Collections and Other Stuff I Like

When I registered for the Art Against the Flow summit in 2018 I had the opportunity to register for a Chicago Collections Crawl the day before as well but I passed for a couple of reasons – additional cost, the fact that only conference attendees could register so I’d be by myself, and a fear that the collectors would be rich and snooty and I would feel intimidated. Then a woman I met at the summit who had gone on the crawl was raving about Susann Craig and her collection and said if I ever got a chance to go on another tour I should do it. So when Intuit offered a virtual tour of two collections including Susann’s to members recently I signed right up. I was glad to find that Susann’s collection is amazing and that she is not intimidating at all. Her apartment is overflowing with folk art and outsider art. As she pointed out some of the pieces, she uttered the line “…like living in a memory bottle” and said she feels a connection to and has a story for each piece in her collection. And I thought that’s exactly how I feel about living in my home with my more modest collections!

Unfortunately we only got to see a tiny part of her collection and now I definitely want to see more. I found these photos online and I also found out her home is featured in a book called “A Home of Her Own” by Nancy Hiller which I’ve ordered. I also saw that Susann has given quite a few home tours in the past so I’m hoping I’ll have a chance to go on one in the future.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking down Broadway and I was surprised by this sculpture on the sidewalk. Literally surprised, as due to Covid 19 evasive sidewalk weaving, I almost walked into it. I stepped back and took a look around to try to figure out what it was doing there. Was it connected to the mysterious gym it was in front of – mysterious because all the windows are covered with photographs on blue film and according to the sign on the door even before Covid 19 you had to make an appointment and then text them that you had arrived in order to be let in. Or was it one of the sculptures of the Chicago Sculpture Exhibition that I’d seen around the neighborhood before? Although those usually had a bit more real estate and signs identifying them. I looked around but couldn’t find a sign either near the sculpture or on the gym. Whichever it was I thought she was pretty impressive so I snapped a picture.

The other day I walked by the angel again and this time there was a Chicago Sculpture Exhibition sign in front of it. Turns out it is The Angel of Death by Jack Howard-Potter. I did some googling and found out that the Chicago Sculpture Exhibition (CSE) is a 501c3 organization whose mission is to bring art to neighborhoods. The organization puts out a call to artists each year. The juried selections are installed for a year and the artists receive a stipend. CSE is funded by private sector contributions and The Angel of Death is sponsored by East Lake View Neighbors which I guess explains the location.

I got two new mermaids for Christmas! My sister gave me a mermaid tile and I knew that it had to go in our bathroom above the sink with the other tiles. They started at the wall on the left side but only went to the end of the counter on the right side so there was a space but at first I wasn’t sure if it would look unmoored over there. It fit so perfectly in that space I knew that was where she needed to go.

I like that she is right next to another guitar playing mermaid but I thought it might be better if there was something underneath so I brought the clothes drying rack over from the other bathroom to anchor her a bit.

My younger daughter and her family purchased the other mermaid in Saugatuck when they went there for a Fall weekend. At first I wasn’t sure where she would go but it turned out she wanted to be on the gallery wall.

The mermaid came with handwritten tags that identify her as a Mami Wata Mermaid and state “Mami Wata is a water spirit found in Africa and the Caribbean. She often appears in a dream. She offers health, wealth, and freedom to those who honor her.” Given her origin and other images of Mami Wata I’ve seen, I found her complexion surprising! But be that as it may, as my mother used to say, she’s a nice addition to the gallery wall.

Two years ago on a street a few blocks west and south of my daughter’s house a neighbor erected arches covered with lights over the sidewalk to enhance their Christmas decorations. The next year surrounding neighbors began erecting them too.

And this year they spread even further into the neighborhood along the same street and on the parallel streets and the cross streets. We’d see more every time we went to visit and one day when we arrived our son in law and his neighbors were installing them on their street. In the daytime you can see that they are PVC pipes wound with lights and at night they become truly magical.

For the most part we decorate the same way every Christmas but each year I make new decorations for the windows. In Chicago I’ve been making one large decoration for each north facing window and this year I made Swedish snoblomma – snow flowers.

In the kitchen I’ve hung the garland that used to hang in our kitchen window in Northampton above our kitchen sink above our kitchen sink here as well even though we have no window here in Chicago. This year I made Christmas Tree Farm signs and hung them with purchased red trucks and a red car carrying Christmas trees. I saw the signs on a blog post I could never find again but I remembered pretty well what to do. I found the small unpainted sign boxes and stained them and then downloaded Christmas Tree Farm signs from the internet and sized them to fit. I glued them in and covered them with mod podge.

Maison Marcel my favorite place to go for coffee and a treat is ready for winter. I love the painted designs. So European!

At the beginning of the Stay at Home order I began to notice something new in our neighborhood – elaborate balloon creations installed on fences or banisters marking momentous occasions. They were especially noticeable in May and June for graduations. I finally got a photo of a birthday one several weeks ago.

Last year I wrote a post about Halloween costumes and how while my younger daughter was fine with buying character costumes for dress up she thought people should be recognizable animals for Halloween. In keeping with her beliefs she was a cat this year, but due to all the things children have had to give up in the Time of Corona and due to the uncertainty of whether there would be trick or treating at all, when her older daughter wanted to be Mal of The Descendents in a store bought costume this year she said yes to Mal and yes to Evie for her younger daughter as well.

They did get to do some trick or treating this year. Due to the social distancing aspect of it the fact that people might not know what characters they were was less of an issue.

A few days later my younger granddaughter said, “Next year I want to be Mal and you can be Evie.” My older granddaughter replied, “No, next year we have to be animals again.”

My Birmingham niece has been participating in her community’s Day of the Dead festival for years. Like everything else it will be different this year (no big crowds so probably no Port o Potties named in honor of dead men named John) but there will still be an opportunity for her to bring her altars to the public space. This year she will carry a new altar she made for her cousin, my oldest daughter to “add our beauty to everyone else’s”

I saw the vintage candy corn label in the October issue of Country Living last year and thought it would make a good tag so I searched for and found it online. I didn’t know what to write on it (after I thought of gobble gobble and realized that is what a turkey not a rooster says) so I googled “Rooster Halloween Joke” and found “What did the rooster say on Halloween? – Cock-a-doodle-boo”. Perfect so I wrote “Cock-a-doodle-BOO!” on the back. Due to the coronavirus I don’t see many people these days so I made less than a dozen using the Halloween cellophane bags I had left from another year.

My trick or treat tags are meant to be ornaments and I hang them on my Halloween trees along with other ornaments I’ve made or purchased.

Last year I was lamenting the fact that most people ignore my tags and only comment on the candy (candy corn got a better reception than I was expecting this year since it seems to get pretty bad press). I figured it was because Halloween trees aren’t really a thing. But that may be changing. My younger daughter bought a Halloween tree at Target this year and hung some of the tags and other Halloween ornaments I have made over the years.