Janet Bloch joined the Lubeznik Center for the Arts as the Center’s Education Director in 2009. She held this position for over seven years. Bloch loves the Center and wants everything to do with it, so in 2016, when the Executive Director position opened, she knew she had to have it.
Bloch was connected to the art world even before she joined Lubeznik.
“I am from Chicago, and I have worked in the non-profit world for a long time. I used to run a women’s gallery in Chicago that was a non-profit,” Bloch said. “I was a practicing artist, and I didn’t have enough studio space. What appealed to me here was the quality of life, I could have a house instead of an apartment, but the job at Lubeznik didn’t come along for five years.”
Day to day, Bloch spends the majority of her time at Lubeznik.
“Every day is very different. I usually start out the morning on my emails before I even leave for work,” Bloch said.
Community members, artists, journalists, and her coworkers email her throughout the week. Bloch often has enough emails that she struggles to get out of the house on time.
Lubeznik has a very small staff. Only she and the Education Director are full-time, which leaves a lot of work between the two of them.
“You’re really overseeing everything,” Bloch said. “From the visitor experience, fundraising, planning events, committee meetings—we have about six different committees. Really for me, the hardest transition is to get me out of the actual workday.”
Bloch is proud of the way Lubeznik looks and how nice the art looks within the building. This is why she believes artists want to showcase their work there. But she loves Lubeznik for another reason.
“I really fell in love with the diversity of our community and the people we serve,” Bloch said. “At Lubeznik people are hungry for great art experiences and can have that impact. Rather than saying, ‘oh, it has so much potential,’ it is really how do we fulfill it.”
Bloch’s favorite exhibits include the one that is currently being shown. It includes Phyllis Bramson, Robert Indiana, and Mayumi Lake. All of which have their own area within Lubeznik to show. It will be open until mid-October.
Bramson is a renowned Chicago artist with pieces in museums all across the United States. Indiana has passed on, but he created prints, and Lubeznik borrowed from another museum to display his work. Finally, Lake created an installation for Lubeznik which Bloch likes to describe as an art piece one can walk into.
“It’s super lush and decorative and just very pleasurable,” said Bloch.
In the summer of 2020, Bloch was able to help curate a show called “Well-Behaved Women.” It was a celebration of the centennial year of women earning the right to vote.
“Because I got to pick a lot of the work, and I knew the talking points and it was really fun,” Bloch said. “We had 54 small tours of that exhibit, and that was even during COVID-19. We offered many different people a small, safe tour with six to eight people. Once they went on one tour, they started to ask if they could bring in more groups. We were like 'yes, yes, yes.'”
Bloch has spent her time at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts creating new opportunities for people to be immersed in art. Whether that be by curating shows, implementing the idea of installations, or simply managing the nitty-gritty her effect on the museum as its Executive Director for the past five years has been monumental.
