Chicago Thru a Different Eye
Da Bears, Da Bulls, Da Art? The Windy City is famous for many different reasons. She’s the home of deep dish pizza, Al Capone, The Sears Tower, She was host to the world‘s first controlled nuclear reaction, and She even was home to our president for a bit . “The most American of big cities” also has hidden wealth stashed in plain sight. Beautiful works of art.
In 1882 The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts bought lakefront property after their original building was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire (another star of fame for the Windy City). The building was able to open it’s doors during the second year of The World’s Columbian Exposition (World Fair). Since then The Art Institute has grown to hold one of the world’s biggest impressionist and post-impressionist collection. But along with that permanent collection, The Institute holds many works of American art, decorative art, Asian art, and many of the “Old Masters” works.
Most children in the Chicago-land area take at least one field trip to see the Institute. But it may take years, as it did with me, to realize how truly spoiled we are to have this impressive collection of art together, right at our fingertips. One of the first paintings I clearly remember being attracted to on a field trip to the Institute was Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. This painting really only stuck in my head because it was the BIGGEST painting I had ever seen. Also I remember our tour guide pointing out that the lady with the umbrella was walking a monkey. Years later in another art class in Wisconsin, our teacher began teaching us about Seurat and his dot style of paintings. I had no idea what we were talking about. But then she showed us the picture. I couldn’t believe that I had seen up close and personal something we were learning about in an art class. Art is in the Louver, maybe in Rome, but Chicago? What? And in that single moment I realized I was very lucky to live where I lived.
Over the years the Art Institute began to be one of my favorite places in the city. Well, besides the Science and Industry Museum. Within the walls of the Institute, a student can view all of arts history in a day. I’ve been a foot away from the famous American Gothic by Grant Wood. I’ve stood in a room surrounded by six of Monet’s Haystacks, and witnessed the deterioration of his eyesight. I have been a breath away from an honest to god da Vinci, Madonna and Child. Renoir? Yep, we got that, just check out his On the Terrace. But then I started to realize something, the art in Chicago is not just contained in the walls of one building, if you know where to look a person can find art just about anywhere in “Chi-Town”.
Love architecture? Well then, maybe you’ve heard of a little architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. Okay, okay. He may have started out as a cheese-head up north in Wisconsin, but by 1887 he belonged to us. Wright built his first home in the neighborhood of Oak Park, and eventually that’s where his studio was built as well. His period of “Prairie Houses” was named so because they complemented the land around Chicago so well. These houses have been credited as the start of the “open plan” homes. They were low buildings full of clean lines. Wright enjoyed using unfinished materials, and of course he loved his overhangs. Wright also considered himself an interior designer, and he enjoyed designing the inside as well as outside of many of his buildings. Wright kept his fingers in all the pies when designing and building, sometimes he even designed the furniture that filled these amazing spaces.
Architecture not your thing? Enjoy abstract art a little more? How about a little Picasso? If that’s the case a little stroll down to Chicago’s Daley Plaza is the thing for you. 50 feet tall and weighing in at a whopping 162 tons is The Picasso. Actually the statue is un-named, but the locals just refer to it as The Picasso. In 1967 the sculpture was given to the city of Chicago. The city offered to pay Picasso $100,000 for the sculpture, but he turned it down saying he wanted it to be a gift. So Picasso’s massive steel gift was given the home of Daley Center and became the first major public art work in the city. And instantly became a source of discussion. Mostly people would just say “What is it?” Picasso himself never explained what the figure was, but his grandson is known to say he believes it’s based on a French woman his grandfather once knew. Chicago may never know exactly what it is, but we love it anyways! Just ask the hordes of children who use it as a jungle gym.
In 1978 came something that changed our cities landscape for ever. The Chicago City Council approved the Percent of Art Ordinance. According to this ordinance 1.33% of all money used for construction or renovation of any municipal building or public space must be devoted to original artwork. That means anytime the city puts money aside to rebuild or even just build public buildings, 1.33% of that money must be used to commission a piece of art. And with that ordinance came (drum roll please!) Millennium Park! Ah, Millennium park, where shall we start? How about Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. Asking yourself “What is Cloud Gate”, it’s most commonly know as “The Bean”. Kapoor was inspired by the look of liquid mercury when the city commissioned him to do his first public outdoor work in the U.S. With this image of liquid mercury in his head Kapoor contacted MTH Industries and began creating a 110 ton stainless steel “elliptical” sculpture. “What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline…so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is in the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does, in a way, the same thing to one's reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around.”- Anish Kapoor (millennium park.org) Another beautiful, if strange, piece of art in Millennium Park is The Crown Fountain. Spanish artist Jaume Plensa wanted to do a tribute to all Chicagoans in his art work. So he erected two 50-foot glass block towers. Then he collected many different images of locals faces, projected the faces onto the towers. But the best part is that Plensa wanted to add the element of water into is work, so he built a water spout into the towers and now the faces spit water onto the parks summer visitors. When asked about his piece Plensa answered; “A fountain is the memory of nature, this marvelous sound of a little river in the mountains translated to the city. For me, a fountain doesn't mean a big jet of water. It means humidity, the origin of life.”(millenniumpark.org).
“The Second City” has lots to offer both her locals and her tourists. Sports, nightlife, food, and plenty of culture. But the one thing that the world seems to be missing is how much She has to offer in the way of art. Being a lover of art, I feel truly blessed to have lived in such an artistically rich city.
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514 Edgewood
“Dang it!”
“Hey, you don’t sit at the table if you can’t afford to lose.”
I am eight years old and just lost my ice-cream man money to the slickest card shark I know, Grandma. While this scene may sound strange to some, it’s nothing but a normal afternoon at my grandparent’s house.
I spent most of my childhood in and around the old two story house. But that was no different then anyone else in the family. In fact, through the years one or more of the Censotti’s lived there while getting back on their feet. A house without a front doorknob can be nothing but an open house. In my family if you needed to get a hold of someone you didn’t call, you just left a note on my grandparent’s dinner table.
Summers at the old house really built who I grew up to be. Growing up, my cousins and I didn’t know we were poor. We just knew that all the other kids either wasted their summers in some sort of daycare or with a stuffy old babysitter. Not us, we were free to run the streets.( At least until our parents came home from work.)
We would sit under the faded red picnic table on the small cracked patio in the backyard. Brian, my cousin, described to us a beautiful world that he dubbed “Never-Never Land.” A beautiful world that was being threatened. With a war cry that would raise the dead, we would sprint from beneath the table with our swords (steak knives) and attack the vicious Russians, who looked suspiciously like weeping willow trees. After the battle we would climb out the back-bedroom window onto the roof. Once up there my Grandma would pass bowls of buttered noodles through the window and that was lunch. Nothing spells happiness like sitting on the roof in the sun laughing and sometimes throwing rocks at the neighbors because they had a pool.
One of the most important things that I learned during those summers was that family is your best friend. I’ve always had the problem of being a very small girl, with a very large mouth. So during the summer, I spent most of my days blocking blows from my cousins or hiding in the trees. Once I was at a park with my cousin, Jessie, when this big kid pushed me down. I got up, wiped off my skinned knee, looked the kid in the eye and said, “Asshole” (My choice of vocabulary started years before becoming a sailor). So as I watched this fist come very fast at my eye, I yelled for my cousin. When I finished cringing and wiped my eyes clear of tears, I saw Jessie clinging to the back of this bully, yelling her greatest warrior princess cry and poking him in the eyes and pulling his hair. I remember walking home looking at Jessie with stars in my eyes and hero worship in my heart. Right up until she told me her plan to scam money from the tooth fairy. I really wanted to keep all my teeth.
“Grandma, Grandma!” I wailed through my cut and bruised mouth. I climbed up on her lap while she smoothed down my hair, so she could see the T.V. I told my traumatic tale of my cousin, Brian, hitting me with a soccer ball. She pulled me back away from her and looked me dead in the eye, “Your cousin did this?” “YES!” And this is the day, I learned to never rat on family. My grandma gathered me up off her lap and marched me to the yard were the boys were playing. She asked them if what I said was true. Once they stopped stammering and admitted it, she told them she’d be telling Mary (their ma). My grin faded as she looked at me and said, “I’ll be telling your ma that you’re a rat.” And she walked back inside, leaving me to the mercy of my cousins.
Every once in a while, a terrible thing would happen during summer break, it would rain. The old house was not air conditioned, so we would fill the windows with box fans. During rainy days, this was a horrible idea. So we would have to pull the fans out of the windows, close them and hope our skin didn’t melt onto the plastic covered couch. T.V. was out of the question considering there was no cable, and five children would have to agree on one program. Plus nothing was ever on in the summer except for The Never-Ending Story, and one can only watch that so many times. So, we would have to come up with some other ideas to entertain ourselves. First, there was the fort building. No one over the age of twelve was down with that idea. Then there was sliding mattresses down the stairs, don’t need to explain what happened to that idea. We tried Monopoly a few times, but that just ended up in fights and stolen money.
On one of these rainy days, Jessie and I decided to explore the attic. We looked around and noticed for the first time that others had been here before us. Written on the walls all around us were words, pictures and poems that our parents had written years and years ago. Right there and then, Jessie decided that we needed to start a club. So we (me) started cleaning up. First, there was the hundred million years of Christmas stuff that needed to be moved. Then there was the floor that needed to be inspected since my uncle had fallen through it a few years before. After we freaked out over the spiders and one mummified rat, it started looking pretty cool. Jessie started a list of rules and started talking about what we would do at the meetings. I just looked around. Reading everything my mom and her siblings had written from when they were young, to teenager, and even early twenty’s. For me, these walls were like other peoples’ family Bibles. They showed me my mom, aunts, and uncles at an age I would never have know them as. Of course, they grew up in the seventy’s, so some of the stuff didn’t make any sense to me. I remember a doodle of an eyeball on the wall, I knew it was my Ma’s because I had seen her draw it while on the phone, a bunch of times. I took a pen and drew my own eye doodle next to it. It was kind of like being connected to her in a different time. I stepped back and just smiled. My smile faded when I heard something in the background about a blood oath.
514 Edgewood is my childhood. It is where I played war during the summers and helped set up Christmas decorations in the winter. It was my hand that opened the door when the Army came to tell my grandparents about my uncle’s death. It’s where I helped get rid of the plastic-covered couch and bring in the leopard print and teal when Grandma decided she needed a change. It is the back-bedroom where my ma, sister, and I lived after the divorce. And when the time came, it’s the place we went to clean out the closets and put away my grandparent’s memories. It is where we wept as a family when the house sold. It is the place that taught me that life is fun, messy and really loud. And it’s where I learned that in life, like in cards, you never sit at the table if you can’t afford to lose.
