mojosmom | Entries tagged with hyde park art center

There were an insane number of events in or near my neighborhood on Friday night, but as I am only one person, I went to only two of them. I'd heard Fretwork the night before, so skipped their Mandel Hall concert, and the South Shore Opera Company had to do without me, as did the art opening at Experimental Station.

Instead, I went to hear Buzz Spector talk about his altered books and book-related installations, with slides (well, Power Point, but you know what I mean). I got to the venue, went to look at some stuff on the wall, and realized I had left my glasses at home! However, it was only a five-minute walk home, and I'd gotten there early, so I dashed home, got the glasses, and came back in plenty of time for the lecture.

Then I walked a couple of blocks over to the Hyde Park Art Center for their Back Alley Party benefit. Food and drink, music and art, and a blind auction, the last of which resulted in my acquisition of a new piece of art, Goya, by Josue Pellot:

Yesterday, I ran a bunch of errands, and then came home and hung the picture, which entailed moving another one. I also decided it was about time that I brought in the bay laurel plant, and cut the remaining herbs to dry them.

The Art Center was having an all-day event called "Mischief Night", with a lot of stuff for kids, and general mash-ups of art and Hallowe'en, including someone recording herself dropping pumpkins off the roof of the Center. After dinner (spinach fettucine with roasted fennel and onions, excellent, if I do say so myself!), I wandered over for some of the evening events. They had a "no-budget scary movie shorts" party, though I must say that the one I watched was more risible that actually scary. Watched a bit of a dance performance, and then went to the wedding. Here's the happy couple:

(Yeah, it was performance art.)

Today, I am moving summer clothes to the hall closet and winter clothes to the bedroom closet. I also went to Sears to look at dishwashers. Shortly, I am going to pay bills and do my Italian homework. Exciting, huh?

( How I spent my summer weekend )

Sad and glad news in the world of jazz.

( Herman Leonard died )

( Museum Acquires Storied Trove of Jazz )

I went over to Betty C.'s house to help stamp/address postcard invitations Teatro Vista's benefit on April 12. About halfway through, we realized that a whole slew of the address labels didn't have zip codes! So rather than risk them not being delivered, we split up the pile and I've spent a fair bit of the evening looking up zip codes and making an errata sheet so we can update the mailing list.

I was a bit tired, as I went to the opera last night, The Marriage of Figaro, and it's a long one (but excellent, so well worth it). I took a friend home and didn't get home until nearly midnight. Unfortunately, I had to get up way early as it was my weekend to cover bond court. I was going to take a nap before going to Betty's, but didn't, so took a short one before dinner.

In real exciting news, I took my car to be emissions tested yesterday. I passed.

It's been a busy week for me. On Tuesday, I went to the Newberry Library for their Associates Night. There was food and drink, and a talk about Shakespearean drama (with actors), and the bookstore was open and having a 20% discount for members.

Then on Wednesday, I went over to International House for a presentation of kyogen plays by the Shigeyama family, assisted by some adorable little kids from a local elementary school playing the part of mushrooms. It was tremendous fun, the only downside being that my camera batteries were dead so I didn't get any pictures.

On Thursday, I went to the Hyde Park Art Center for the Not Just Another Pretty Face salon. This is a project they do every couple of years to match patrons with artists. They discussed the process, showed slides of some of the artists' work, and also talked about the cost. Some of the artists, particularly the more established ones and those who work in certain media or on a large-scale, would be way out of my league to work with. But there are some, including some whose work I like, that I could afford. I'm thinking this might be a fun thing to do, it'll help the Art Center (they get 50% of the cost, and there's an exhibition), and I've always wanted to be a Medici! ;-)

Best part? All three of the above events were free.

Last night, I went to hear Chuck Thurow, one of the curators, talk about the Hyde Park Art Center exhibit, "Close Encounters", a collaborative project involving artists from the U.S. and New Zealand. I'd have likely gone anyway, but the fact that I've made Kiwi friends here and on BookCrossing gave the project an immediacy and interest for me that it might not otherwise have had. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home, so no pics, but the exhibit is up until late January, so I can go back and do that. This post from the Center's website describes the show in more detail. Chuck said that parts of it are going to New Zealand in 2010-2011, (not sure exactly where), so I'll be sure to let you all know about that and if any of you folks there can go, what a connection!

Tonight I went to the local library to return a couple of books, and as I was going in, I heard someone call my name. It was the president of the Friends of the Library; I had forgotten there was a meeting tonight. I decided to go, and when the branch manager announced a book exchange in January, I said, "Do you know about BookCrossing?" She didn't, but she does now! The FOL has a blog, which the president is trying to beef up, so I told her that I would be happy to contribute reviews, since I'm writing them anyway on my blog.

I'm so excited! Several months ago, I posted about an artist whose work I really liked, but couldn't afford. Tonight, I went to a benefit auction for the Hyde Park Art Center, and she had a piece in the auction. I got it for about one-third of the retail value. Deciding where to put it will be a bit more difficult. I also got beautifully crafted letter opener of horn, briar root, stainless steel, and silver.

Last night, Casa Italiana had some voice students from Northwestern University and their professor in to sing the beginning of the second act of La Traviata. How could I miss it? I couldn't. It wasn't the Lyric, but I enjoyed it and had a good time socializing with some folks I hadn't seen for a while.

I went to a very interesting program at the Hyde Park Art Center last night. Called "Open Crit", it gives four artists who are willing to put their egos on the line the opportunity to have their work critiqued by the facilitator (photographer Dawoud Bey) and a curator or gallerist or someone else from the art world (last night it was Nathan Mason from the Chicago Cultural Center).

Each artist was alloted 30 minutes. They had prepared statements about their work, and were given a few minutes to flesh that out, after which Bey and Mason did an initial critique. The audience was then invited to participate. Obviously, feedback is important to an artist, but to do it in that context and with people you don't know and haven't asked takes a lot of guts! Of course, the attendees were an interested and engaged audience, and the comments were thoughtful and focused, even when negative, but still!

This is the second Open Crit program they've done, and I would certainly go back. I think that I learned a lot, too.

What absolutely gorgeous weather we had this weekend! Just the sort to make you want to go out even if you had nothing in particular to do, simply to enjoy it.

I did a fair bit of wandering. Saturday, I walked over to a (relatively) nearby condo building where there was a used bicycle sale going on. However, it was pretty picked over when I got there, and what was left was in really poor condition. So I walked back, too! Later, I had to go to the grocery store for a few things, and walked that, too.

There was also an odd event at the Hyde Park Art Center, called "Fryvalry". Basically, people brought a variety of food, one guy fried up the meat, another guy fried up the non-meat items, and then everybody hung around outside eating and enjoying the day:

Macramé Intervention, Mindy Rose Schwartz

Yesterday, I went up to Waukegan for their Independence Day parade (always the Sunday before the 4th) and our annual barbecue at Julie's. The usual marching bands, floats, jugglers at the parade, and the usual bratwurst, hamburgers, and wine at the barbecue. A good time was had by all.

My best-laid plans of sleeping late this weekend went agley on Friday. I was having lunch with one of the guys at the offce. He'd been sick lately (pneumonia), and, being a guy, came back to work too soon, relapsed, and still was feeling a bit punk. When I said, "I hope you're going to have a real rest this weekend", he responded, "No, I have Bond Court." So, rolling my eyes and muttering about people who should take better care of themselves, I swapped Bond Court weekends with him. That meant I got up at my usual time instead of snuggling with the cats.

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

Current Music: Va tacite e nascosto - David Daniels

Gosh, it's been a while since I've updated with actual life events! (Memes and political rants don't count.)

The day after the Inauguration, I had dinner with friends and we went to see Desire Under the Elms at the Goodman Theatre, part of their O'Neill festival, and yet another in the Brian Dennehy/Robert Falls collaboration. Although the dialect was a bit heavy-going at the beginning of the play, I thought it was extremely powerful, and the acting, particularly Dennehy and Carla Cugino as Abby, was excellent.

( A bit from the Trib's Chris Jones showing why Dennehy is so fine )

( Art stuff )

Sunday, I went up to Caroline's for brunch and socializing. I made a flourless chocolate cake as my contribution, which was, naturally, greatly appreciated.

Today, I interrupted Marissa's nap to take her to the vet, and she has been officially pronounced in excellent health. I brought her home, left the cat carrier on the floor in the back room, and Lilith is now ensconced within it. Silly thing!

I had two events scheduled for yesterday afternoon, a performance by the Damine Kabuki Troupe at the Art Institute, and the first of four workshops in the Hyde Park Art Center's Collecting 2.0 series. It was snowing, a lot, so I left myself plenty of time to get downtown, and got to the Art Institute early enough to do some serious viewing. I spent a lot of time in the Drawn to Drawings show, Italian drawings from the Renaissance and Baroque, and saw a cute little exhibit at the Ryerson Library, The Beauty of the Beasts: Artists and their Pets in 20th-Century Art.

The kabuki performance was very interesting. The troupe is from a small village in Japan, and the show was called "Honorable Pledge Fulfilled", because this tour marks the end of a 350-year old promise made by the villagers to keep kabuki alive, in gratitude to a protecting deity. The show was narrated by Shozo Sato, a Zen master who is very well-known figure here. Photography was not allowed during the performance, but I was able to get a shot of the set before it started:

It was announced that there would be an opportunity to photograph the performers after the show, but I actually had to leave a few minutes early to catch a cab back to the south side for the workshop. That's a bit of a misnomer, though. The session, titled "What is Collectible?", was at the Kenwood home of noted collector Ruth Horwich. It's pretty unbelievable. I don't think there's a horizontal or vertical surface in her home that doesn't have art on it. And art hanging in the stairwell. She had a set of Kara Walker canisters blithely sitting on ledge in her kitchen! She and her husband collected for years (their Calders are currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art), and her home is really a lesson in "collect what speaks to your heart". Her collection is incredibly varied, from ethnographic pieces and outsider art, to Warhol and Magritte and a George Segal in the foyer, to bibelots and hair combs and vintage beaded purses in the bedrooms. (There's a good article about her here.)

Afterwards, I trudged a few blocks through the snow to catch a bus home, stopping to take a couple of pictures of some of the lovely Kenwood houses. I'm rather fond of these rowhouses, which were built in 1992, but fit right into the neighborhood, deliberately echoing the Queen Anne lines of some near neighbors:

This morning, I dug my car out.

I can't believe I never got around to posting about last weekend, and here this weekend is all over but the shouting, as they say.

( Hyde Park Jazz Festival )

On Sunday, I went back to the Art Center, as there was an event to kickoff Chicago Artists Month. All of October there will be events going on all over the city (I should say, even more art events than usual, as there are always a lot anyway). There was some rather outré performance art; these kids seem to have mixed reactions, from intrigued to "what the heck?":

.

( Springfield )

Today, I went up north for the annual Lake County Women's Coalition Tea, this year honoring Women in Law Enforcement.

Now I have to do my homework for Italian class, and start getting ready for Charleston. I can't believe I'm leaving in just a couple of days! Looks as though the weather will be generally pleasant, but I'd better pack the umbrella. I'd also better figure out what books to bring to a) read, and b) release. By the way, I've booked a Gullah Tour for Friday at 11:00, if anyone is interested in joining me.

There's a joke that the University of Chicago is "where fun goes to die". Well, maybe it's true of the University, but it's certainly not true of the neighborhood where the University is located. Particularly in the summertime.

( Behind a cut because it's photo-heavy! )

So today I didn't do much, except go to a condo meeting (at which I somehow managed to be elected secretary). Mira moved in, and has just taken her bike to be fixed and shopped for all her vegan groceries. I hope she doesn't get too traumatized when I have lamb for dinner.