Salons, Convenings & Community in Chicago with Jane Beachy of Illinois Humanities

Jane Beachy calls Chicago "the fountain of youth," a city where new ideas are always being born. She would know. As founder of Salonathon, the beloved weekly salon that ran from 2011 to 2018, she gave hundreds of Chicago artists a stage to share things they'd made just for that night, or had been quietly working on for years.

Ashley talks with Jane, Senior Director of Public Engagement at Illinois Humanities, about why she chose to end Salonathon at its peak and what it taught her about "the secret to life." They also cover Envisioning Justice, a two-year Chicago initiative on mass incarceration that grew into a national movement, and why who's in the room matters so much when you're bringing people together across Chicago's 77 neighborhoods.

Follow Jane Beachy:

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janebeachy

* Illinois Humanities: https://ilhumanities.org/

* Illinois Voices 250: https://ilhumanities.org/programs/illinois-america-250

* Salonathon: https://www.salonathon.org/

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Notes from Chicago is a weekly interview show hosted by Ashley Phillips, centering the voices, stories, and neighborhoods that make up the real Chicago.

Host: Ashley Phillips

Producer & Editor: Tanisha Blakely, https://www.tanishablakely.com/