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By GINNY VAN ALYEA
When I first started working for Chicago Gallery News in 2002, my daily errand visits to galleries near our River North office offered insights into the fabric of the city’s art community as well as one on one encounters with those who had played key roles in shaping its history. At the time, not all information was relayed digitally; hand deliveries of everything from magazines to maps to ad files were necessary tasks. Natalie van Straaten, CGN’s founder and my boss at the time, would ask me, after my visits, whom I had seen, and what impressions they had made on me: Who was kind and welcoming? Who may have been prickly or brusque? Many of my encounters had been shared by previous employees and interns. A telling factor as to the character of a dealer was often how they would treat the lowest person on the totem pole (me).
One of the most welcoming figures was Ann Nathan. By 2002 Ann had been in the art business for many years, having opened her gallery in the 1980s, growing and expanding despite major challenges. Though she could have dismissed me as a young person who knew little about art or the area, she showed curiosity and was gracious with me. I found her to be a little bit of a mystery, but she was as intriguing and inviting as her expansive loft space on West Superior Street.
Ann Nathan Gallery closed in late 2016, but Ann has not stopped working. Last fall I called her daughter Betsy, also a dealer in art and antiques at PAGODA RED in Lincoln Park, to ask if I could visit Ann at home. I was invited to join Ann and two of her daughters – Susan as well as Betsy – in October. Though Ann did not know me as well as she once did, we ended up spending the better part of an afternoon revisiting her many stories while touring her vast, eclectic collection of art. Sitting together in her living room, overlooking Lake Michigan, it’s clear that art, in particular the way it connects Ann to creative people, has always kept her going and continues to today.
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Soon after I arrive for our meeting Ann draws my attention to a coffee table, a low, large, heavy piece. As we sip ginger tea, Ann points out that the table is all hand crafted, encouraging me to reach out and touch the top – made partially of concrete or cement and ceramic tiles, as well as the bottom – composed of wood. Measuring 4’ by 4’, Ann and her husband Walter commissioned the table from artist Michael Gross. It was the first table he ever made, and one of many works that the couple would collect, adding a functional piece to their home while also directly supporting an artist. “I liked it because it’s beautiful, and it works,” explains Ann. As Betsy looks over the table, she reminds her mom, “It has a date. You will see our dog at the time – Willy Smith – and see here, it says Walter and Ann.”
Ann’s aesthetic preferences as well as practical criteria are evident in many of her home’s works of art and unique objects. When I ask how she began collecting art, together with her late husband, Walter, she remembers, “I loved it. We both did.” Their shared creative pursuit complemented a busy life managing dual careers as well as raising four children: Susan, Richard, Nina and Betsy.
In the employment agency business for over 27 years, eventually running multiple agencies, Ann tired of that work. It was the ceramicist Ruth Duckworth who encouraged her to try her skills elsewhere when she suggested she move into a 200-square foot Ravenswood studio in the artist’s pickle factory. Ann opened Objects around 1986. It sounds like it was purely by chance that Ann’s gallery career came to be. Ruth mentioned to Ann, “You know what, I have a little room up at the top of the stairs that I don’t know what to do with. Why don’t you do something with it?”
Though the space was tiny, Ann’s own eclectic taste – even now her home is filled with a distinctly personal mix of handmade furniture from Africa alongside contemporary art, antiques and folk art – was well suited to a gallery program. She showed jewelry and ceramics – small, functional objects, and she had to be creative with every inch of space, including pedestals that opened up and doubled as storage space.
Eventually, a friend of Ann’s, Chicago real estate developer David C. Ruttenberg, encouraged Ann to relocate from the north side to River North, nearer to downtown. She made the move and remained there until the River North fire in 1989 forced her to close briefly. She reopened in a large ground floor space on Superior Street as Ann Nathan Gallery. Around the same time Ann and Walter also moved from suburban Glencoe to downtown. She summarizes, “We were ready for a change.”
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In order to fully understand the origins of what set Ann on her art journey, we get up to go into Ann’s home office. Betsy hints, “It will bring it to life when you’re in that room. You will really be immersed in that moment from the beginning.”
As we prepare to move rooms, Ann directs that I should take my ginger tea. She warns that the office could be a mess. It is not. In fact, it strikes me as amazing and transportive – a space that reveres her past and the artists who have been a part of it. At the center of it all is the art of Howard Finster, the Southern Baptist minister from Georgia whose own folk art sculpture garden contained over 46,000 pieces of art. One wall of the office is dedicated to Finster’s art, and hanging in the middle is a photograph from the 1980s of Ann with the artist, in Finster’s famous garden.
Susan explains, “This is really where it all began.” Up on the shelves are many carved, wooden, black figures, sometimes called Dancing Dans, that were collected one by one in junk stores. Ann interjects that they were not popular or even collected at the time, but they were considered primitive art, made by totally unknown artists. When I ask if these would be considered Outsider art, Betsy corrects me. “The Outsiders, even though they’re untrained, actually develop their own names in the world, they become known. And these artists are totally unknown.” Ann was taken with these innate efforts at expression, and they set her on a path of seeking out figurative art long before she would start her gallery.
As we identify the art on the shelves and walls in the office and end up back at the Finster wall, I get more of the story of how Ann first went down to find the eccentric artist. Ann first travelled to Georgia with Susan – probably in the early ‘80s – in a rented station wagon, which they filled with art and drove back to Chicago. “We had to [drive],” Says Susan. “How else were we going to get all the stuff back?” Ann would take her children with her on many subsequent visits – Finster used to say, affectionately, “Sister Annie’s here,” making her sound like a nun but perceiving her as a kind of angel, drawn to his created world. He believed his garden to be a holy place, with folk art as a medium to communicate God’s word. Ann was a divine visitor.
Before the gallery Ann had many art adventures with artists as well as her family. The beginning of it all seems to spring from her perpetual search for figures, like the ones lining the office shelves today. She also sought out tramp art – works made by travelers out of cigar boxes and other things on hand. All over, says Betsy, they would hunt for objects that cost just 50 cents to two dollars. If she heard something could be found, she would go to that junk store and buy it, all along making connections with local sellers.
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Ann forged partnerships with many artists over the decades, such as Jim Rose, another Wisconsin-based furniture artist, and she also came to showcase work by Outsider and self-taught artists like Lee Godie. A focus of the work in Ann’s home is on figurative art from many different periods as well as styles.
Wandering through the other rooms of Ann’s apartment, it feels like I’m along on a visit with old friends. Some of the most eye-catching pieces are also large in scale, filling the wide, high walls with colorful people and scenes. A distinctive painting of a crowded street at rush hour by Red Grooms from 1964 was the first major piece Ann and Walter purchased. Nearby is also a work by Jacob Lawrence, as well as a more recent silhouette piece by Kara Walker. Adding to the depth of the collection is a trove of African objects, figures and masks as well as various pieces from Asia, revealing how global Ann’s taste is, spanning genres, mediums, time periods and cultures.
As we move from wall to wall Ann recalls a story of the time when she came across a pair of unusual, older tables during one of her excursions. Her first thought was that she should put them on hold and come back with Walter before deciding to buy them. “Well, there they were,” she recalls, “I went to a junk store and I saw them there and they were for sale and I said, ‘Would you hold these for me? My husband would have to see them.’ So I left, and on the way home I thought to myself, he’ll never go there. He’ll never go to look at them. So I turned the car around and I went back and bought them.” Since she had two of her children with her in her station wagon, she told them they’d have to make room for the new cargo. Susan adds, “We somehow or other had both tables in the car and we had to drive home with the back open, holding on.”
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Years of acquiring such furniture as well as art has meant Ann developed a savvy habit of using clever storage – I notice that she has few tables. Instead she favors 19th century Chinese and Tibetan trunks, scattered wherever they are needed. In addition to complementing the eclectic art, they double as attractive hide-aways. I sense each piece of furniture and work of art has a purpose as well as a story behind it - discovered by Ann along the way through life and brought back home to live among a new family. A variety of scales, materials and periods all blend to comprise a warm home filled with characters who keep Ann company every day. In the dining room is a table made by ceramicist Arnold Zimmerman. Ann’s kitchen cabinets are lined with a collection of moonshine face jugs from Georgia made by the Meaders family of potters. Additional folk art pieces hold many special glasses and dishes, and shelves display a collection of fish and bird decoys.
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When we move into what was once Walter’s office, my attention turns to a couple of black and white photographs hung above one another on the wall. They are from a photo shoot with LIFE magazine in the late 1950s. Pictured are Ann and Walter with their three children – Susan, Nina and Richard (Betsy was not yet born). The photographer was Art Shay. Shay had been dispatched to cover a story about mothers who worked. “She was an anomaly,” explains Betsy, “because women at that time did not work. And nobody could believe that a married Jewish woman was working, with three children at home.” Though they sent Shay to do the shoot, LIFE never actually ran the story.
Ann and Shay managed to reunite nearly 50 years later in Chicago, and Shay personally found the original photos of the Nathans and gave them to Ann. With the reconnection came a show of Shay’s work at Ann’s gallery. Ann remembers thinking, “Let’s do it. Let’s have a show.” By then Shay was in his 90s, but he was equally excited to work together again. The two were friends until Shay passed away in 2018 at 96.
It’s been several years since Ann closed her space in River North, but she continues to be active with the art closest to her every day. Though her children visit frequently they comment that on nearly every visit they notice that the art and furniture has been moved around within the apartment. Ann enjoys exercising her curatorial skills each day in order to see things from a different perspective. Much like when she was in the gallery, things are taken out and put away, or they are displayed in new locations. Nothing has to remain the same. Just like in the ‘50s Ann is a woman who never stops working. She loves to observe and enjoy the art around her every single day.
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Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.
The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1789517637/noxz9olp47gfneafz8xg.jpg\")
“I’m thrilled to further expand my artistic and design practice by introducing other mediums into the mix. I’m looking forward to watching the seasons change and devoting a lot of time in the studio as well. Fall/winter is my favorite time to create new works.
I have an upcoming solo show with VSG Contemporary that I am excited about. The work will delve further into the topics of cultural mythology and how these tales and narratives have helped shape my worldview.
Also, it wouldn’t be right if I left out my excitement for this upcoming season of Chicago sports.”
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961823/s3lp0uull2s8mvd8funj.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher
This interview is part of CGN's Fall 2026 issue. Purchase a copy or subscribe.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961824/mghrpnghxd9j9ko2dsjt.jpg\")
Andi Crist
BY ALISON REILLY
Andi Crist’s warm, engaging demeanor is evident in the first few minutes of our conversation. Generous with her time and forthcoming in her observations, she cares deeply about building relationships through her art making. Crist grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, devoured art classes, wrote songs and played music in high school, and moved to Chicago to study visual art at Columbia College. In 2024, she received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a woodworker, sculptor, ceramicist, and conceptual artist, and she teaches at Illinois Institute of Technology. We discussed her multidisciplinary practice, her experience working as an art handler, preparator, and fabricator, and how she thinks about labor, creativity, and value in the art world.
CGN: You grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. How did that environment shape your point of view as an artist?
Andi Crist: That’s such a funny question. Nobody’s ever really asked.
CGN: Oh, really?
AC: Yeah, maybe because I never was super connected with the arts community down in Birmingham. I moved to Chicago in 2007, so it’s been 20 years since I lived in the South. I was definitely one of those art kids—one art credit was required in high school, and I graduated with like seven. I was surrounded by artists who had a big impact on me, because they were working artists. All my art teachers were trained in Alabama and then continued to teach and work in Alabama, which gave me this desire to try to expand my community outside of what I was familiar with.
CGN: Do you identify as a Chicagoan?
AC: My family still lives in Alabama, and I go back every year. I love being in Alabama. Maybe now being in Chicago for almost 20 years, I identify as a southerner living in the city. I carry on the social qualities of a friendly southern person [laughs].
CGN: You have a varied art practice—woodwork, ceramics, mold making. What drew you to those types of fabrication methods and that type of art making?
AC: My dad is a carpenter and a hobbyist woodworker, but his career was psychology, and my mom was a professor and an incredible craftswoman. I absorbed my mom’s model of creativity, which is to try a bunch of different things and not necessarily finish them but to try to learn as much as I can by just going for it. My practice over the years has become an exploration of conceptual elements of what makes art art and not just craft. Do you have to be a master craftsperson or a professional artist in order to make something that resonates with people?
I make a lot of work that references the mode of making and requires a variety of different media. I just finished teaching a ceramics production class where students learned how to produce molds, think about positives and negatives, and get into a level of production rather than just handicraft as a way to multiply their output.
I got into fabrication because I’ve always liked working with other artists. I have a background in theater and gallery work. I’m a voracious learner, and I like being able to share those skills with my community. Then I end up making work about that. It’s a self-feeding cycle.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961825/zzejqwibga5f5wk6einh.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Artist’s Ladder, 2023. Photo: Jeff Perlman
CGN: Thinking about your background as an art handler and preparator—how did you get to the point where you were making work about that experience?
AC: In 2010, right before I graduated from Columbia, I was living in a storefront in West Logan Square with my partner at the time. We started a gallery called Autotelic in the space and had to build it out using the worst tools with very minimal resources. Then we started curating shows there and that meant helping other artists figure out how to install their work in our unusual space. Eventually, I gained the reputation for knowing how to do that type of work. I started getting invited to work in museums and galleries.
The Holocaust Museum was the first museum I worked at, and as difficult as that subject matter is, that experience was really important to me because I was learning more about the larger world of gallery work. As an artist working as a preparator, you’re straddling both sides of that space. You’re really seeing how the sausage is made. You’re hearing all the conversations about artists, curators, the process of exhibition making. There is a lot of information you can gather about the economics of the art world by just being the person that has the know-how to touch and handle artwork. Eventually that started feeding into my art practice because I wanted to make work that was contributing to a conversation around art as a type of job. It fueled a methodology of seeing everything in the world as the result of a long line of processes that required effort and thoughtfulness by many hands.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961826/uv5bysb5fbne30gr5czh.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Fair Warning, 2025.
CGN: The title of your recent exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum—Live, Laugh, Lo—sorry, not Live, Laugh, Love—Live, Laugh, Labor.
AC: [Laughs] That’s what everybody does.
CGN: I love the title—it’s perfect. You incorporate humor along with thoughtful critiques about labor and value in your work. What role does humor play? How does it help you connect with your audience?
AC: One of my biggest criticisms of art with a capital A is how easily it can be overly intellectualized. I think that’s why I end up making a lot of work that references things that already exist or have some kind of real purpose. It’s important to give people a foothold so there’s an obvious place to board that train of thought. As an artist—maybe this is me getting into a sweeping argument about what artists should be—but I personally believe in intellectual accessibility. Humor is a swift way to drop defenses and allow people to come in without feeling like they are not getting the joke or not understanding. I like to make work that can hold both of those things at the same time—it’s funny on the surface level, it’s kind of cheeky, but there’s also another way to look at it that is intellectually clever. There is a joy in the attempt to “get it”. Like the satisfaction of grasping how a crossword puzzle actually works.
It’s also so much a part of my personality. I take myself seriously as an artist, but my ego isn’t at the heart of it. It’s really something that I do because I love to make things, and I love to connect with other people. My parents raised me on puns, creating those language relationships between things and people and space. Understanding a joke is the same way that we understand art, and while neither of my parents would consider themselves artists, they taught me how to think about art.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961828/gnotyfijabr7e15kb6hm.jpg\")
Andi Crist, 69 Bananas
CGN: Your work, Artist’s Ladder, explores hierarchies, workplace cultures, and institutional values. What experiences shaped your reflections on these themes?
AC: The ladder piece distinctly represents the complicated relationship between front of house, back of house, and the hierarchy of labor. Who is the artist in those relationships? How much does another person’s knowledge and expertise contribute to the success of another artist?
There are enormous, industrialized art practices out there, warehouses full of people making things, and those people are also artists. When you make work that involves other people, it’s important to acknowledge their contributions. I’ve had complicated interactions with other artists who are like, ‘Hey, do you want to collaborate with me on this thing?’ but really they just want me to make their idea. I made Artist’s Ladder while I was in grad school at UIC, and it really represented my relationship with a lot of other artists, because I could be an actual support structure for them. Then it turned into this absurd physical thing. It’s extremely overbuilt with inlaid racing stripes made of exotic hardwood, and a butcher’s block-style plaid top. It’s not really like an FU as much as it is asking for acknowledgement of my skills and the essential support structures that exist.
CGN: I want to ask you about another piece, Five O’Clock Somewhere, a wool rug that resembles a children’s play mat. I work at a library, and it reminded me of rugs I see all the time. It’s a peaceful image of an office park with a large fountain surrounded by a parking lot. I’m curious why you chose a rug as the medium to depict that image.
AC: To me the heart of that joke was that it was a landscape. I wanted it to be physically traversable. And that was, I don’t want to say controversial, but it was something that I had to talk about a lot. The critique of that work was the fact that I didn’t want to hang it on the wall and turn it into a tapestry. I really wanted it to be a rug that people could walk on. When I showed that work at Chicago Artists Coalition for the New City Breakout Artists show. There was a lot of pushback about having it on the floor and allowing people to walk on it.
That, to me, was such an important conversation, because, in my mind, the fact that you could walk across it and traverse it was part of how I was thinking about the object. Rugs are utilitarian–they are floor coverings. When you make art that doesn’t do anything, you don’t get to participate in that part of the conversation.
I enjoy sparring around art like that. I am totally tickled by the pushback. The critique of display is exciting, and sorting through the politics of utilitarianism in art spaces is fun to me. And then—it was so crazy—we ended up showing it halfway on the wall and halfway on the ground.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961829/r1zylkwfw9rkw191skdl.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Five O’Clock Somewhere, on display at Live, Laugh, Labor: Thoughts on Usefulness and Other Myths at The Cleve Carney Museum of Art, 2025.
CGN: Oh, wow.
AC: I was like, this is the epitome of compromise! I had to build a structure so that it could hang that way safely.
CGN: I would say just put it on the ground if that’s what you want to do. It’s interesting that there are still very fixed ideas about the way that art should be displayed.
AC: That preparator part of it, that’s what I’m all about. I was having that conversation about what physically supports the work or what conceptually supports it in the way that it’s shown.
CGN: Have you always been a writer? How do your art and writing practices work together?
AC: I can’t say that I’m a writer, it’s probably the same way that it can feel weird to call yourself an artist. But I feel like I’ve always been relatively good at writing. The first time I ever did any kind of professional writing was contributing, a long time ago, to a website called eHow. The editors would send me a title, and then I would have to research how to do that thing. Then I would write out step-by-step instructions for how to do that.
I think that’s how I had to make myself think through my conceptual practice—I had to do the research, coagulate that into some kind of document, and then I would have stream-of-consciousness conversations with myself. “Why are we interested in this? Why would we make it this way? What would I want to talk about if someone were to ask me about this?” It’s almost like I was pre-interviewing myself.
I think the writing is just another way for me to process that idea before I put in all of the time and energy to actually accomplish it.
CGN: What are you working on right now? What projects do you have coming up?
AC: The biggest project that I have right now is my house. My family and I suffered a major house fire on New Year’s Day. We’ve been displaced since then and are navigating rebuilding our house. It was a total loss.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961830/kekfqzf9f87fq48juogh.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Single-Use Fireplace, 2025. Photo: Mikey Mosher.
CGN: I’m so sorry to hear that.
AC: Thank you. We’re all okay, but it’s been a really tumultuous year. I moved my studio into a storefront last summer, and so most of my, at least relatively recent, work is safe, and I still have all of my materials, but my home life is starting over. I just had my first full year at this space, and it’s got a little gallery built out in the front called Coming Soon. It’s beautiful with floor-to-ceiling windows on Division and Central Park. I’ve been inviting people into the space to try things out.
After teaching the ceramics class, I came into a bunch of nice slip casting molds, and I’m making some really playful, weird, ceramic stuff. I want to be open and not put too much pressure on myself. Having a big studio by myself is very expensive, so it’s easy to want to make it feel like it’s worth it. But if for now all I can do is make it a resource for other people, then that will be the thing I do. Be less selfish, but more selfish with my time. Saying I can’t do that, or I don’t want to do that. It’s not my nature to say no—I’m such a yes man. I’m learning how to be a yes man for myself.
CGN: That makes sense after going through something so traumatic.
AC: I have an amazing support system. Our friends started a GoFundMe. It was incredible. I’m so humbled and floored by how held I felt by Chicago. I can’t help but throw a little shout out to my Chicago people. I can see how people’s lives get totally ruined by this kind of tragedy. I feel so lucky. Chicago definitely showed its love back.
CGN: For your project Coming Soon, are you bringing in other artists?
AC: My philosophy is that I want to be involved as little as possible. I am thinking about it more as a hosted than curated space. I’m actively soliciting proposals or ideas for workshops, meetings, book clubs—I’m down for making it a resource, whatever that means. I don’t want to over-think it, I want it to be an intuitive and organic thing, which is why I call it Coming Soon—it can be a placeholder for anything. It’s exciting. Taking my hands off the reins is a good exercise for me.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1788961831/gno5dhliwfnzpuaim78s.jpg\")
Andi Crist, Extension Cords, Glazed stoneware, chrome, Sizes vary 2021-present. Photo: Mikey Mosher
Fall offers a full slate of exhibitions across galleries and museums throughout the Midwest. Behind the scenes, many people in the community are working tirelessly to support artists and bring fresh perspectives to the public. We spoke with five insiders about what excites them now and what they anticipate next.
The following preview is one of five conversations that appear in CGN's Fall 2026 magazine. To receive a copy of the print edition click here.
![](\"https://res.cloudinary.com/dfafo598z/image/upload/v1789516769/izokunnmrufdyjbjnypk.jpg\")
“Intuit Art Museum’s renovated, expanded spaces give audiences the chance to connect with art through daily art-making, third Thursday Art After Work, group Slow Looks designed to provide a mindful experience with a single work and upcoming conversations with sculptor Bill Brady (Oct. 3) and Dr. Mary Trent (Oct. 15), who curated our current exhibition on the role of scrapbook-making in Henry Darger’s art.
On view is the thought-provoking Monumental: The Sculpture of Dr. Charles Smith, which encourages guests to consider the lack of historical representation of African Americans and Black people in America. Dr. Smith’s memorials champion Black history and stories of everyday life he sees missing in mainstream narratives.
This fall we’re opening an exhibition of paintings by Karla Wong, an artist who immigrated from Oaxaca and who explores themes of life and death, gender identity and self-discovery.”