We went to the Howard Street Chalk Festival again this year. This festival features four of the type of 3D Chalk art that only work if you look at it through a phone camera. Here’s one that looks like it could be a trompe l’oile piece.
But here’s what it looks like from the side without the camera.
This one was really fun.
The mermaid was a bit less successful.
The pinata looked like it was jumping. The shadows under its feet are chalk. The other shadows are actual people shadows.
There were some 2D pieces by guest artists, too, as well as ones done by people who had purchased squares, but I didn’t take any pictures of them.
A few weeks later. we went to another chalk festival the I Madonnari Street Painting Festival at the Sutherland Elementary School. It is modeled after a festival of the same name which has been hosted by the Children’s Creative Project in Santa Barbara County, California since 1987. Madonnari Street painting is an Italian tradition believed to have started in the 16th century; the word “Madonnari” is used because Italian street painters would often reproduce the image of the Madonna, St. Mary.
The festival features the work of professional artists as well as the creations of students and amateur artists who are invited to purchase a sidewalk square and decorate it with pastel chalks. Proceeds benefit the Sutherland Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
This year, Liz, who I work with at the Chicago Children’s Museum, was one of the guest artists.
Some of the other guest artists were still hard at work.
When we first got there, this one featured a large mushroom but then a little bunny started appearing and we realized it was the cover of the Richard Scarry book “I am a Bunny”.
The school takes up one large block, and people were drawing on the sidewalk around the whole building – there were so many wonderful drawings!
They get sprayed with floor wax when they are done, which must preserve them for a long time because on the few squares that were not being done this year, we could see some ghost images.
I wrote about the Nettlehorst Little Free Library before and mentioned that it was not visually distinctive, so I was pleasantly surprised today to see that it had been replaced with this beautiful one. Beautiful on both sides too.
There is a flock of chickens around the corner at the school, so I’m guessing that is why this side sports this attractive one!
The book selection varies greatly here. Today I was lucky to find a Kate Atkinson book I haven’t read yet.
This summer, we helped to take care of a neighbor’s cat while she went back to France for the summer. While we were standing in her kitchen as she went over the details, I noticed some cups with figures that looked similar to those on my Quimper pottery. Although I’m pretty sure I was saying Quimper correctly (kam-pair) she did not know what I was talking about but when I googled it to show her she said excitingly “Bretagne yes that’s where I’m from!”
I never really set out to collect Quimper pottery, but because I loved some blue and orange bowls from Spain that my grandmother had given us, my parents gave me her blue and orange Quimper dishes when she died.
The sugar bowl has what I now know is called a “petite breton”. According to the website frenchaffaires.com, Quimper has been the center of faience or pottery production in France for over 300 years and “the folk aspect of Quimper pottery intensified when regional costumes became popular across Europe in the late 1800’s. In the 1860’s, the familiar figure of the “petit breton” wearing sabots (wooden clogs), embroidered skirts or vests with hats or coifs (a woman’s hat) was first depicted on the pottery.”
Since my parents were giving me the dishes, they also gave me a stack of small plates.
And then, of course, my collection expanded (as collections do) when my sister gave me some pieces she bought at auctions.
I realized that all my pieces only show a woman, unlike my neighbor’s cups, although I also have a metal tray with a Quimper image of both a man and a woman that my sister gave me. (Well, actually, I gave it to her, but then she gave it back it to me thinking that I had given it to my mother and she had somehow ended up with it)
And now I have two more examples as my neighbor returned from France with gifts. She gave us the same things she gave all the cat helpers, including some wonderful buttery cookies in a tin.
And because I had mentioned my collection she gave us each a mug with an attached spoon. Mine features a “petit breton” couple!
My husband’s features a new image, but one that I think is also very French!
Of course, some rearranging of the China cabinet was necessary!
We stopped by St.Louis on our way to visit my Missouri (formerly Chicago) niece. I knew St. Louis had an arch but I didn’t know anything about it so I was surprised to find out it was designed by Saarinen, the tulip table guy, and that Alexander Girard was part of the design team.
Our main reason for stopping in St. Louis was to go to the amazing City Museum. It is hard to even describe how much is going on there – incredible climbing structures, salvaged building elements, artistic creations, and even the largest pencil in the world. Of course, I took pictures of some of the mermaids.
I didn’t take any pictures of the architectural elements, but I had to snap a picture of Big Boy since I used to work at a Big Boy restaurant and even dressed up as him for Halloween once.
The room with the largest pencil also included a pencil collection.
I didn’t do much climbing, but I did venture into the school bus that was sticking out of the top of the building.
We also found ourselves at Union Station where there were some hungry koi fish and a heron.
There are many more sights in St. Louis that I’d like to see, so I think we need to plan another trip.
We have a few new big city sights in our neighborhood, too. Nettlehorst School has a new horse. It is a lot brighter than the original!
And the sculptures have changed again. This one is so large that it almost scared me.
I hope they move the orange bags at the bottom soon, and I hope they don’t mean it isn’t bolted down!
I remembered to take a picture of the Hebru Brantley Fly Boy statue outside the Chicago Children’s Museum.
While no one was posing under it in a Fly Boy stance as someone usually is, I noticed that the Harry Carey restaurant next door’s new photo opportunity was getting some action.
A popular posing opportunity downtown is the Wings of Mexico statue. One time, when I passed it on a bus, I was surprised to see that my younger daughter was the one posing on it.
Last weekend across the street from the wings, I spied an enormous champagne cork from the bus window on the way to the Blues Festival. It was gone by the time I went to take a picture of it, so I was glad to find that I could take a picture of the Wings instead and that they have stayed around longer than they were originally meant to.
And speaking of the Blues Festival since it was at Millennium Park, I snapped a picture of The Bean – the quintessential big city sight.
Last year, during Stitchtober, I started thinking of other series of images that might work with the prompts from @ajpritchett. While he and most of the others who stitch do individual pieces, I have done two that incorporate all the prompts. Two years ago, as I read the prompts, I thought of fairy tales (blog post #stitchtober2021), and last year the prompts made me think of Greek myths (blog post Stitchtober 2023). One of the categories that I thought might work with typical Stitchtober prompts was tarot cards, but I wondered if I could even stitch 12 or 13 tiny tarot cards, so I decided to try stitching one.
When I think of Tarot cards, I think of the Rider-Waite deck and as a collector of suns specifically of the sun card. Stitching a 2″ version was not easy and I can say with certainty that even if this year’s Stitchtober prompts work perfectly, I will not be stitching a piece that includes 12 or 13 Rider-Waite cards.
I stitched the card on white duck fabric using only 1 or 2 strands of embroidery thread, and although it was challenging, I ended up being pretty pleased with it. At first, I thought I would frame it in the hoop, but when an embroiderer I follow on Instagram wrote that her round flower design wasn’t round enough, I thought. “Well then, my little rectangle definitely isn’t round enough!” So I decided to look for a frame. I was headed for Michael’s when I thought of the local shop Four Sided instead, and I found the perfect frame – a small (2.5×3.5) shadow box frame from Lawrence Frames.
I didn’t know what I was going to stitch next, but a few days after I finished the tarot card, I read an article about Clint Eastwood. He was asked how he stays so productive at his age and he answered, “I never let the old man in.” I loved this sentiment and did some research on it. I found out that he has been saying it for years (sometimes saying “never” rather than “don’t”) and that he originally attributed it to an older man that he knew. It also turns out that after he said it to Toby Keith, he wrote a song based on it called. “Don’t let the old man in,” and it was included in the movie “The Mule.”
I had just received a notice for jury duty and my husband pointed out that I could decline due to age. That didn’t feel right to me and when I thought about the quote I knew why. And I also knew I wanted to embroider it. I pictured it in a black and red tattoo font. I had a piece of 20 count linen that seemed like it would work with letters that were 10 x’s high, so after doing a little googling, I designed a font. The Michael’s I go to has been out of black embroidery thread for a while, so I bought balls of cotton perle and used two pieces of black and one of red.
At first, I just stitched the letters – using “never” rather than “don’t ” and changing “man” to woman. When I finished, I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Then, at a street fair, I saw a silkscreen or painting of the Chicago flag on a stretched canvas and thought, Ah hah! I could stretch it over a purchased canvas if I could find one. It turned out there are stretched canvases that are 12″×4″. 12 inches was perfect, but 4 was a bit big, so I added the heart. It was too small to stretch around to the back of the canvas, and after a few days of mulling it over, I settled on gluing it to the sides with fabric glue (it was barely big enough on the bottom) and then gluing 1/2 inch twill tape over it to cover the raw edges. I think it came out even better than I could have expected.
I hung it next to my bed, which was looking a little lopsided after I put the cross stitch cats I stitched many years ago above the tribute to my youngest sister. I put the tarot card on my dresser, and I must say my room is getting pretty full of my embroidery!
I was excited to see a new little library in my neighborhood the other day, but as I got closer, I realized that it was a different kind of library – a seed library!
Unfortunately there were no seeds or plastic containers!
It seems that almost every time I go downtown, I find something surprising. Recently, when I arrived at Navy Pier to volunteer at the children’s museum, I found two large Day of the Dead figures.
Since it was spring, not fall, it was not only their size that was surprising. It turned out they were part of Mexico Fest at the Pier.
The next day, I was lucky enough to be on my way to an event at the Newberry Library during 900 Michigan’s Fleur de Villes event.
The mannequins are dressed in real flowers and plants. I was especially impressed by the shorts on one of the few male mannequins.
The theme of this year’s Fleur de Villes event was Voyage: “This 5 day show will feature six levels of floral mannequins paying homage to humans wanderlust, all created by Chicago’s top floral artists.”
Last week, when I arrived at the Pier, I was amazed to see a large gorilla in the distance. On my way home, I went over to check it out and found out it was part of a trio of very large transformers who were there to publicize a new movie.
They were packing them up when I arrived this week. Cranes and lots of wooden boxes were involved, and when I left several hours later, the packing up was still going on.
A new sculpture a short distance away will stay a while longer. As I walked toward him, I thought he was a fox, but it turns out his title is Bastet, so maybe he is a cat.
This post will have to end “to be continued” because I just realized that while I wrote about the new Hebru Brantley designed art studio I haven’t mentioned the new Fly Boy statue which is certainly another Big City Sight.
Yesterday, on my walk to buy some more embroidery thread, I found some new examples of sights (or sites*) I’ve written about before. First, there is a new street poet. I wrote about this phenomenon in “In My Neighborhood: On the way to the medical offices.” The new poet only seems to have one poem, though. I saw this one several times on my walk.
Second, the environment enhancing I wrote about in “In My Neighborhood: Sidewalk Landscaping” continues:
In addition to these small chairs for children (I presume since they are too large for fairies and too small for adults) there are strings of beads hanging from the trees that are difficult to see in the photo.
* I’ve noticed some writers don’t seem to know that these are two different words – it amuses me that either work here.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 