‘I Always Wanted This’: Skokie-born artist paints new mural over Village-owned gallery space

Sarah Goone cannot recall a time she wasn’t interested in art. 

She dressed up as an artist during a third grade career day and her mother, she recalled, likes to joke that Goone had markers in her hand ever since she was a kid. 

So it feels “full circle” for the Skokie-born and Glencoe-raised artist to have just completed painting her first mural in the community, she said. 

A bright and abstract collage of color now overlooks the entrance to The Storefront, the Village-owned gallery, workshop and farmers market spot at 4051 Main St. in Skokie. 

“I always wanted this to be my life,” Goone said. “I remember being younger and just being like, I someday want to be a person who is a part of this. And so to now be a person who’s a part of this and in Skokie, is really cool.”

‘Visual art is my language’

Goone spent her first four years in Skokie before moving to Glencoe, but she frequently returned to Skokie for temple throughout her life, she said. 

While she started out doodling, Goone eventually became interested in animation while attending New Trier High School and, after spending hours creating claymation videos with her friend in their basement, won the school’s Greg Harris Film Festival award. 

So at Bennington College in Vermont, Goone went on to study puppetry. She then spent at least six years wrangling puppets before she became trained in visual note-taking, a practice where she creates drawings during events to help enhance discussions and foster engagement, she said. 

To that end, she has remained attracted to visual art. While some people write journal entries, she fills sketchbooks with drawings, saying that’s how she processes the world and her emotions.

“I feel like visual art is my language,” Goone said. “I guess how I talk about the larger scale stuff is, life is so beautiful, so why shouldn’t the world around us reflect that? And then to be able to someone who can contribute what we see around us and how that affects our life is important.”

‘Never enough time to draw’

Now that Goone has completed several large murals across the Chicago area and launched Radiant Eye— her private practice offering mural work, live visual note-taking and workshops — she said she was excited to hear from the Village of Skokie in November 2025.

Nick Wyatt, Skokie’s assistant village manager, said via email that Skokie’s Public Arts Advisory Committee has commissioned more than a dozen murals throughout the community since 2016. 

Beside the mural painted on the outside of Niles Township’s Food Pantry, all have been installed at private businesses such as Soul Good Coffee and Sketchbook Brewing Co. But the committee always looks for spots that are “highly visible to the community,” Wyatt said. 

“The Committee considered quite a few talented muralists, but Sarah’s style best fit the character of The Storefront and the vision for the Main Street commercial corridor,” Wyatt said. 

“She was born in Skokie, so she brings a connection to the community, and she spent a lot of time learning about the space’s origin and purpose. All of that informed her design and helped create the mural that you see today.”

After sharing her initial design with the committee, Goone recalled only getting one note of feedback before she was approved to move forward. The mural, a 3.4-by-26-foot piece, features a bright color palette inspired by intersecting, midcentury modern designs. 

As part of the process, Goone held a public workshop outside The Storefront on April 11 to demonstrate her process, talk about color theory and facilitate designing attendees’ own murals. 

Those kinds of “art activations” are what Goone said she wants to continue pursuing with her Radiant Eye practice, a project she hopes to eventually scale up and serve as its art director. 

But in the meantime, Goone said she’s focused on continuing to do what she’s always loved doing: adding lines and colors to blank canvasses. 

“For me it’s so natural to just sit down and draw for hours and I think a lot of people don’t give themselves that time and freedom to do it, but when you’re in a structured space that allows for that to happen or instigates that to happen, it’s such a fun experience,” Goone said. 

“One of the girls who was in (the workshop), she was younger, and I said I would love feedback. She just said it just wasn’t enough time to draw. And that’s the story of my life, never enough time to draw.”

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