The next phase of the Galesburg Community Art Center’s transformation won’t add another gallery.
It will add a kitchen.
Supported by a $25,000 grant from the G.L. Vitale Family Foundation, the art center is moving forward with The Kitchen Collective, a shared community kitchen open to local chefs, caterers, and culinary entrepreneurs — and a space for local workshops, chef pop-ups, and collaboration.
The Kitchen Collective will be in the storefront at the rear of the Odd Fellows Building at Seminary and Main streets that has been the art center’s home since 2021.
Executive Director Tuesday Çetin said the space is one of the oldest untouched storefronts in Galesburg, and the art center’s plan for it has always been a kitchen.
“It wasn’t just this blank space we didn’t know what to do with. It was part of the original vision for this new iteration of the art center, which included all the arts, plus culinary,” Çetin said.
At first, the concept solved a practical problem — a space to prepare food for artist receptions and facilitate the art center’s annual Great Bowls of Soup fundraiser.
Over time, Çetin said it morphed into an entrepreneurial space that could provide commercial kitchen access to home-based food businesses — and into a collaborative space, where culinary artists work alongside other artists.
“When I think of all my artists, whatever they're dealing in, whether it's paint or dance or theater or culinary arts, I'm really incubating business and incubating industry. Whether you're starting off small or lightning strikes and you take off and you're huge, you have to start somewhere,” Çetin said.
“And we're a community art center, so what better place to start than this supportive environment that has collaborators and many different ideas and work through your process and this will provide a place for that.”
The new kitchen will include a dedicated dishwashing area with a commercial three-compartment sink. It will also feature cooking and prep stations, storage, and flexible workspaces designed to accommodate classes, workshops, and multiple groups.
Çetin said the museum she previously worked for in Florida had a restaurant as part of its system of management. She said on Tuesdays, staff knew it was biscuit day.
“We'd come in and the museum would just be a waft of these warm, buttery biscuits that we all loved,” Çetin said. “I wanted to replicate that for our community where, they're coming into an art center, it's feeding their soul in some way, but also food feeds the soul and is part of being a sustainable human.”
Çetin said on a typical day at The Kitchen Collective, a chef might use the space in the morning, followed by a workshop in the afternoon, and an open studio in the evening where someone might throw a plate on a wheel — and then learn how to plate it in the kitchen.
Çetin said she hopes to have the kitchen functioning on some level by the end of the year, with the goal of it being fully up and running by the spring.
The project is part of the art center’s current capital campaign.
Çetin said they still have around $75,000 to raise to fully fund the kitchen project, which is considered the third phase of the transformation of the art center.
She said the art center gets some money from the Illinois Arts Council, but 86% of its budget comes from donations from individuals and businesses.
“That is how we operate, and we are doing four times the size and four times the programming,” Çetin said.
In addition to the grant to the art center, the G.L. Vitale Family Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to FISH of Galesburg food pantry and $25,000 to Sandburg for the Charge Forward Earn as You Learn initiative, which will provide financial aid for adult learners to reduce barriers.
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