STAR Collaboration

The STAR Collaboration (Students, Teachers, Artists-in-Residence) at Eagle Hill advances artistic approaches to education by connecting diverse learners to accomplished artists who live, learn, and create new work on campus.

The STAR Collaboration invites artists of all disciplines to come away for a semester of focused art work, and to come together with our students and teachers to facilitate learning.

STAR residents can be at any stage of their careers — emerging and well-established artists, art teachers, and those returning to former careers in the arts. STAR artists are educators-at-heart, who want to work with young people while expanding the definition of what being an educator means; who are interested in novel, interdisciplinary educational approaches; and who thrive on collaboration with others.

We provide STAR artists with studio facilities, room and board, a monthly stipend and a materials budget, dedicated, distraction-free time to make art, and opportunities to develop teaching skills through professional relationships with mentor teachers. We work with each artist to find a healthy balance of creative sanctuary and community engagement.
 

Learn More »

Eleanor Ray

Eleanor Ray (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist who has built an exploratory practice around reused materials. She is the founder of a creative reuse center (The WasteShed) which has become a crucial resource for Chicago's art and educational communities, and delighted in building a diverse community and an absurdist brand around radical silliness and trash. Much of this 10-year social praxis has involved acting as materials librarian and hosting a shifting web of experimental refusals of specious novelty and convenience. Among other projects, she has led dozens of public clothing repair workshops under the title of Radical Mending, teaching hundreds of participants of all ages creative textile-based problem solving since 2012.