NORMAL — The Town of Normal and the McLean County Arts Center have formed an art selection committee to select art pieces that will be displayed in the Uptown Station Transportation Center when it opens in July.

The committee that includes committee chairman Doug Johnson, the executive director of the McLean County Arts Center, as well as local artists Natalie Goken Wetzel, co-owner of the Pod, an art gallery located in Uptown Normal, and Slate Grove, a Master of Fine Arts candidate in glass at Illinois State University, will only select art pieces created by McLean County artists.
“The stipulation is they have to be McLean County artists,” said Johnson.
The committee is asking McLean County artists to email three pictures of their work that are available for purchase to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
“We hope that our pool of applicants is very deep,” said Grove. “There are so many talented artists in McLean County.”
According to Grove, the committee is encouraging professional artists, whether established, mid-career or emerging, as well as student artists, staff and faculty members at Illinois State University, Illinois Wesleyan and Heartland Community College to submit pictures of their work to them.
“There are no specific kinds of work that we are looking to display within the Uptown Normal Transportation Center,” said Grove. “We are trying to display a wide range of artistic works from McLean County artists that we feel represent the history, present and future of McLean County.”
The committee has a budget of $100,000 for the purchase of the art pieces that will be located in the Uptown Station Transportation Center.
“What we’re doing is we’re buying art work, easel paintings, sculptures, photography and all types of those kinds of things that will be displayed in the building,” said Johnson. “We’ll have to balance the size and prestige of individual works with wanting to have as much quality art work in the space as possible.”
The deadline for submitting pictures of artwork to the committee is March 2.
“The committee will meet after March 2 to review the initial proposals and then begin a process of narrowing down the candidates for selection,” said Johnson. “And then we’ll do studio visits and continue to work on that so we can get the work installed when the venue opens.”
The art pieces will be placed in several different spaces located throughout the four-story, 68,000 square-foot Uptown Station Transportation Center.
“There’s several spaces and several floors that we’re looking to acquire artwork (for),” said Johnson. “There’s a couple key spots in the lobby of the building, but the majority of the artwork will go into the public areas, in the municipal offices on the upper floors.”
Currently under construction on the west side of the traffic circle, just south of Beaufort Street, the Uptown Station Transportation Center is the centerpiece of the Town of Normal’s Uptown Plan. The first floor of the facility will accommodate Amtrak and Blooming-Normal Public Transit System ticketing, and office space, waiting areas, a food court, retail areas and general community information. The second and third floors of the facility will accommodate Town of Normal Municipal offices. The fourth floor will include public meeting space and the Town Council chambers for the Town of Normal.
When it opens in July, the facility will bring together and stream several modes of transportation including high-speed passenger rail, intercity and local bus service, airport shuttles, taxi services, passenger vehicles and pedestrians.