This past Saturday was the Chicago Improv Festival’s first annual Gala & Awards Show. Just before the likes of Dan Patterson (creator of “Whose Line is it Anyway?”) and Key & Peele (Comedy Central’s latest stars) took the stage, my latest work was on display:
I’ve been doing a bit of production work lately for a Chicago judicial candidate (who also happens to be my dear mother). Family ties aside, she’s incredibly intelligent, highly qualified, and you can learn more about her on her Facebook page, Twitter feed, or campaign website.
As Director of Digital Strategy for the campaign, I’ve been working on social media strategy as well as the nitty-gritty of media production. These video testimonials come from some of Pam’s supporters in the 11th subcircuit.
The artist: ‘It’s about being honest.’
The lawyer |
The scholar |
The builder |
Originally published March 8, 2012 in the Chicago Journal’s ‘Metropolis’ section
The Chicago Journal
This winter, with temperatures barely dipping below freezing and not one opportunity to call “dibs” on a parking spot, the distinctions between the seasons might be tough for us Chicagoans to recognize.
For music fans across the country, though, there’s one unmistakable sign that spring is in the air: the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas.
Beginning in 1987 and growing exponentially in recent years, SXSW has become a Mecca for indie rockers, aspiring filmmakers, tech enthusiasts and moustached philanthropists.
In honor of Chicago’s contributions to the 10-day extravaganza, this Saturday, March 10 The Hideout will host its sixth annual sendoff party for local bands headed to the Lone Star State. In an attempt to recreate the all-day whirlwind experience of an Austin bar, the first band takes the stage at 1:30 p.m. and 10 more acts will perform before midnight. At $10 a ticket, that’s less than $1 a band.
The whole idea, as The Hideout’s president and co-owner Tim Tuten explained, is to help smaller Chicago artists finance the journey south.
“All these unsigned bands have no money to begin with, so it actually costs them money to go down,” Tuten said.
With Chicago gas prices topping $4.30 a gallon and a 30-rack of PBR pushing $15, a cross-country road trip can get awful pricey for a starving artist. Cash from the show should help to cover at least the beer money.
Ah, the joy of a new gadget! just sat down with my freshly-unwrapped Wacom tablet and whipped this drawing up in Photoshop:
Since I finished studying in Italy nearly three years ago, I had longed to return. The landscape turned up in dreams, the food remained (sadly) unmatched, and the language lay in a forlorn, unused corner of my brain. So, when a good friend of mine moved to Rome for a year (fully-equipped with a free place to crash), I saved my money and jumped at the first opportunity for a two-week visit.
Rome
As my home base, I spent most of my time in Rome. It’s a city overflowing with history, architecture, and culture. Around seemingly every corner in the city center is a monument straight out of a textbook. Having a personal tour-guide with local connections, though, allowed me to see a side of the city outside of the tourist attractions: la Roma dei Romani (the Rome of the Romans, as one local described it). I visited centri sociali (social centers) with modern art and music, and unmarked restaurants free of the ever-present international tourist. I didn’t carry my camera with me nearly as much as I should have, but these are a few brief impressions from my time in Rome:
Rome is a gorgeous, historic city. But, with grandeur also comes tourists. And traffic. And an incredible amount of noise. Which is why I was quite pleased when I stumbled upon this public park, overlooking the rest of the rest of the city from a lofty distance. It was quiet, serene, and a great place to do some drawing.
There’s nothing quite like summer in Chicago. For months, I hadn’t taken much initiative to do any drawings, but when I found myself walking across this downtown bridge, I decided to stop for a while and reacquaint myself with pen and paper. This sketch comes from the pages of my journal that August afternoon.
This is a project that’s been on the backburner for quite some time… which means I’ve had quite some time to think about it. When I studied abroad in 2009, I was struck (as anyone who travels inevitably is) by the beauty of my new environment. Being in Italy, I was surrounded by some of the most well-known works of art in the world, the most lauded architecture, and of course breathtaking landscapes.
But outside of the galleries and monuments, I felt a certain intangible charm in the experience. Perhaps it was because I was seeing the world with fresh eyes, untainted by prior conceptions, but I found beauty in the most unlikely places. Even traditionally mundane objects became works of art in their own right. As these small details began to catch my eye, I became fixated on doors.
Aside from the pure aesthetic variety and understated elegance of the doors themselves, they became something more. Each one was a passageway. A story. An entire history of all those that had passed through. A static, enduring monument to memories long since forgotten.
Those doors which interested me most were the ones that had fallen prey to the unrelenting forces of time. Weather-worn and decaying, these portals bear the bittersweet burden that ultimately afflicts us all.
This 1-minute film is an exploration of the way in which light interacts with our world. The dreamy, streetlight-inspired piece was shot on black & white reversal film using a vintage Bolex camera. Some of the clarity and warmth of the original images got lost in digitization, but life goes on.
Music is original and added digitally along with the titles.
This is it—the final episode of Strange Brew ever to grace the airwaves and internets. It caps off an incredible four-year stint of good times and great music. We conclude our 30-album countdown today starting with number 6 and ending with our two favorite albums of all time.
Thanks for listening, and remember: keep it strange.
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For a full archive of Strange Brew episodes, or to subscribe to the podcast, check out the Strange Blog.
