Early on Wednesday morning, I flew to Chicago.
Patrick Siren, a friend of mine and owner of the design agency Spectr, had moved to Chicago three months ago, and after seeing the success of the first Who Said What Art Show opening at Peace and a Cup of Joe, found a diner across the street from his apartment that was willing to display the art.
Tamika and I created a second set of the show, and packaged it up into a couple large boxes. The show has done so well that it’s currently booked in Baltimore through September (If you want to find out when the next art openings are, sign up for the mailing list here).
It was too late to ship them to Chicago, so we went to a local UPS and got them to package them neatly into two tough cardboard boxes.
I trailed Tamika on my motorcycle to the airport. Our friend Fanshen Cox is having a show called One Drop of Love in Washington DC this Friday evening about her experiences growing up biracially. Zerflin had worked doing design for with Fanshen and Heidi Durrow on their former Mixed Chicks Chat radio show and their Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, and so when Fanshen announced she was doing the show, we jumped at the chance to help.
The show starts at 5pm, and I arrive back at BWI airport at 4:45, so I told Tamika I’d meet her there.
Patrick picked me up bright and early at O’Hare International, and we drove into the city. He and his girlfriend share an apartment in Lakeview East, and so we dropped my stuff at the apartment, and went to have breakfast at the diner where I was to show my work.
Stella’s Diner is a nice, family-owned place, named after the current owner’s mother. We scarfed down some eggs and sausage, and then took the Brown line on the L downtown. We went out to the Bean (formally known as Cloud Gate), checked out some interior design showcases in one of the high rises, and tried to sneak into this tall twin corn-on-the-cob-looking set of towers. We had wanted to go up to take pictures, but a cranky security lady chased us off.
We went back to Stella’s and put the show up, and I got to meet Gus, one of the owners. He was big, gruff, opinionated, and very friendly. 🙂 he was very particular about how things out to be done, and so he helped me map out the wall, and I installed all the thumbtacks in a grid across the wall. It worked well, and the end result made all the pieces perfectly aligned. We really got to talking, and he really liked the art. As a side business, he restores old cars, and does all kinds of really cool painting techniques using lace curtains as stencils and flecked paint. Really amazing stuff.
When we got back, it was just about dinner time, so Patrick bought a pack or beer, and we got some burgers at Flub A Dub Chubs around the corner from his house. It has been a full week of N.M.E. Training for me (no carbs, among other things) and a so I indulged in my first cheat meal by having a pretzel bun and some French Fries. We kicked back and talked for the rest of the evening when his girlfriend Heather came home.
The next morning, we headed out to a local coworking space called Next Door Chicago, to hang out and do some work. Next Door was awesome. The place was organized by the local State Farm Insurance agency, and they opened it up for anyone to come in and work, with free wifi. The place featured a built in cafe they had partnered with, couches, tables and desks everywhere, more outlets than one would ever need, a giant whiteboard calendar with startup business workshops every evening, and airpump for bicyclists, a small library of business books, reservable private workrooms and conference rooms, and on top of that, art on the walls! I was instantly in love. I definitely want to open something like this for Zerflin in Baltimore.
While we were there, I researched as many cafés as I could find that showcased art, and Patrick and I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and meeting up with business owners about displaying the show. We got a few decent leads, and Patrick said he’d investigate more after I left.
We hit Stella’s right around 6pm when the opening was supposed to start, set up the T-shirts, buttons and postcards, and waited. And waited and waited, and nobody showed.
The cool thing was that I actually did sell one piece. That morning, someone had come into the cafe and purchased the Pablo Neruda piece right off the wall, so, regardless of who actually came, I was happy.
A few of Patrick’s acquaintances actually did show up eventually, but only stayed for a few minutes.
Gus, and one of the servers actually did sign up for the mailing list though, so all-in-all, I considered it a success.
This morning, Patrick and I met up with my good friends Xavier and Fresh, who hadn’t been able to make the opening, but agreed to have brunch with me before I left. Fresh is opening up a cafe of her own in Chicago, so we agreed to definitely put the show up there once she had her grand opening. I was really good to see them; Tamika, the kids and I had stayed at their place when we had come through Chicago on our way to California.
Patrick brought me back to the airport after that, and I flew back to Baltimore. Fun trip!