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Orpheum Children's Science Museum »
Address: 346 N. Neil St. Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: (217) 352-5895
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Standing atop a red ladder on stage left at the Orpheum Theatre, Dan Leasure hangs yet another canvas. The venerable theater is filled with paints, pastels and prints, papier-maché sharks and Kermit the Frog portraiture.

After he climbed down the ladder, Leasure explained to me that this is the 16th annual “Artists Against AIDS,” hosted by the Greater Community AIDS Project. He’s been an organizer for over a dozen years, and every year, the exhibition has grown larger.

“The years just seem to go by,” interjects Peggy Purkhosrow, placing a selection of jewelry in the center of the theater.

Walking around the exhibition, Leasure points out that nearly every single piece is by a local artist. Most are originals. Half the proceeds head to GCAP, the other half to the artists.

“We’ve got about every medium you can think of,” he said, “from sculpture to glassblowing to photography to painting.”

The show requires months of preparation. Twenty people actively organize the show for six to eight months, he said, with a full month of setting up the show and many volunteer work weekends.

“Dan is a man who hasn’t had a wink of sleep in the past three days,” said Teri McCarthy, GCAP’s director.

She said about a third of the GCAP’s annual budget is drawn from the exhibition. The project fills a niche in east central Illinois’ health coverage.

“GCAP provides support services for people living with HIV or AIDS in our own backyard,” McCarthy said. The organization extends through 10 east central Illinois counties with focuses on Vermilion and Champaign counties.

Trent Shepard has helped organize the exhibition for more than a decade. He said he came to the CU area for school and never left.

“I remember when it was very small,” Shepard said. “A few self-portraits of guys’ penises and jewelry and not much else. It took some dedicated people ... for it to become what it is.”

A stack of red $50 donation tickets and a pie chart of proceeds greeted the patrons of the exhibition hall on the private ticketed opening.

“I’ve lost count; you do it once, you do it again and again,” said Paula Newcomb, who has volunteered for over eight years. “It’s such a fun thing, you get to see really good art. It brings all walks of life together.”

“[The show] enables GCAP to do a lot for people living with AIDS. We’ve broken the record every year,” she added.

The first two days of the event were $1,000 ahead of schedule, Shepard said. On those busy nights, the scent of red wine mingled with dampness of the theater’s air.

With eyes focused in concentration, Megan Severson and Jesse Farrell considered the texture of an abstract gradient on Friday night.

“AIDS is a very tactile, tangible issue,” Severson said. “Having these paintings on display really resonates with me. It brings the human brush to it, to see that artist’s work.”