Fueled by an excellent buffet breakfast in the Fireside Room, we built a campfire at one of the communal fire pits. While I was tending the fire, one of the employees driving by toward the cabins stopped and asked if I’d heard any noise from the neighboring cabin. I hadn’t; I’d slept as soundly as I can anymore. He told me the people next door had damaged the screen and inner doors as well as the rustic towel rack.
I followed him over to check out the doors. It had taken a fair amount of force not only to rip off struts from the screen door, but to tear off the strip from the edge of the main door. I didn’t see the towel rack. It’s just as well as I was as enraged as the maintenance man about what they’d done to “this 100-year-old historic building” (not quite 100, but close enough). I left him to repair what he could. I hope they were able to get something out of those “guests.”
I had no plans for today other than a visit to Castle Rock State Park and checking out some artwork I found via either Atlas Obscura or Roadside America. First we visited an overlook (wetland area?) I think is part of Castle Rock State Park, followed by the primary area of the park (although this time I was unable to walk up the stairs to the overlook, alas). We also checked out some higher ground across the road from the river that is also part of the park. While driving around, at some point we spotted a turkey vulture flying up into a tree. I hope we weren’t being followed.
Afterward we drove toward Oregon, where we found a low dam, also on the Rock River. Then it was on to the Black Hawk statue, which is (1) in Lowden State Park, also on the list to visit, so two birds, one stone, and (2) a creation of Lorado Taft, the sculptor behind Hyde Park’s “Fountain of Time,” into which he snuck his own likeness. This statue wasn’t intended to be Black Hawk, but the name has stuck.
The final planned stop was to see a smaller statue of a man with a fish on his head. It’s at Kiwanis Park, which we’d passed on the way to Lowden State Park, both on the Rock River.
On the way back to Chicago, we passed wind turbines — many wind turbines. I wonder if they’re the source of my electricity?
I thought to check Atlas Obscura to see if there were any oddities of interest nearby. I found out there is a colorful banded rock down the street that’s across from the bed and breakfast. Since every University of Michigan building along the way seems to have benches in front, I was able to get there without difficulty (with several breathers).
Before I did, however, I found a sculpture of interest, also listed in Atlas Obscura — Arriving Home (2007) by Dennis Oppenheim. When I saw it, my first thought was: If I step through it, what will happen to Edith Keeler? (Yes, I know the Guardian of Forever is an irregular shape, but in the moment I wasn’t that literal.)
Given the location, “galvanize” is a great word choice
When I arrived at the rock’s location, I found other rocks. All glacial erratics? They were of different shapes, sizes, and compositions. Unfortunately, I thought, a class that had added to the collection had had the rock’s surface carved with their year. A sign or plaque would have been better. Alas.
I found the banded rock I was seeking. It wasn’t called out as special or unusual — it was one rock among some rocks.1 I wouldn’t have minded taking it and some others home with me, if it were possible to lug boulders onto an Amtrak train.
This Ann Arbor District Library page has a bit more about the collection at 1100 North University, known as “Rock Specimens on the Lawn.” It makes me regret I didn’t become a geologist (or don’t have the mental makeup to have become one).
I spotted a photo in the “Snapshots” section under “Fawned Memories” with this caption and thought I should take my own photos (July 8, 2023).
Children drink from the David Wallach Memorial Fountain in 1955. When Wallach died in 1894, he left $5,000 for a fountain near the lake to supply water for “man and beast.” Sculptors Elisabeth Haseltine Hibbard and Frederick Cleveland Hibbard collaborated on the fountain, installed at the 55th Street entrance to Promontory Point in 1939. Elisabeth modeled the bronze fawn after a doe at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Her husband created the marble fountain, which includes a well in its base with water for pets and wildlife. Both had been students of Lorado Taft, who created the Fountain of Time sculpture on the Midway and taught at UChicago. Elisabeth also taught at the University from 1943 to 1950.
University of Chicago Magazine, Summer 2022
The David Wallach FountainDetail from the David Wallach FountainDetail from the David Wallach FountainPartial view of Lorado Taft’s Fountain of Time for reference (2012)
I woke up with a charley horse in my right calf. Then I put weight on my straightened right leg and quickly took it off. When that nerve isn’t happy, I’m not happy — or able to stand or walk. I settled in with Stacy Schiff’s The Witches and tried to baby my leg for a few hours. Then for a few hours more.
That didn’t work, and my inactivity made me feel guilty.
Finally I dragged myself out. After a brief rest in the campus park a block away (yes, that’s sad) I decided I was up to walking to Nickels Arcade.
On the way I passed the State Theatre. I like the old-school tile although I’m not tall enough to capture the entire name. It looked like the theatre had been taken over by a Target store, but I found out later Target had replaced another retailer in the building, Urban Outfitters.
Coming attractions for the Michigan Theater (note ”er” vs. ”re”) down the street (Liberty):
I reached Nickels Arcade and thought I’d check out the Peace Corps medallion Roadside America claims is nearby. That required walking several more blocks south on State Street (hint, Roadside America: No, it’s not near University). I found the building but didn’t have the steam left to go around it to find the medallion. I’ll regret that, I’m sure. Well, here’s a Nickels Arcade marker instead:
I did spot this other Roadside America attraction across the street — it’s hard to miss. Whimsically called “See No Evil” by Roadside America, it seems especially appropriate for the times.
Another sculpture dominated the museum’s lawn.
Finally I limped back to Nickels Arcade for iced coffee and a cookie at Comet Coffee, to Sava’s for a drink and dinner, and to the park area for a bit of shaded rest before limping back to my room.
I don’t think I ever posted this marker before. It’s across Huron from the bed and breakfast.
5,171 steps so far at 20:24. I would have sworn it was at least 7,500. Each painful.
Tom Friedman’s 33.3-foot Looking Up, made of baking pans and other aluminum goods, attracts attention on the south lakefront in Chicago at 47th and Lake Shore Drive.
I had to do what almost every passerby does, sooner or later.
I don’t know the history of the murals under the 55th/Lake Park overpass, but I’m under the impression that they predate my 1979 arrival in Hyde Park by a couple of years. They may have been relatively new and fresh, but even then they struck me as depressing and disturbing. I’ve never read the narrative in its entirety, but “butcher’s hooks” still sticks with me. The people pictured, many contorted with their heads thrown back, look tortured to me, as though their creator were a contemporary if less fantastic Hieronymus Bosch.
I understand that for some time there had been a search for the artist. With so much information online, you’d think she’d be easy to find, but not so. At long last, however, it seems that she turned up. I saw her, or someone, refreshing the mural at the northeast end of the overpass. Later, as winter approached, a handwritten paper sign appeared with thanks to the neighborhood and a promise to return. Sadly, by season’s end the sign had weathered the winter better than the mural, its bright, touched-up sections already streaked from the melting snow, rain, and dampness. As others have noted, while the idea of viaduct murals seems like an attractive addition to urban life, their practicality is another matter.
Even later, toward the southwest portion, large sheets of steel imprinted with black-and-white and colorful artwork were bolted up around the entrance steps to Metra. I also spotted a young man working on the uncovered southwest end of the mural, which for now looks like new.
So the viaduct’s walls are currently a mishmash of restored, faded, and, in places, obliterated mural and spanking new sponsored sheet metal print art, all without any explanation.
It keeps us coming back to find out what’s next.
Update: Here’s part of the story of the murals from the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference site. The murals on the north and south sides are different. The south side mural, the more fascinating to me, is pictured.
Caryl Yasko is redoing one panel of Under City Stone on 55th this year — more will follow next, more money is being raised. Note that there was improper grouting allowing continued water seepage. This is the mural that uses James Agee’s poem (by permission). Most will be redone in oil as per the original. Pulling together contributions and in-kinds is Mary Guggenheim. Heritage Foundation’s Rescue Public Murals initiative is involved. Hundreds are helping. Can send contributions c/o CPAG, 1259 S. Wabash, 60605, 708 655-8919 or undercitystone@gmail.com. Yasko writes:
Yasko first painted “Under City Stone” in 1972. The name of the mural comes from the James Agee poem “Rapid Transit” which runs the length of the north side of the 55th Street underpass. It was one of the Chicago Mural Group’s first projects. Funding came from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hyde Park Merchants Association, and citizen donors. With funding from the South East Chicago Commission and Chicago Public Arts Group, we are restoring one of the murals’ 13 sections. Contingent on funding and support from you, we will restore the remaining sections in summer and early fall 2009.
Mural on the south side of of 55th has undergone some restoration by Damon Lamar Reed, and work continues along with column restoration on 56th south side.
These photos are from a Friday trip with J. to the the Chicago Botanic Garden to see Wonderland Express, about which I knew nothing. The walk through Chicago in natural miniature was followed by dinner with another friend at Don Roth’s Blackhawk in Wheeling and an evening of art and conversation over coffee. A walking tour of Tuscany or Scotland would be grand, but in the meantime life, or at least my life, doesn’t get better than this.
Saturday J. and I went to the 57th Street Art Fair, arriving around 50 minutes before closing. I have a one-sided love-dislike relationship with art fairs:
On the love side:
They’re outdoor community events, an ancient human tradition I adore. I love the idea of a crowd coming together under the open sky for an event that’s important to individual participants and to the community. In this case, the community is not only geographic, but artistic: creators, patrons, buyers, browsers (like me).
At a good art fair, there are amazing varieties of materials, styles, techniques, themes, uses, and so forth. Someone selling conventional wall paintings may be parked next to an artist who crafts jaw-droppingly lovely inlaid wood bowls, and both may be near another artist whose etchings are whimsical and witty. We saw everything from knitted and crocheted pins to erotic statues of fat women (a personal favorite for some reason).
Sometimes I find something I love that I can both afford and use, for example, niobium earrings from Sozra at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. It was there I also found a three-dimensional clock for J., which I think featured a cat in a tiled kitchen and an evocative seascape seen in the background through a window.
In the dislike column:
Much of the art doesn’t appeal to me. A couple of nicks in a keystone of polished wood. Colorful, childlike scrawls. Abstract anything. Garish colors. Urbanscapes. In some cases, it doesn’t appeal to my eye or my taste; in others, it seems bland or unoriginal or uninspired; in others, it seems like a cynical cheat. Corollary: I have no cohesive taste or style, so I would not be able to choose art, decorative or fine, to create a beautifully designed interior space. I would end up with a hodgepodge of styles and colors, leaning toward the cool end of the spectrum.
I have no room. Being a pack rat junk collector, leaves little room for displaying art properly. Having a cat who likes to chew, bat, and knock things over is another factor.
I have no money. Let‘s say that I had control over my collection of miscellaneous 1970s kitsch, souvenirs, and other junk. Still, I can‘t afford much that I like, for example, whimsical etchings (three figures) and erotic sculptures (five figures) — and wouldn‘t they complement one another?
The weather forecast called for rain, but at least on Saturday the clouds held off. There weren‘t the crowds I remember from a hot, sunny day a few years ago. It may have been the threat of rain and the relative coolness of the air, the proximity to closing time, or the state of the economy, but there was a lack of people and energy, I felt.
J. and I have very different browsing styles, which can be challenging. And I didn‘t see anything that stopped me in my proverbial tracks. I should have gone with less of a hope of finding something because I was disappointed in my mission.
One thing made me smile, though, despite it being fundamentally a little sad. One artist was accompanied by a beautiful little dog with little or no use of its hind legs. When the man went for a walk, he strapped the dog‘s back legs onto a little car with wheels. While those legs dangled uselessly from their straps in the air, his good front legs pulled him and his wheels along. The dog, who otherwise spent his time lying on a blanket behind the display, seemed content enough with this arrangement, strange as it may at first look.
We went to 57th Street Books with its 20 percent sale for members, and such were my mood, purse, and space issues that I didn‘t buy anything. This has to be a first.
Not surprisingly, Medici on 57th was crowded, with a 15-minute wait, but the spinach and goat cheese pan pizza was worth it. It gave us the strength to start going through some of J.‘s papers. Even though they aren‘t mine, filling a bag with the nonessential ones and dropping it down the chute was satisfying and cathartic.
Saturday evening, after stuffing ourselves at Bonjour Bakery Café, J. and I hopped on the bus and went downtown for Art on Track, which I had learned about from Puppet Bike. Art on Track consisted of eight elevated cars circling the Chicago Loop, with each car representing a local gallery. This is the type of idea that draws people, especially young ones, to the city; you’d never find an energized bow to creativity like this in Arlington Heights. Kudos to the CTA for being open to the idea and to those who worked with them to make it happen.
Art on Track was surprisingly well organized, especially for a first-time event. A small chalked sign at the bottom of the Adams/Wabash elevated stairs let us know that we were in the right place, and extra CTA staff directed us to a table where we paid $5 apiece for admission bracelets. Another employee whisked us through the gates, and one on the platform made sure people knew which trains on the various routes had come in so hapless travelers wouldn’t find themselves on Art on Track. One of them gave us an idea of when Art on Track was due at this starting point.
The Art on Track crowd was not difficult to spot, bracelets and buttons aside. With a few middle-aged and older exceptions, they were young, pierced, and tattooed, and most were Caucasian. Probably many if not most are involved in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Far from being driven geniuses toiling in lonely garrets, Chicago’s young artists seem to be highly social. I wonder if the young Manet, Monet, Gauguin, and others were as much of an obvious type to their neighbors.
A “You are here” graphic in each car showed where we were in relation to the rest of the train, and which car was occupied by which studio. I think we began two or three cars from the back. The train stopped at each platform in the circuit so participants could change cars.
Our primary objective was the Peter Jones Studio and Gallery car, but we made it onto every car, some twice or more. The most memorable car featured pallets of grass strewn with flowers and guitarist/singers performing 1960s-style music on topical subjects (along the lines of a Dylan). Another car was decorated with garish posed photos of transvestite performers and particularly evil-looking clowns who made any Batman movie version of the Joker look tame. In a third car, musicians sporting face and body paintings of death images sang what I guessed to be Mexican songs. Painted paper plates were affixed to the ceiling of one car, and others had hanging (punching?) bags and other material pieces. Of course, there were some paintings, and Alan Emerson Hicks had brought at least two of his melted plastic sculptures.
In such narrow, crowded space, it was difficult to get a good look at anything, including artists’ names, but perhaps that was not the point. Maybe the idea was simply to acknowledge the growing young artist community spawned by the Art Institute’s expanding school and to energize them with their own event — not as big as Looptopia, but still important enough to be sanctioned by the city.
Early on, I observed a student/freelance photographer/makeup artist approach and older man, apparently a gallery owner or representative. Pleasantries were exchanged, followed by business cards. That was the point as well.
If I were to plan an Art on Track II, I would do at least one thing differently; I would dedicate one or two cars to the musicians and performers and have them take turns. Aside from the space constraints, I found that they distracted me from the non-lively arts. I would also add something for children, at least for the first hour or two, something that would appeal to families and add some diversity.
On another note, at one point I kneeled on my left knee on a seat without thinking and was reminded suddenly and painfully that I fell on it hard last Tuesday; it’s still black, blue, and green. I’ve been so worried about my teeth that I haven’t paid attention to my knee, which for some reason didn’t bother me as much as usual on the elevated stairs. I felt it today; I don’t know how to describe it, but the kneecap feels “squishy” compared to my solid right kneecap. It occurred to me today that I should make an appointment with my physician to see if an X-ray is in order. Aside from soreness to the touch (explained in part by the impressive bruise), the oft-insulted left knee seems to be functioning, but clearly it’s not like the other, and I suppose now is the time to see if anything can be done to minimize the long-term effects. Somehow I see a knee replacement in my future . . .
