New Murals

I was walking home from the gym one day when I was surprised to see a new mural in process. I was pleased to see that it was by Ryan Tova Katz whose murals I have admired before. It was finished a few days later.

Today I was walking to the hospital to get a routine follow up vascular scan of my arm and thinking about writing this blog post in the waiting room when I was surprised by two more Ryan Tova Katz murals on the new building on the corner of Belmont and Halstead.

Ryan Tova Katz is a “professional artist and interior designer in Chicago specializing in murals, signs, interior and exterior painting” so I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve seen so many of her murals in Chicago. I’m so glad they’re appearing in my neighborhood.

Our neighborhood isn’t the only one  getting a new mural. At Square Roots we were directed to look up to see a new mural honoring John Prine on the Old Town School of Folk Music building. The mural was designed by Jon Langford.

I became aware of Jon Langford at the gallery Yarddog in Austin, Texas. I loved his portraits of musicians but had to be content with postcards because the originals were way out of my price range. I was surprised when we moved to Chicago to find out that he is also a musician. If I had wondered at the connection between a Chicago artist and a gallery in Austin my confusion would have been cleared up as I read the book my husband gave me for my birthday about the founding of Bloodshot records – “The Hours are Long but the Pay is Low”. Rob Miller attributes a lot of Bloodshot’s success to the shows they played at Yarddog during South by Southwest which included Jon Langford and his band The Waco Brothers (a band I’d actually seen in Massachusetts but did not connect with the artist whose work I had admired at Yarddog and at an exhibit called Nashville Cats at the Country Music  Hall of Fame and Museum). Since I still can’t afford an original Jon Langford I am happy that I could buy a “Give a Shi*t” t-shirt that featured one of his designs at a Square Roots Festival a few years ago and that everyone will get to appreciate the new mural.

After I left the hospital today I walked over to the Mount Sinai Hospital Resale Shop in Clark where I saw this mural, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it and including it in this post even though it’s clearly not a new one.