A Space for Dreaming

Willis won a Grammy and sold 60 million records, and the new space will inspire UW–Madison students to blaze their own trails. Willis Wonderland Foundation

The late Allee Willis ’69 cowrote the megahit “September” for Earth, Wind & Fire in 1978. She went on to sell 60 million records, earn a Grammy Award, and score the Broadway production of The Color Purple, for which she earned a Tony Award nomination. Now, her archive is coming to the UW’s Mills Music Library, including photographs, handwritten lyrics, and her 1986 Grammy.

The donation is coupled with a $1.5 million gift to campus from the Willis Wonderland Foundation that will fund the construction of a multidisciplinary makerspace in Memorial Library called the Allee Willis Creativity Commons, as well as ongoing programming and technology upgrades in the UW Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Hub. Together, the forthcoming space and endowment will be dedicated to transforming the artist’s creative vision into a reality for UW–Madison students.

“As Allee’s example shows us, some of the most meaningful work comes from bringing different ways of thinking together and simply seeing what happens next,” says Erla Heyns, UW dean and vice provost of Libraries. “In other words, the Creativity Commons will be a place where the next Allee Willis might get their start.”

Along with songwriting, Willis was a visionary multimedia artist, a set designer, and a digital pioneer who launched the first interconnected social network in cyberspace, called willisville, in 1993.

The Allee Willis Creativity Commons will invite UW–Madison students to test the limits of their imaginations and blaze their own trail. To be housed on the second floor of Memorial Library, the 3,245-square-foot space will channel Willis’s signature aesthetic, complete with a candy-colored exterior and items from the artist’s collection of atomic kitsch.

Expected to open in mid-2028, the Creativity Commons will be anchored by an expansive creativity zone that includes flexible setups for programming, community events, and independent study. A dedicated makerspace will support the creation of physical media and art. Most dramatic, though, is The Studio, which will include state-of-the-art podcasting and music production equipment, giving students, researchers, scholars, and the larger community the chance to tell their own stories.

Published in the Fall 2026 issue