So yea, our last trip to Chicago, Friday & Saturday, we went and saw a couple of shows at the Art Institute, Gustave Caillebotte and and Elizabeth Catlett. We also got to walk around in Humboldt Park where John & Megan live and liked it a lot. We took the Bloomingdale bike path to the L to get downtown.
This is showing the bike route but that’s how we walked
There was this nice mosaic on the corner of Humboldt Blvd. and Wabansia. It’s by Hector Duarte, I guess in honor of the fact that L. Frank Baum lived on that corner in 1899. Somehow we didn’t notice the yellow brick, but I even recorded them in my picture.
Once at the Art Institute, we looked at Caillebotte first.
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- The floor scrapers
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- The Bezique Game
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- Most famous Caillebotte
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- Mark in a top hat
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- Caillebotte’s friend’s kids by the river
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- Boaters
The show starts with Catlett’s Floating Family, hanging out in the hallway on the way into the gallery in the modern wing where the main part of the show is.
Floating Family belongs to the city of Chicago and hangs in the Legler Library on Pulaski
One of the things I liked the best is the series of prints Catlett made, published first in the ’40s as I am the Negro Woman, and then again as I am the Black Woman in 1989. The titles of the prints make a poem. I put in the first version, because you can see how many places all the prints came from. I’m sure it must be a book, too.
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- I am the Black Woman
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- with labels
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- In the fields
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- Gave my songs to the world
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- Famous print made in Mexico
Most of the works in both shows were glazed so that’s why all my photos have odd blue highlights. Like the exit sign reflected in a floorscraper’s crotch.
On Sunday, I finished processing my tomatoes.
These filled one quart carton, peeled and diced
Steve & Heike came over for brunch on Monday. I made the goat cheese and tomato tart that I’d made for my birthday party back at the beginning of August and took more pictures of it this time.
We talked about our ’55 Babies turn 70 party in October. We might move it to a different park so it can be more enclosed. Stay tuned.