa Magaña
Visual Arts (3Arts/Artspace Southern Illinois)
Shauta Marsh
Stacia Yeapanis
Kay M. Pick Zivkovich

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