Home from the Windy City

It has been a while since my last post, partly because I was finishing up end of term marking and then my guy and I went on vacation to Chicago for a few days before I started back at work. Yesterday was my first day back at full-time, go-to-the-office-everyday work in about 2 years. Between getting my master’s degree, working part-time and work at home jobs it’s been a whirlwind couple of years. So trust me when I say getting up early in the morning, wearing “work clothes” and packing a lunch has been quite the shock to the system. It’s a slow start to the new job but I know it is going to pick up soon, so I am trying to ease myself back into the “real world”.

Onto pleasanter things, the guy and I had a great time in Chicago. He’s not accustomed to going on “vacation” so it was a nice treat for us to go away for a few days away from all the stress that has been happening on the home front lately. I have wanted to visit ever since reading Erik Larson's book, Devil in the White City. We stayed downtown Chicago for 4 days and had a wonderful time sightseeing around the city, going to museums, shopping and doing otherwise touristy things. I even got to go to a wonderful yarn shop called Loopy Yarns. I could have spent all day browsing here, but I behaved myself and only picked up a few things that they had on sale, partly because the suitcase was already very full and partly because the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitting Fair is this upcoming weekend (squee with excitement!). 

My small stash from Loopy Yarns: A cute pouch for knitting notions, a very cool German sounding sock yarn meant to be knit 2 at a time, and a Malabrigo silky merino in the lettuce colourway

Interspersed with pictures, here are 10 things I discovered about Chicago:

1) The Museum of Science and Industry is not only cool because it is housed in one of the few remaining buildings from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, but is also a place where you can run on a human hamster wheel, see baby chicks hatch, check out the Apollo 8 command module and witness and indoor tornado. I definitely channeled my inner child and got really excited about getting to sit in a big John Deere tractor. I’m about as “city” as they come, but for some reason this really thrilled me.  My other favourite thing was Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, a huge dollhouse that was constructed by the silent film star Moore in the late 1920’s. The dollhouse contains real artifacts, gemstones and tiny furniture all inspired by various fairytales (it even has a secret treasure room for Ali Baba!). Even the guy couldn’t help but be impressed by the detail in the castle.

Awesome stuffed toys in the gift shop: sun, earth and moon. The shopkeep must have thought the guy and I were total nerds as we giddily rotated them around each other in the store. 

I had a lot of fun with the shadow screens, in which you can manipulate the video feed by using your body's shadow. 

A baby chick that I watched hatch moments before this picture. Her shell remnants are off to the left side as she takes her first breaths. 

The guy runs on the human hamster wheel. He was very proud that he got up to 10 miles and hour. 

2) The “El” (elevated trains, part of Chicago’s public transportation system) is slightly terrifying. Especially for a gal afraid of heights and going at a brisk speed. Seriously. Scary. I remember seeing the El on ER many years ago and thinking, “that looks a bit frightening”. And it was. The guy thought I had officially lost my marbles as I clung to him with a look of terror on my face as we went about 5 miles an hour saying "We're going to plummet to our death!". I’m not proud of it.

Entrance to the dreaded El train. This was one of the more rickety stations. I have rendered these photos in black and white to signify my fright.

The El heads over a bridge. Notice the absence of side rails. This shot really reminds me of Gotham City (Chicago was the scene for Gotham in The Dark Knight)

3) When it comes to fireworks, American’s do it right. We went to Wednesday showing of the twice-weekly fireworks at Navy Pier and it was outstanding. By far the most impressive firework display I’ve seen. On Navy Pier we also browsed at the shops and checked out the small section of old-school rides: a carousel, tilt-a-whirl, and Ferris wheel. All lit up at night, they were truly magical. Another interesting Chicago fact is that the first Ferris wheel in the world was built here for the World’s Fair in 1893. According to my friend Wikipedia, this first wheel was 80.4 meters tall and could seat 2,160 passengers. What a sight that must have been in the 19^th century!

Gold raining from the sky

Green lightning! 

The park on Navy Pier featuring the Ferris Wheel

Lonely horses waiting for riders

The tilt-a-whirl in action

4) The architecture in Chicago is truly awe-inspiring and reflects the changes in this infamous city over the years. On our last morning we went on a river cruise put on by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Over this 90-minute cruise a docent told us all about the styles of architecture in Chicago and we saw some of the iconic buildings from the water. I am not known to be a lover of boats, but paradoxically I do love being on the water so its a risk I often take. This was a lovely cruise and despite the heat and inevitable sunburn I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the architectural details of the Chicago skyline. One of the things we did not have time for was to see a Frank Lloyd Wright building, so if we ever go back that will be my first stop. Ever since I read the book Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and saw the retrospective of his work at the Guggenheim a couple of years ago I have been fascinated with his work.

A view up the Trump Tower. The dark lines that encircle the building are at strategic points the mimic the height of surrounding iconic buildings. 

Chicago skyline from the river. 

Look up, look way up! I can't remember the name of this particular building, but this circular style of skyscraper really caught my eye. 

Prarie-style architecture that inspired Frank Lloyd Wright.

A view of the skyline at the other side of the river, showing the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and the Stock Exchange Building. 

The Civic Opera House on the right with other skyscrapers in the background. 

Loved this gothic style architecture on the Tribune Building. 

5) The impressionist collection at the Chicago Art Institute IS all its cracked up to be. I was most excited to see Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, or as I called it as a child "Sunday in the Park with George" (after the Sondheim musical). My grandmother had a print hanging of this in my childhood bedroom and I remember staring at it with wonder. I loved the lady walking with her monkey and the clothes worn by its subjects. I marvelled at how this image was really made up of tiny dots. I didn't know that this work was in the CAI collection so when we turned to corner and saw it tears welled up. Its truly impressive in person and the size of it astonished me. Other highlights were Van Gogh's The Bedroom,  and the Renoir and Monet Collections. Outside of the Impressionist galleries, the CAI did not disappoint with icons like American Gothic and a couple of gorgeous Rothko and Pollocks. The guy loved the Arms and Armour collection as well. But my favourite stop was the Chagall stained-glass windows. I could have stared at them all day. Chagall's use of colour always smacks me in the emotion centre of my brain. Love it. 

One of the three panels for Chagall's stained glass windows.

A close-up of one of Monet's Water lilies

Van Gogh's The Bedroom 

A crowd clustered in front of Seurat's, Sunday in the Park. Can anyone else spot the accessibility problem here?

As the guy looked at the armour collection I got creative with the camera and lighting effects to make these time-travelling knights. 

A noble steed charges into the future.

6) Chicago is a city dedicated to public art. I can't remember the figure off the top of my head but on our architecture tour the guide told us that a penny for every x amount of development money must go to public art. My favourite public sculpture that we saw was the iconic "Cloud Gate" by Anish Kapoor in Millennium Park. The park was full of many other neat installations, and there were more at Navy Pier and scattered throughout the city. I wish that we would have had time to explore them all.

The Cloud Gate, known to locals as the "bean"

The skyline reflected in the Cloud Gate

Inside Cloud Gate

A public art installation/water park in Millennium Park. Water would squirt out of their mouths from time to time. 

A 26 foot tall sculpture of Marilyn in her iconic pose from The 7 Year Itch. 

7) The Shedd Aquarium is the home to Granddad, an Australian lungfish that is reportedly 86+ years old. He was acquired by the aquarium for the 1933 Expo! He looks like a sunken log. In addition to granddad, the aquarium is home to over 25,000 fish from around the world. I visited my first aquarium, the Boston aquarium, when I was about 7 years old and have loved visiting them ever since. I love being in the water and the mysteries of the deep both fascinate and terrify me. The aquarium also had a special exhibit on Jellyfish which we both really enjoyed.

View of the city from the aquarium over lake Michigan.

A jelly undulates across its tank.

From the size of those brains, these fish must be destined to take over the world. 

A variety of corals.

Tiny sea snakes pop their heads out of the sand.

Think these are all corals. Look again. 

I couldn't resist a Finding Nemo reference. 

8) Chicago is beautiful lit up at night. I love night photography and getting another perspective of a place once the sun goes down. Chicago did not disappoint. We stayed to the main strips in the evenings (Magnificent Mile, Michigan Ave, and Navy Pier), and enjoyed people watching and seeing the buildings all lit up.

Michigan Avenue bridge at night. 

A night time view of the Chicago River. 

The view of the city from Navy Pier at night. 

9) Chicago is home to Sue, the most complete T-Rex skeleton ever found. She lives at the Field Museum, where there is also an incredible jade and gem collection, and Egyptian tomb, a Fossil Prep lab and other fun exhibits aimed at kids and adults alike. I loved that the exhibit curators have a sense of humour and the written descriptions and illustrations of the exhibits made me chuckle more than once.

Rawr! Meet Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Gotta love the illustration on the left. 

An amber pendant with a bug preserved inside. Jurassic Park anyone?

Inside the Maori Meeting House.

The Grainger Hall of Gems includes this beautiful Tiffany stained glass window. 

An opal sun broach.

Yes, please! My birthday is just around the corner. 

10) My guy and I are geeks no matter where we go.

msi.

Knitting for Kitties

I realized that with everything going on I have yet to post anything about knitting. For my first exclusively knitting post I wanted to share something that I think is a really great initiative started by the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. They sent the call out a month or so ago for people to knit mouse toys for the inhabitants of their shelter waiting for a more permanent home. The call was well received and people from all over the world sent in adorable hand knitted mice and toys for the kitties that live there. Check out this article in the Guardian UK to see a sweet slideshow of the results of their toy-drive. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2011/aug/08/battersea-cats-dogs-home-knitting


I finally got around to knitting my first one, and before I had even finished sewing him up, my cat Lola was waiting rather impatiently to have a crack at him. This toy was even more special because this summer I have been growing catnip in my balcony garden. Catnip is a wonderful plant. You can cut it right back to barely nothing and it will grow again. I have been doing this all summer and have been drying it for just such an occasion.  Before sewing up the toy I rolled some of the dried catnip in the stuffing that was going into the little mouse. Lola was beside herself and I have posted some cute pictures below. The toy is now lying in the corner in a soggy mess and the cat is fast asleep after a catnip high. 


For any knitters that might be reading this blog I would highly recommend this easy and adorable pattern  from Laura Long that you can download from http://a.allaboutyou.com/pattern/52399.pdf
The Battersea is still accepting toys, but I am sure there are many local sheltered cats that would love to have a special handmade gift. Now that Lola is sated I am casting on for another mouse that will be going to a local shelter. 


Happy Knitting!
msi

I snapped a few quick photos before Lola got at her

Checking her out with a good sniff

Oh, this is such a yummy toy!

Wild kitty catnip attack!

AbEx Inspired Art

I have a feeling its going to be feast or famine with this blogging endeavor, as I seem to have trouble sitting down at the computer and writing these days. I did want to take the time to share something really cool that happened a few weeks ago. I haven’t had time to post it because of everything going on with my grandmother and work, but it is definitely worth sharing.

One of my volunteer activities in the past year has been to help with the multi-sensory tours at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). These tours started in 2009 and were designed to make art experiences more accessible to people who are blind or have partial sight. I became so interested in the benefits and tensions of “tactile” or multisensory programs that I even wrote my master’s thesis on this topic. Since writing my paper I have become a volunteer with the AGO, delivering these specific tours to groups of people with disabilities. It has been a lot of fun and I have learned a lot about accessibility, advocacy, and art. My major issue with programs such as this is that they are only given to specific groups of disabled people. In a way this practice is further excluding people and segregating them into isolated groups. I believe that multi-sensory access should be given to all of us, so that we can all experience art and learn in the way that works best for us. The AGO has really taken many great steps in the right direction with these initiatives and I look forward to see what they will continue to do in the future.  

My favourite part of this work is thinking of ways of making art more accessible to all. For example, this could include making a tactile representation of an image, pairing an art work with a piece of music that evokes analogous emotions, learning how to give an in-depth visual description of an image without resorting to words like “see” and “look” (this is much harder than you might think!). A few weeks back I gave a tour for a group of teenagers who are blind or partially sighted in the Abstract Expressionist show (this is a must see show if you have the opportunity before it closes in early September http://www.ago.net/abex-about ). We had a great time in the exhibit talking about Pollock, Rothko, Kline, Reinhardt, and others. 

After the tour we went out to the Grange Park where we did a really fun art activity. Prior to the tour we split the group into three smaller teams: Rothko, Pollock and Kline. In the park they were given a multitude of art supplies to create their own work inspired by their artist: paint, brushes, sticks, spray and squeeze bottles, glue, ribbon tissue paper, crepe paper, felt, sponges. With permission I am sharing some of their wonderful creations here; it was so difficult to pick only a few! Perhaps I can share more in a later post. Such lovely memories of a wonderful summer morning getting paint under our nails in the protective shade of Grange Park.

msi

Inspired by Jackson Pollock's drip paintings

Another piece from a member of the Pollock group, using drip techniques and a finger-painted line, inspired by Pollock's use of handprints in his work

A piece inspired by Franz Kline - the artist definitely embodied "action painting"

Another Franz Kline inspired piece using tactile elements. Crepe paper painted to create even more texture,  ribbon and yarn affixed to the canvass. 

A Rothko inspired work with brilliant colour fields

Jointly inspired by Rothko and Pollock this reminds me of a Japanese garden 

Summer Therapy

Its been a tough month. My beloved grandmother has taken a turn with her already failing health and I have found myself in and out of hospital emergency rooms, doctor's offices, and an ambulance all in the past few weeks. At 83 years old she is the toughest person I know, and determined to remain independent despite the odds being stacked against her. My role as her advocate is to make sure that she remains safe, independent and maintains dignity, as times get difficult.

In an interesting collision of my personal and professional lives, I am also currently designing a course that looks at the intersections of disability and aging. No matter how much theory one reads and analyzes, when it’s your own it is so much more difficult. The tensions between independence and safety, health and well being, professional and personal become more and more apparent with each passing day. My mom, who is a geriatric nurse herself, is shocked at how difficult the last few weeks have been for her. Despite working in this field everyday, when it’s your own loved one who needs constant support it can be incredibly physically and emotionally draining.

It can also be amazingly rewarding. I have spent more time with my grandmother in the last month that I had in the several previous months and have relished reliving old memories, providing her with the small comforts of a foot or hand rub, and knitting at her bedside while she reads me articles from the newspaper. This experience has brought be back to being a little girl, raised by two fiercely strong women - my mother and grandmother - and I wouldn't trade a second of it. Knitting has played an important role in our time together. Unable to knit due to arthritis in her hands, my grandmother helps me wind soft skeins into balls, picks out projects for me and critiques certain colour choices I have made as being too bold. In the span of an afternoon she can make me laugh, cry, feel anger, love and sadness; her importance in my life has become startlingly clear to me.

The future is uncertain, but I am lucky enough to have a support system of my incredible mother, loving partner and supportive best friends. This morning I indulged in some summer therapy by attending The Stop’s Saturday market at Wychwood Art Barns. This wonderful market is a gathering of local farmers and food cultivators. Everything that is sold at the market is either grown locally or made with local ingredients. It was wonderful getting out in the sunshine and enjoying people watching and munching on local yumminess. I also dusted off my camera and took a few photos, some of which are below. If you are in Toronto and in need of some free summer therapy I would highly recommend it.  

http://www.thestop.org/green-barn-market

msi

One of The Stop's Community Gardens

Marigold in black & white

Inviting pathway and arch

Love the intricacies of old, cracked wood

My heaven will be filled with bread baskets

Market Stall

Ruby red beets

Remember the old days, we ate so good

With all this healthy food around, who could resist a freshly made donut?

Sugar Mama donuts. Delicious!