Upcoming Events

Exciting events around town!

I am pleased to announce that AAUW will be hosting its third Jane Addams Day Celebration at Hull House (Resident's Dining Hall) staring performer/songwriter Kristin Lems on December 5th at 2pm.   She will share stories about her family’s experiences with Jane Addams and perform songs written about the life of
Jane Addams. Join us for a historic Jane Addams’ speech and song! The event will
conclude with lemonade and cookies. Come and celebrate this amazing woman with  AAUW! 

For more information check out the Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634847263465352/

****************************************************************************************************

Also Kristin Lems has a new CD out: You, Me, and All of the Above. It has great songs including a song about Captain Streeter and Carl the Guinea Hen. Check it out here: 

http://www.kristinlems.com/you_me_and_all_of_the_above1/

*************************************************************************************************

Jamie O'Reilly, performer, producer, and huge supporter of this project, has re-released her incredible CD I Know Where I am Going. Check it out here:

 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jamieoreilly5

There are two upcoming shows with the CD release: 

On Thursday, November 19th, at the Veteran's Room in Oak Park, IL, Jamie O'Reilly, Peter Swanson, Michael Smith, and reader Belinda Bremner will perform "I Know Where I'm Going," an evening of Irish Songs and Poetry.
More information:  http://oppl.org/events/friends-library-folk-music-concert-jamie-oreilly?ajax=1

On Wednesday, December 2nd, there will be a Christmas Show at Chief O’Neill’s PubWith Jamie O’Reilly. Peter Swenson, Michael Smith, Belinda Bremner and surprise guests!
More information at: http:chiefoneillspub.com

For more information about these events, check out Jamie O'Reilly's website: http://www.jamieoreilly.com/jamies-november-e-news-concerts-1119-122-radio-cds/

************************************************************************************************************

Mary Ellen Croteau is also having a solo show at the Harold Washington Library 8th floor gallery starting November 13th until January 15th. Check out more information: http://www.maryellencroteau.net/mec_website/Whats_New.html

Discussing Silhouette Art with Nina D'Angier

Back in July, I had the opportunity to talk with Nina D’Angier, graphic designer, writer, silhouette artist, and much more. We had met previously at several historical reenactments including the amazing Chicago Poetry Bordello. She is one of fifty artists still working in the artform.

I asked her about her work as a silhouette artist.  Nina D’Angier told me, “Silhouette art sorta found me. I was already here in Chicago at the time. Just starting my life in Chicago, I was in school. My husband...is also a magician. We both share a love for history and people. We had watched a documentary on his favorite magician Dai Vernon. [Magic] was the thing that he eventually made his name doing.... Prior to that, he was a silhouette artist. I’ve always liked them. You’ve seen [silhouette art]. I grew up in Florida so everyone had ones from Disneyworld. I always thought they were nice…. That’s a really cool thing from the time period. How sad that’s not a thing people do any more. I never made the connection that ‘Hey, why don’t you do it’ until we watched the documentary.

“It’s a rather curious thing that I happened to be rather good with scissors. It came from being a careful child. When you gave me something, and you told me to connect the dots or cut on this dotted line, I wanted to cut directly on it…. I really appreciated the way stickers—I had a sticker collection as a kid, cause the 90s— I really appreciated how the image had a perfectly spaced white border around whatever it was. When I got into things like collage, later on, I liked being able to cut the 2 mm of space around whatever the image was that I cut out. I remember perfecting that as a child. I remember having this impulse as a child at 7 and then doing it forever. I could cut out a perfect circle by the time I was 12. It was this weird thing, it was not super useful, but a skill I had cultivated over time.

“Anyway, we had watched this documentary about Dai Vernon. Aaron looked at me and said: ‘I think you’d be really good at that silhouette cutting.’ I said, ‘I think you that you are crazy. That’s insane. Look how fast he’s cutting those people out and it’s perfect.’ He was, “Let’s just try it.’ He runs out of the living room and comes back with the giant bulky kitchen shears and the a piece of college ruled loose leaf paper. He said, ‘Just do mine.’ So I indulged him. I am looking at his face and cutting out this image. It’s very a subtractive sculpture art. All of sudden it felt just like sculpture to me in that it’s like I was taking out of the pieces of paper that wasn’t his face. And it just felt really natural. Afterwards, both of us looked at it and we said: ‘Oh my god, that’s your face.’ And he said: ‘I told you would be good at this.’ To be fair, I wasn’t very good at first. It was enough to recognize him but not striking.

“I worked on it. And then about maybe four months later, I booked my first gig; it was a graduation. It was great. It was a thing I’ve continued to do for the past five years or so. I’ve started studying other people who’ve done it, what little the nuances and tricks they used. How do they differentiate between a child head  and adult head... How do you cut out curls? That’s the hardest thing for me. It’s been very exciting. A fun art to learn and very immediately rewarding.”

That’s just a tiny taste of the longer interview and all of the amazing work of Nina D’Angier.

Check out her Instagram: @ninadngr

Interview with Rebecca Wolfram

This past week, I met Rebecca Wolfram, a prolific painter and curator of the “The Museum of Objects Left on the Sidewalk.” Several of her paintings depict a variety of violence perpetrated by humans against one another and even against animals. I asked her about this choice to depict these activities. She told me this absolutely incredible story about the origin of her series “We Are Capable People,” that depicts the dark side of human activity. She told me: “ “One night, I was walking along and there were these two guys. One was down on the sidewalk and the other one was over him ready to smash him. They were fighting... And so, I kinda froze and I said something like: ‘Is everything okay?’ trying to intervene a little bit. The one who was ready to pop the other one, he turned to me, very savage, he looked very bestial and savage, almost drooling, and he says, ‘We are capable people here! We don’t need your help. We are capable people here.’ Okay...So I backed off. But I loved what he said. That’s what it means to me. We are capable people. Yeah, what are we capable of?” What an incredible story.

We also talked about her series of drawings and paintings of dead rats. She told me that “People really respond to them. Some people hate them.” The inspiration behind the series originated when she came across a dead rat in the snow, “almost iridescent cause it was rotting.” It struck her that this was a living creature so she drew a picture of it. “People treat this rat like it’s garbage. They don’t treat all animals like garbage. It’s certain rats, especially rats, are just treated like garbage. People hate rats. ‘Just kill them. Get rid of them.’ Disrespect them completely. Yet, it’s common knowledge that rats are very intelligent…” The distinction between rats and other reviled creatures and beloved creatures seems so arbitrary. When she sees a dead rat, she feels compelled doing a drawing of in her sketchbook. This remarkable series of painting and drawings is giving dignity to the animal and its death.

Inside her home, Rebecca Wolfram also showed me some incredible wooden sculptures that she built from found wood. One was human sized person that originated when she found a discarded accordion folder. Now it serves as the guts of this beautifully painted sculpture. The outside is painted like skin, while the inside shows the internal organs.  She showed me a painted wooden dog on a skateboard that had began when she found a piece of wood that looked like a dog’s head. Very neat!

I asked about “The Museum of Objects Left on the Sidewalk.” The museum started in 2005 when she found some items to display. She found it irritating to see garbage just thrown on the street. She had the inspiration to put exhibits of the things found on the streets. She aptly said, “When you make something an exhibit, suddenly it takes on a quality of specialness.” She found some a headboard from a bed from the alley and put it on the fence and put exhibits up. She told me, “It was a big hit.” People in the neighborhood would contribute things; she made labels with her next door neighbor's’ kids. Over time, things began to decay. A few years ago, she and a neighbor built some solid shelves that are still there today.

Wolfram explained that the museum has become sort of a landmark in the neighborhood. She was surprised that everyone knew about the museum. Initially, she didn’t think of it as art project. She thought of it as “a museum, a community museum of stuff on the sidewalk.” Some of the more unusual things left included a dead lizard, a beautiful wooden box of sea shells and polished glass, and a shark made from hanger wire. Wolfram also talked about how proud people are about the things they contribute to the museum.A wooden plaque of a beautiful bird was one day left in the museum. Later, she got a visit from two ladies who wanted her to know that they had left it for the museum. People take a special pride in it.

At the end of my visit, I got a lovely guided tour of the Museum. She showed me a man’s grey/brown shoe that had been in the museum for awhile. Then it disappeared one day and then reappeared. There was a small drawing that she had done of the shoe above it. Two boots had dirt and plants growing out of them. The two Frida Kahlo paintings that had been placed there a week ago had disappeared since the morning. Alas. That’s how the museum goes. I decided that I had to contribute something to the Museum. I had a John Hancock Swizzle stick in my bag that I offered up as tribute to this wonderful museum.

Check out  her work at her website: http://benigngirl.org/