This photographic and textual tour focuses on the city, the places, and the people who make Chicago a howling good time for artists and art lovers all year 'round...

Dana, Chris Tafel, and I stepped out of our living and working space on Division near Damen Avenue on the fringes of Chicago's Wicker Park at around noon on Sunday.

The night before had been a long, well-spent one and I, for one, needed to begin the expedition with a little of the commonly-found local libation.

While Tafel went for smokes at the D & D Liquors, the first stop of our day's journey, Dana snapped the first of the day's many photos.

A five-block stroll and one 40 oz. later, we arrived at the first official schedule board at the southernmost entrance to the actual park park of Wicker Park.

Still kind of slow here with just the usual dog walkers and Sunday strollers milling about, but there was a palpable feeling of excitement and possibility in the air as we crossed the corner of Damen and Wicker Park Avenue and caught a glimpse of the Pontiac Produce Company and the first work of art we were to see at the Coyote:

a big ole' dragon sculpture of sorts riding on the back of a motorcycle.

On now to the six corners, the Coyote and Flat Iron buildings, and another 40-dog in search of Steven Michael Glabman's exhibit.

We found the exhibit space, a carpet store at 1532 N. Milwaukee Avenue, too soon and had to loiter about finishing our cigarettes (no smoking inside) and our open intoxicant in the presence of a Chicago copper who seemed more interested in traffic control than either the art exhibits or our illegal elixir.

Upon attempting to gain entrance to the carpet store/gallery space, we encountered a bottleneck of folks paying the requisite $3 "donation" - good for all three days for access to all the official exhibition spaces. Armed now with our respective admission badges, we took in the work, drank the free booze, and engaged in conversations with several of the over 30 artists in that location for the next couple of culturally-enriching hours.

We set up the laptop and hung around at our friend Glabman's art exhibit until we began to jones for the fresher air and sidewalks of our fine city. Promising to return, we headed north on Milwaukee to another official Coyote gallery space where, we heard tell, a friend of a friend had an exhibit.

On the way we took in the sculpture art of David W. Cook through a chain-link fence with the Chicago Transit Authority el train roaring by in the background. The cement, rebar, and mixed media sculptures were strangely captivating in the vacant lot, standing on painted white circles like aliens riding little flying saucers on the cement surface of the lot.

As we were about to move on, we literally stumbled on the debris of a vandalized work of art from the exhibit surrounded by a crudely drawn chalk outline and the words, "whoever did this should be ashamed" and the poignant lament, "this hurts!".

It sure did, it hurt just to imagine someone or some ones being so pointlessly destructive and uncool.

 

An old VW bus and another official Coyote schedule board marked the entrance to the gallery on North Milwaukee Avenue. We didn't find our friend's friend, there was no free booze flowing, and it was almost time to meet poet Chris Hyatt and his femme fatale Jane Ripley at Estelle's, the famed Wicker Park watering hole and poetry performance venue.

We did catch the enjoyable exhibit of artist Michelle Peterson-Albandoz, who was showing work from her gallery, Las Manos. We introduced ourselves to the accomplished and charming artist and exchanged contact info in the hopes of presenting a retrospective of her work online in the near future.

	The three of us filed into an all-but-empty Estelle's bar to find Hyatt and Jane already enjoying a relaxed and lubricated vibe. It seems we had missed the Shappenin' - poetry night host Shappy had either rescheduled or already finished up a reading and the PA and amps were the only things still humming in the eerily quiet bar/venue.
We put the Doors on the jukebox, had several rounds of drinks and some passersby dropped in for an art festival pit stop. Out of nowhere, esteemed bartenders Carla Evonne and Sanders Pate up and took to the stage and did a short set of spoken word and music.

Instead of returning our attention from the stage back to the jukebox, we held an impromptu jam with the aid of material from the laptop. Big fun, this.

A quick stop at Glabman's for the benefit of Hyatt & Jane and a spectacular twilight view looking east on North Avenue, and we had come full circle to catch the jism bop metaphor crunch stylings of poet Larry Winfield and his band, Brass Orchid, over at the weekly Sunday night spoken word gig Word Salad at the Pontiac Produce Company.

The night was filled with cans of domestic beer (Pontiac just got its liquor license) and open mic poets such as Tom Malodic and Tina Wright interspersed with musical acts such as Winfield and Brass Orchid by way of puppeteer and resident lovable lunatic Papa Joe and some talented cat playing solo on a flute.

Good words, good sounds, good food and good times hosted by Jim Redd came to a close with the announcement that Jim's digs had been robbed and pillaged sometime during the day's festivities.

Was it all worth it? I can't speak for Jim, but from the faces of the artists and patrons
and performers and peddlers and cops in cars and topless bars, I'd venture to say that it was.

Just another great and gritty weekend around the howling Coyote in the biggest small town in the world...

 

Words: Tom Laidlaw Pictures & design: Dana Winrow Technical assistance & morale: Chris Tafel

Chris Tafel and Tom Laidlaw