Texture and color in the city

To change things up a bit I'm posting images from a photo safari I took with my daughter Indigo to an area just west of my neighborhood in Chicago, underneath the Metra train tracks.

I like how this graffiti artist worked with the structure of the staggered block wall.

I am particularly entranced by the layering of type and imagery that create such beautiful complex images when cropped.

It's this concept of layering imagery that I've been exploring for the last couple years with my painting.

 These ones were really pretty with metallic bronze paint.

A discarded metal tree sculpture added another point of interest.

Suddenly a train went over head.

Rusty Bits
The massive chandelier was another interesting addition to this urban space. It's probably about 8 feet across with silk flowers entwined around it.

There were a lot of these weird little stalactites.

Believe it or not this is the base of one of the support columns of the overhead track. Most of the column is not as deteriorated, but quite a few of the other columns also looked like this.

I love these colors. I see things like this and want to remember it for a color palette for painting.

I love this texture and all the beautiful reds.

What fun to come across this blue heart with my initial on it. 

I hope you find these images as inspiring as I do and see there can be artistic beauty hidden in plain site.

A day out with my sister

Over the weekend my sister Deb came to visit me from Maine for Thanksgiving. With finances being so tight we haven't seen each other in 2 years, but a month ago we were able to find a flight on JetBlue for $80 roundtrip from Boston to Chicago to split, so this holiday has even more to be thankful for.

On Sunday we headed over to my favorite local gallery Packer Schopf to see the closing of Brian Dettmers exhibit of incredible carved books. The bonus was getting to meet artist Kathy Halper who also has an exhibit in the gallery this month.

I love Kathy's work, she does stitched drawings that explore the lives of teens in social media. Her images come from sometimes disturbing and often very humorous posts on facebook dealing with sex, drugs and the loss of privacy and innocence. Her work is so timely and relevant and perfectly executed in neutral colored floss on linen.

After the gallery, we walked over to my favorite coffee shop La Colombe, but had to stop at this dumpster when we saw it's public service message

Mmmmm hot coffee on a cold afternoon!

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A Sunny Day at the Antique Market

After getting rained out last month, it was so nice to spend a sunny day walking around the antique market down the street. I love living in the city! This was the day for seeing lots of awesome type, this thrills the graphic designer in me to no end.

When I was 18 and a student at Santa Rosa Junior College in California, I was the campus poster person for the student activities office. I designed posters for campus activities on an old letterpress machine using type just like this. I wish I could go back and use that press now, what fun I would have.

This is the type I couldn't live without.

I think these one foot tall letters spelling CUTE should be mounted on the wall over the bathroom mirror, for those days when one needs a little reminder :-)

My dog, Abby, grazing with the elephants.

Put a bird on it!

Beautiful glass!

I love this vintage store sewing machine parts bin.

It even had some needles still in it.

Indigo (nina) and I had a great day!

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Unusual clouds over Chicago

Last week we had some amazing clouds pass over Chicago, they were very ominous and threatening and had that slight greenish tinge that no one feels comfortable seeing, unless maybe you're a storm chaser.

It was really wild to see the undulations and circular rotations in the clouds. I couldn't help wondering what might come next, considering the night before we had a storm that brought golf ball size hail that blew out the 100 year old skylights in the Garfield Park Conservatory.

The wind picked up considerably with the clouds and it was a little intimidating going out on the roof of our building to get a good view, but it was too fascinating to resist. Oddly enough the clouds just kept moving east at a pretty fast pace and never let out a drop of rain.

Happy 4th of July!

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Hitting the road to St. Paul

I have been busy for the last week, packing supplies for teaching 4 classes at the Minnesota Quilters Show and Conference this week. I have never been to Minnesota before so I am looking forward to seeing a little more of the midwest. Now add to this pile 2 more suitcases for clothes for me and Nina and then I am also dropping my son off at the airport for a trip to the east coast on the way, so we also have to fit him and another suitcase in the car, good thing he packs light, lol.

The tall stack of boxes is all metal kits for my class Heavy Metal Play Day. Each student is getting an awesome metal tool kit courtesy of Walnut Hollow with aluminum and copper metal sheets to work with. I am also teaching this class in Long Beach at International Quilt Festival next month so if you havent signed up, you should, you get a about $40 of free supplies with this class! It's a total deal!

I took my first full weekend off in a long time to go to the Chicago Blues Fest, what a blast, 6 stages playing awesome blues music and it's FREE! Here's a video from 2 years ago of a couple of my favorite musicians at the Blues Fest, enjoy!



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Rained Out at the Chicago Antiques Market

Nina and I went to the Chicago Antiques market down the street this weekend. Shortly after we got there it started raining and didn't really stop for the next 36 hours. We did manage to get a couple photos outdoors before we had to make a run for the inside part of the venue.

I love this naked bridal mannequin, ready to dance but without her partner. I feel like that sometimes, lol.

She should hang out with the other mannequin who lives in our neighborhood, she stands on a fire escape looking across at the el at Lake and Halstead. I think the mustache is a nice touch. Nina snapped this photo the other day on our way to the grocery store.


Love this box of glass fishing floats.

My big find of the day was this 1939 mens day suit. I couldn't believe the jacket was such a good fit, it just needs a little tailoring in the upper back, otherwise the size is perfect.

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Paper and Paint

My daughter Nina gave me a lovely sketch/scrap book made with banana fiber pages. I love the speckled natural color of the paper. I really want to spend more time drawing, I used to be really good about keeping sketchbooks. Funny how once kids came into the picture, that sort of slipped away. I want to get back in the habit of drawing for the sake of drawing and not just when I want to design a quilt.  

I like the way the drawings look on this paper, but I found that it is not the best for paint. I think it's too absorbent and soft, so it is not as easy to move the paint around on the surface of the paper. I persevered though, using opaque watercolors to paint the images.

I will end this post with todays Oprah siting. Mayor Daley held a press conference outside to announce that he renamed the section of Carpenter street between our loft building and Harpo studios "Oprah Winfrey Way".

photos taken from my 5th floor balcony

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