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Too bad: Chicago's FLATFILEgalleries is closing March 27

Another casualty due to the crap economy is Chicago's FLATFILEgalleries, which was located in the West Loop for almost a decade.

I appreciated this gallery because it showed some memorable art. I particularly remember Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal's performance work 'Domestic Tension', a commentary on the Iraq war. The viewer (either in the gallery or online) had access to a remote control paint gun and could fire yellow paintballs at the artist, who was confined in a gallery almost constantly throughout the duration of the installation.

I took this picture of the artist (and his associate) at the gallery on May 6, 2007 during a fundraiser for the Evanston-based nonprofit art education organization Art Encounter.

More:

Flatfile Flatlines [Chicago Reader]

"Living 2007" Bricolage Mural at Bryn Mawr & Lake Shore Drive

Photos taken July 2008

Living 2007 is one of the best community art murals I've ever seen, located in the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago at Bryn Mawr & Lake Shore Drive. It was produced by the Chicago Public Art Group and various youth. I saw it in various stages of completion, and I was amazed at how quickly it seemed to be finalized. Pictures don't do this mural justice. When the sun hits it, it's almost blindingly jewel-like.

Art Links

• Author & artist Audrey Niffenegger's graphic novel, The Night Bookmobile, is about a mysterious Winnebago that mysteriously appears at various intervals around Chicago
  
   
  
• I meant to link to this blog post around a year ago. According to the very high standards of Rogers Park, you know you've really made it when one of its acclaimed neighborhood bloggers fictionalizes parts of your life into a surreal, drunken post.  Well, it might not be me. It could be about some other clothes-altering, sewing, beading, fiber artist (who "cut pictures out of magazines and sewed them into wearable art").
  
  In Gobble Gobble  (Thanksgiving reference intended, not Todd Browning, although the latter is more appropriate) I'm sitting on a train sewing beads on something. I drink a lot of wine. I get frightened by an Amish person. Then a pig is ritualistically slaughtered, or something.  FBI agents, Barack Obama, and the evil gypsies that live in her head made her write this. Rogers Park forever? It's all yours. And I'm really flattered I could be your muse.

Lawn installations at Illinois Institute of Technology

School's over, and the past few days at the college I work at have been full of graduation activities and celebrations of projects being completed. Same thing one block over at Illinois Institute of Technology, where there's been several really interesting student-made structures installed on their grounds.

My favorite was this one on the south side of the Paul V. Galvin library -- milk crates connected to make a roller coaster-like form.

Here's another, made of plastic bottles.

While I'm at it, here's the Green Line "L" tube that goes over the really amazing student center, designed by Rem Koolhaas, and below that a shot of an installation of geometric wire forms in one of the hallways. Inside feels a little sterile to me, but visually it's a knockout, a must-see for any fan of Chicago architecture.

"Domestic Sunshine" reception, April 10, 2008

My reception at NU was last Thursday and it went fine. The organizers of this show did an excellent job, and put lots of attention into detail, even creating little buttons with our work on them. I thought that was cute. The other exhibiting artist and I judged a collage contest downstairs in the open art studios. Then I was interviewed for the Daily Northwestern. Throughout all this, I was also in my Latin America library class. One of the NU students logged me in, and I spent my time back and forth between the exhibit and the computer screen. Don’t ever tell me I can’t multitask.

The piece I’m standing beside is “Joy,” and that’s the piece I’ve been killing myself over since around August. I’m looking into getting some kind of embroidery machine to make this go a little faster. I’ll be hiring a photographer soon to get professional shots of this piece as well as my entire portfolio. I have some thoughts about what to do next, and need higher quality images.

There was this really funny little kid there who kept pouring himself cup after cup of coffee, and would then run around making rude remarks to people. Must have had a tough day at the third grade. I suggested he switch to decaf, and he rolled his eyes at me and ran off. I think that kid drank about 30 cups.

I know how that feels. But now I can ease up on myself and get back on top of schoolwork. I am very, very behind. And get back into shape, start running again.

Art on Armitage at Bridge Miami Dec. 6-9, 2007

Art on Armitage at Bridge Miami Dec. 6-9, 2007

Bridge Art Fair website

Catalina Hotel
*Art on Armitage is in room 221*
1732 Collins Avenue
Miami Beach

Artists represented:

Mia Capodilupo, Chicago, IL
Chun Chun Hee, Seoul Korea
Mary Ellen Croteau, Chicago, IL
Eduardo De Soignie, Chicago, IL
Philip Hartigan, UK & Chicago, IL
Lauren Levato, Chicago, IL
Margeaux, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Marcy Sperry, Chicago, IL
Ruri, Reykjavik, Iceland
Jessica Vaughn, Chicago, IL
Nicoletta West, Zurich, Switzerland

All exhibitors:
Amandine Lesaffre Contemporary Art, Paris, France
Art 101, Brooklyn, NY
Art Murmur Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Art On Armitage, Chicago, IL
Art Vitam, Miami, FL
Awol Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Bert Green Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Billy Shire Fine Arts, Culver City, CA
Bleu Acier Inc., Tampa, FL
Brenda Taylor Gallery, New York, NY
Brodsky Center For Innovative Multiples at
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
c5 coléccion, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami, FL
Ch’I Contemporary Fine Art, Brooklyn, NY
Cheryl Hazan Gallery, New York, NY
DFN Gallery, New York, NY
Dillon Gallery, New York, NY
Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA
Fleetwing Gallery, Lambertville, NJ
Front Room Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Galeria Jorge Alcolea, Madrid, Spain
Galerie Hitomi Bushi d'Eau, Paris, France
Galerie Huebner, Frankfurt, Germany
Galerie Jürgen Kalthoff, Essen, Germany
Galerie Lélia Mordoch, Paris, France
Galerie Olivier Waltman, Paris, France
Galerie Renate Bender, Munich, Germany
Galerie Sara Guedj, Paris, France
Galerie T40, Düsseldorf, Germany
Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen, Denmark
Gallery 138, New York, NY
Gallery Burkhard Eikelmann, Düsseldorf, Germany
Gallery Diet presents Brian Burkhardt’s
Word of Mouth, Miami, FL
GARDENfresh, Chicago, IL
GIL Art Gallery, Miami, FL
Go Go Gallery, Miami, FL
Greene Contemporary, Sarasota, FL
GV ART, London, UK
Hogar Collection, Brooklyn, NY
I-MYU Projects, London, UK
Kasia Kay Art Projects Gallery, Chicago, IL
Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts, New York, NY
Kidder Smith Gallery, Boston, MA
Livebox Gallery, Chicago, IL
Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery, New York, NY
Madelyn Jordon Fine Art, Scarsdale, NY
Maloney Gallery, Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
McCaig-Welles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Michael Petronko Gallery, New York, NY
Newzones, Calgary, Canada
Nohra Haime Gallery, New York, NY
Novembro Arte Contemporânea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Orleans Street Gallery, St Charles, IL
PaciArte Contemporary, Brescia, Italy
Packer-Schopf Gallery, Chicago, IL
Perihelion Arts, Phoenix, AZ
Peter Miller Gallery, Chicago, IL
Praxis International Art, Miami, FL
Procuniar Workshop, New York, NY
Projects Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Red Truck Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Rice/Polak Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Satellite Exhibitions, Kansas City, MO
Spur Projects, San Francisco, CA
Standard Usage Project, Chicago, IL
StART SPACE, London, UK
Studio HD, Coral Gables, FL
Susan Eley Fine Art, New York, NY
Swenson Gallery, Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami, FL
Th!nk Art, Chicago, IL
Tim Yarger Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Toomey Tourell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Toulouse Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Van Brunt Gallery, Beacon, NY
Vanessa Suchar, Le Salon For Art Collectors, London, UK
Wright Gallery, Northport, MI

Peter Schjeldahl on Chicago's lesser role in the art world

Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The New Yorker, tells it like he thinks it is about Chicago at a recent MCA lecture. I think he's calling it right. (via Chicago Reader)

"One Way" to get your art seen

I haven't done "what's weird on Glenwood" for weeks, so here goes. I took a random image of this painting in an alley by DCI Furniture yesterday, and today I noticed that it had been rescued from the dumpster and attached to a street sign. Someone's taking this Glenwood Arts District label kind of literally?

Lucy Ruth Wright Rivers: Her art--wow

I just discovered  Lucy Ruth Wright Rivers' work today, and I love it. She has an opening Friday, September 7, 6 - 9 PM, at Packer Schopf Gallery, (Chicago, West Loop).

Seniors at Lincolnwood Place Take "Hats Off" for Art

Art outreach for the elderly is more than just arts and crafts busywork.  Involvement in creative arts can provide meaningful opportunities for seniors to learn new skills.  For elderly residents living in assisted care and nursing homes, the arts can also foster a sense of community.

Seniors are a growing population in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.  A 2006 study finds that "suburban Cook County has a higher percentage of elderly than the national average for suburbs and for cities."  As this population expands, it becomes more crucial to recognize and address its needs.

Evanston-based Art Encounter (my employer), has been conducting art outreach programs with seniors since the organization’s inception in 1978.  Building on this long history, I helped to develop a program we called "Hats Off For Art: Creative Community Building with Seniors," and secured some initial funding from a private foundation.  This program represented an important step forward for Art Encounter’s outreach.  Due to funding restraints, past programs often consisted of a single workshop with limited follow-up.  In "Hats Off," teaching artists lead creative art projects once a week for six consecutive weeks.  In the final project, the participants embellish a vintage hat we provide, hence the program's title.

The first location we conducted "Hats Off" was Lincolnwood Place, an assisted living facility in Lincolnwood, Illinois. I recently attended our first post-program reception, where each senior slowly (many used walkers and chairs) yet cheerfully made his or her way to the front of the room, donned their hat creation, and discussed what the program meant to them. 

One woman, who identified herself as a lifelong portrait painter, revealed herself to be the group's "rebel."  She described her choice to build a clay dragonfly in lieu of the dwelling the group was asked to build, since a dragonfly’s body was in fact a type of dwelling.  Another gentleman spoke eloquently about the positive power art can have on our lives.  All their thoughts were candid and uplifting, reminding me of what I found compelling about the field of art education in the first place.  I rarely get a chance to do site visits--I'm always at the keyboard writing the grants. However, if one gets too disconnected from the human factor, the point of doing anything becomes obscured.

Due to frequent social isolation, many elderly people face a more intense verision of that disconnection every day, but access to programs that engage their senses and provide companionship can change that. Clearly the participants I observed enjoyed themselves, and each other's company.  The problem is funding.  We need more funders who recognize that elderly people have needs that extend beyond the physical, and are willing to take on a comprehensive view of how to support this growing population.