Patti Swanson is a historian, educator, and artist living in Chicago, Illinois. Raised near Austin, Texas, Patti came to Chicago in 2011 to pursue a degree in art history at School of the Art Institute of Chicago and stayed for the city's rich history, friendly people, and balmy winters.

Patti is the founder and Executive Director of Chicago for Chicagoans. In addition to giving architectural and history tours, Patti is a multidisciplinary artist, professional project manager, avid volunteer, and wearer-of-many-hats. View Patti's CV.
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Artist Statement
My art practice exists inextricably with my identity as a historian, nonprofit administrator, and educator. I engage with storytelling across a myriad of mediums, and prefer unfussy, approachable work designed for sharing, for teaching, for highlighting and humanizing history – particularly the archival stories of everyday Americans and the way their experiences of the world at their point in time both contrast with and feel familiar to our lives today. I am fascinated by the temporal qualities of memory, the pockets of our past that are little-known and underrecognized, and I tirelessly advocate for the accessibility of the arts to the public at large.

For the last decade, I have worked primarily with antique equipment and type to create letterpress prints and artist books, infusing my pieces with an homage to the past and previous generations of printers, binders, and makers. I celebrate and meditate on Chicago history in particular, connecting my city to the broader story of the Great Lakes region and the movement of immigrants to the west. My practice is based out of community nonprofit printshops in Chicago and Upstate New York, honoring printmaking’s long history as a collaborative effort and democratic medium to spread information. 

Photo by Loren Rozewski.