Collections and Other Stuff I Like

One of my favorite summer activities in Northampton was going to the sidewalk sales that happened the last weekend of July. So last year I was eager to find some here but kept being disappointed as events that sounded like they might be similar definitely were not. Market Days, for example, turned out to be a street festival with music, drag shows, and lots of partying in Boystown. There are a lot of street festivals in Chicago and many of them do have vendor booths but not with sidewalk sale pricing.

So I was pretty excited when I found the Main Dempster Mile Sidewalk Sales in Evanston. We went last year and we found enough stores and bargains to make me happy. We returned this year and were pleasantly surprised to find, while searching for the Chalk Art Contest that we had heard was going on during the sidewalk sales, that there is also a downtown Evanston. It’s funny that while they’re both parts of Evanston and they were having sidewalk sales on the same day that they are marketed as seperate events. In fact, the woman with a booth near Dempster street who told us the Chalk Art Contest was downtown seemed doubtful that they were also having sidewalk sales.

Even more exciting was that the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago was also having sidewalk sales this weekend. We had originally intended to go to both Evanston and Andersonville on Saturday but when Evanston turned out to be so much larger we postponed Andersonville to Sunday.

We found so many bargains to purchase that I’ll write about most of them in separate posts throughout the year but for starters here are some of our Evanston Ten Thousand Villages two dollar table finds. These bottle cap musicians from South Africa originally sold for sixteen dollars each.

They found a home on the CD bookcase.

And this bike riding zebra from Kenya that rode right on over to the top of the entry wall boxes originally cost $14.99. And that is why I love sidewalk sales!

The Parade magazine in today’s Chicago Tribune has an article titled “Murals Across America”. “Travel Expert” Kristen Luna was given the assignment to choose one mural from each state. Some are featured in the magazine they all can be found on the website parade.com/acrossamerica.

Luna says it was hard to pick just one per state which is not hard to imagine since another insert in the paper Splash’s cover promises “Mural Alert! Our guide to the newest public art”. The article “Wall Pass” features some of the newest murals in Chicago. The article notes that, “Chicago is home to hundreds of street murals, from celebratory explosions of color to cerebral pieces that make you think. The selection is so vast, in fact, that Chicago recently launched a public mural registry. (on the city’s website Chicago.gov) It’s a searchable database for tourists and locals as well as a guide for city workers who sometimes are unable to differentiate between art and graffiti.” Last year there was a particularly unfortunate example of this when a piece of art the city had comissioned got painted over.

Here’s one I found last year when I attended the Intuit “Art Against the Flow” summit in the Fulton Market neighborhood.

I stopped in at a Stone Creek Coffeehouse the other day and was fascinated by a display of coffee production steps featuring clothespin dolls.

I especially liked the woman with the basket of harvested beans.

And check out the quality control guy’s clipboard.

I made some clothespin doll ornaments for Christmas many years ago. A Little Red Riding Hood is one I look forward to hanging on the tree each year. And every year I look at the ballerinas whose skirts need an update. I had used doilies but think I need to switch to tulle. I’ve been thinking about making more and pinning ideas to my Peg People Pinterest board. I think this coffee display might just be the impetus I need to get started!

The first chalk festival we went to was one we stumbled on in Saratoga Springs many years ago during a visit to one of our college daughters. It was a fundraiser and artists, businesses, and organizations could purchase the large sidewalk squares on a city block close to the college. So children from local schools were casually drawing next to artists who were meticulously recreating famous artworks. I remember being most impressed by a replica of a vintage cigarette package.

A few years later Northampton had it’s inaugural sidewalk chalk festival. About eight to ten artists were invited to draw in different locations around town during the day and their creations were showcased during the evening Arts Night Out. The first year featured nationally known sidewalk chalk artists. In subsequent years it became a juried selection process with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes.

So I was curious to see what the inaugural “Chalk Howard Street” here in Chicago would be like. I knew from the publicity that it would feature nationally known 3D and 2D artists. And that local artists could apply for a spot, that businesses could buy a square, and that children could come to the festival and draw as well. Like other Chicago street festivals it would also include bands and food booths.

The festival was taking place between 11:00 and 8:00 and even though it was over 100 degrees we headed up by bus and train around 1:00. I hadn’t thought about whether the drawing would be done by then and we found some completed art and some in progress. Two partial blocks were closed off and the featured artists had areas at either ends of the street.

Artist: Nate Baranowski

Artist Anat Ronen

In order for these to be 3D you had to stand in a specific place and look through your phone camera. I’m going to have do some research on that because I know artists can create pieces that are 3D to the naked eye. They probably use some sort of fixative on these too since people were allowed to pose on them for photos.

The other professional chalk artist had a sign saying “all chalk, do not touch” and some rolled up plastic behind it that I guess could be used to cover it if it rained. It did rain after we left but we didn’t get to see it in action or how the others faired.

Artist: Jennifer Chaparro

This artist apparently also does 3D creations at times since there is one featured on the Howard Street website.

There were also four “Professional Artists”. Craig and Jamie Rogers were still working on what was going to be another 3D piece.

Artist: Elizabeth Niemczyk

These two unfinished ones are by the other two professional artists Jessi Queen and Chelsey Austin.

There were also 4×4 squares that local “emerging” artists could apply for or that sponsors could purchase. These were all in one area and the squares had been taped off and painted black. Some of them were finished and some artists were hard at work in the hot sun. I noticed that some squares were labeled but empty. It was probably too hot for some!

There was also a large rectangle set aside for children to draw in but children had actually covered the streets and sidewalks of the whole festival.

It was so hot that we didn’t stay long but I’m glad we made the trip since if we hadn’t, I don’t think we would have gotten to find out what it was like. One of the things that we have been having to get used to in Chicago is the fact that everything that happens here doesn’t get covered in the newspaper the next day! (Population of Northampton, MA: 28,549 vs. Population of Chicago, Illinois 2.7 million)

Since I have always been fascinated by seeing the same subject portrayed by different artists, I have always loved it when cities have artists decorate multiples of an animal or object. Since I also love to research my interests I’ve long known that allthough I don’t think I became aware of this phenomenon until the first time Easthampton did bears, it started years before with the Chicago cows. So it was fun to find out that for the twentieth anniversary of that seminal event some of the original cows are being displayed again. There is a small herd of them hanging out in a small park on Michegan Avenue. Here are a few:

We used to live in a house that was built in the early 1900’s and it was impossible to get the window frames (especially those that faced the hill that led down to an open field) clean. No matter how many times I sprayed them with cleaner and wiped them the paper towels would come away covered with black grime. And then we moved to a brand new condo with windows at the ends only and we were amazed by how easy it was to clean and keep clean. But of course eventually we got used to it so when we moved here to our sixties high rise condo with it’s entire walls of windows we couldn’t believe how often we had to dust. There are surfaces that literally need dusting daily. I guess that’s city living!

Getting to see a rainbow over the lake makes up for all the dust.

This bank may only think that it is a month of celebration but I wasn’t surprised the other day when I heard a man who was looking at the tshirt display at the Gap say, “You can tell it’s Pride Season”

The neighborhood school has been adorning the fence since early May.

Even the macarons have been celebrating pride since May.Some of the rainbows have begun to disappear. I noticed the subtle small flag being “sewn” by the sewing machine in the minimalist tailor’s window was gone today. But Boystown will have the new rainbow crosswalks on Halstead year round.I was surprised that the stripes were on the cross streets rather than the main street and that they go the long way. Quite different than the one in Northampton.The parade was a lot longer, too! Happy Pride Season.

Saturday was my youngest granddaughter’s birthday and she had a mermaid party! She requested a mermaid skirt rather than a dress with pictures of mermaids so her Mama (my youngest daughter) made her one. We weren’t expecting a repeat of last year when she refused to wear her “baballoon dress” but that’s what we got. She did have the skirt on for a few minutes:

But as soon as she took her socks off she started fussing and pulled the skirt off and refused to put it back on. We’re not really sure why but she finally came up with “itchy”.

I wore the mermaid earrings my friend Lisa made and brought a lot of my mermaids. The large two piece one that looks like part of it is underwater and a few others decorated the food table. We were stuck inside so the plastic ones which were originally going to go in the water table outside sat on the art table instead. I also brought all my mermaid books. “Did you imagine that they were going to sit quietly and look at books?” asked one of the moms. I also printed out some mermaid coloring pages.

Either because of the skirt refusal drama or because there were so many children indoors and they were definitely not just sitting and looking at books, we neglected to take any pictures. My daughter was disappointed that she had not captured the party so I suggested a vignette featuring the skirt. She made several:

The mermaid tail cookies and ribbon wands were the favors.

While they look green in this picture, the mermaid cupcakes with tails were actually blue.

The napkins also featured mermaid tails. Both the birthday girl and her sister got these fancy hats and her sister wore a “Shellebration” tshirt. And it certainly was a “shellebration”!

In addition to all the tulips in Holland, Michigan during Tulip Time there are a lot of wooden shoes and references to wooden shoes. “Wooden shoe like to (do this or that)?” appeared on lots of signs and souvenirs. Most store doors had signs asking those wearing wooden shoes not to wear them into the store. And there was the Tulip Time Klompen Garden – 45 artist painted “wooden shoes” nestled among the tulips. Klompen is the Dutch word for wooden shoes and klompen cakes are pancakes hence the “Klompen Cakes on a Klompen” by Donna and Gary Bogle:

There were many inspired by traditional Dutch designs and pastimes but one of my favorites was “Dancing Tootsies” by Marsha Marier:

And I liked the nod to the pre parade street cleaners “Street Scrubber” by Veronica Morgan.

Last week we went to Holland, Michigan for a 24 hour getaway during Tulip Time. We saw so many tulips (in fields and parks, along the road, in downtown planters, and at almost every business and home) and some Tulip Time festivities including the dancing and street cleaning that happens before the Tulip Time parade.It was kind of cold and rainy on the parade day so we spent a lot of time going into the stores and found a few things to purchase, of course. We hadn’t taken our Spring decorations down at home so the little wooden birdhouse and nest with eggs got hung up as soon as we got home.I put all the Spring decorations away this week but it was nice to admire these for a few days.

And of course mermaids are always in season at our house. There were some booths at Windmill Island Gardens (that’s where I took the above picture of a tulip field). I couldn’t resist a redware mermaid plate by a Pennsylvania artist (unfortunately I can’t decipher the signature and had no luck with Google searches).

And lest you think a mermaid plate was not a suitable purchase in a town near an inland lake rather than the ocean, I also purchased this book:

I plan on bringing it on our Lake Michigan vacation with our grandchildren this summer.