When Sister Denise Kavanagh turned 40 after being a teacher and administrator in Chicago’s Catholic schools for 20 years, she decided she would rather be doing something with her hands.
“My strength is in my hands. I felt I could do so many things with my hands with the kids. But I felt like master of none. This would be a nice time in my life to go back to school and do something with my hands and be good at one thing. I needed to find out in myself what I could do,” Kavanagh recalls almost 20 years after embarking on a new career in which she has become director of a fine arts learning center.
The first step was to begin studying textiles at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb when she was 41.
“I jumped in, but with encouragement from my religious order. In my last semester at NIU, one of the order’s nuns approached me about running a gallery showing the artwork of the nuns,” Kavanagh says.
“In September 1979, I opened the Fine Line Gallery in an old house in Geneva, about 40 miles west of Chicago. I had a weaving studio in the dining area. After one month, a visitor wanted to learn how to weave; after Christmas three or four people asked, and then four more people inquired. The following year, 12 people were weaving on looms throughout the house.”
So many people asked about weaving classes that Kavanagh re-evaluated the Fine Line’s direction with its students and teachers. She phased out the gallery, became more secular and moved the enterprise to another house in Geneva in 1981 and created the non-profit Fine Line Creative Arts Center, offering classes in weaving, knitting, painting, drawing, dyeing, basketry and felt-making.
In 1986, the center moved to much larger quarters, a renovated 9,000-square-foot barn near St. Charles. Today, it serves more than 1,200 students, most of them women, in 200 classes a year plus for 25 workshops. An upstairs gallery presents eight shows a year by its students.
In March, the center plans to break ground for a 7,300-square-foot building near the barn to house studios for a number of different artistic forms and for a new gallery.
“With the expansion project, we can develop our curriculum. We’re trying to build an environment for the 21st Century because we know the value and importance of providing creative experiences for the adult community. Creativity gives life to your soul.
“Our emphasis is on the adults,” Kavanagh says. “There’s a tremendous need because a lot of adults have been passed over. We feel children get so much in their schools. They’re inundated with muchness. I see so many women starving for some creative power. A lot of people here try this or that until they find their niche. We encourage people to try something, to get in there and do something and not be afraid. There are no grades here, no academic pressure.
“When I was 18 and president of the athletic association at my high school, Alvernia, which is in Chicago, the moderator, a nun, had many hours of conversations with me. She encouraged me to do something with my life. She recognized in me special qualities of leadership and some giftedness that could be lost if I didn’t do something.
“Her impact stayed with me. It has helped me encourage people and make them more aware. When people come here and say, `I have no artistic ability,’ we say, `Everyone is creative.’ It is up to us to help nurture that.
“When you experience the creative process, it nurtures the soul and your whole life. When you begin to feel good about yourself and go home from here, you relate differently to your neighborhood, work, family. The creative process does free you inside. You are unleashing things inside of you that haven’t been nurtured.”
The influence of the Fine Line sometimes goes further than helping a person develop an artistic skill.
Sandra Webster Lincheck began as the Fine Line’s first knitting teacher and taught for about a year. She left the center to work as a department-store buyer. A few years ago, after losing her job through downsizing, Lincheck returned to the Fine Line as a volunteer directing its public relations. Recently, she opened her own business called Sandra Webster. Located in Geneva, the shop sells clothing, jewelry and accessories made by nationally known artists from across the country.
“Denise convinced me to follow my passion, to do what makes me the happiest, and that means being in textile art,” Lincheck says. “She prodded, cajoled, harangued. She kept saying, `Do it, do it. The people will come.’ It gives me an enormous thrill to have this business. . . . The Fine Line is the most nurturing place I’ve ever been in my life.”
In describing the center, Kavanagh says: “We’re a grand ecumenical mixture. You become so much alike, you don’t think of church groups, looks. It can become a big family if you hang out here. You find a lot of laughter here, a lot of caring for each other. We want to do well with our work but not be cutthroat about it. You don’t find that kind of competitive drive here. Part of it is the grade of people. We try to encourage people to be who they are and not worry about other people.”
Linn Sorge, a vision specialist at the Center for Access-Ability Resources at NIU, has been taking weaving classes at the Fine Line since September 1995.
“I heard about the Fine Line through a friend who said, `You should take weaving. I think they’d be very accepting,’ ” says Sorge, who has been blind since birth. “I checked out the Fine Line with another friend who was also interested in taking weaving classes. The Fine Line is very supportive. It’s not just the instructors but the students as well. In my class, everyone is willing to give encouraging words. . . . It’s a nurturing, caring environment available to anyone who comes there.
“I guess since I am someone with a disability, I encounter lots of barriers both professionally and in the community on a daily basis. It’s refreshing and strengthening to go to a place such as the Fine Line where you can gain confidence, learn new skills and be among caring people. You always feel as though you grow. Sometimes, you hope you can help others to grow too,” Sorge says.
To help people develop their potential, Kavanagh has created a comfortable ambience at the Fine Line. She believes there is too much stress in society, observing that women, in the suburbs particularly, are consumed with chauffeuring their children.
“A number of people who walk in the door feel a sense of peace and tranquility. We want to promote that feeling. The creative process slows you down inside and allows you to become more centered. You focus on art. The process is not zip, zip. Navajo weaving, for example, is so slow it forces you to slow down inside. That centering process to integrate the process is a whole calming that takes place in your being,” Kavanagh says.
“The creative process is a spiritual experience because you’re working from the most tender part of your being. That’s the spirituality. We are looking to find a peace or centering in our lives. There is a God experience — you make a connection. You’re developing your own gifts. A number of people have said, `Coming here is a spiritual experience.’ They’re keeping a sense of God in their lives without saying so.”
Kavanagh frequently speaks to civic groups as part of the Fine Line’s outreach programs. Bus tours to the St. Charles area often stop at the center.
“One day we had a bus group from St. Louis visit,” she recalls, smiling. “After I was done talking, a man asked me, `When do you do your nun thing?’ I looked at him and said, `I work 65 hours a week. This is a school for moms and dads.’
“Any time you help people become who they are, that’s a ministry. It’s how you treat people. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s how you do it. You can have an impact on people if you do a good job,” she says.
The Fine Line hopes to continue serving its growing number of students. It has raised $250,000 toward the new building through fundraisers and two foundation grants totaling $15,000. The building is estimated to cost $700,000.
“We don’t have a rich bishop supporting us,” Kavanagh says. “I don’t worry though. Something always happens. When you gather good people around, good things will continue to happen.
“Our mission is to heal and preserve life,” she continues. “We serve the poor in spirit — those who are not fulfilling their creative power. One woman who had worked at home at her weaving came here because she suffered from the poverty of isolation and desolation. We can be an oasis for some.”
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Fine Line is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday at 6N158 Crane Rd., St. Charles, Ill. 60175; phone 630-584-9443.
