While we were setting up the show booth in Chicago a man stopped by and asked if we were from Cincinnati. He said that he had my ABC’s of Cincinnati poster hanging in his office in Washington, D.C.. He was originally from Cincinnati and was visiting relatives and had bought the poster from me at the Wyoming Art show. Either it’s a very, very, very small world, or my art is really starting to get around. Hopefully after a few more shows in Chicago people there will start recognizing me…and my art…and maybe even buying it.

Met lots of interesting people at the show and photographed a few. This is Jason who’s originally from Cincinnati. I liked his shaved head with the glasses shoved up and his cocky grin. He’ll probably wind up in one of my paintings soon. Carrie is currently living in Cincinnati and was visiting Chicago with her parents. In fact, she only lives a few miles from us. I’m going to arrange a photo session with her – she’s just downright beautiful, friendly, and very nice.

Tearing down after the show ended proved to be a little more difficult than setting up. However, I think we’ve become rather jaded. Even though we had to dolly everything much further and carry everything across a street and we ended up totally exhausted and sweaty….even after all that we still said “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been” because we were loaded up 1/2 hour before a major storm hit. Some of the artists still had their tents up when the rain started and they probably had some damaged artwork by the time it was over.Sometimes artists try to avoid the crush of traffic of all of the artists trying to load out at once. Sometimes it’s better to leave your tent there, go out to dinner and then come back to pack up when most of the other artists are gone. In this case, because of the storm, it didn’t pay off.

This is a photo of our hotel room on the 125th floor of  The Inn of Chicago. It was much nicer and larger than I was expecting. We met a man who said the hotel had been leased out by his college and used as a dorm when he was in school. Wonder how many students they squeezed into each room? That kinda explains the hallway with an open closet which was the entry way into the room. I liked the set up – it kept the luggage out of the way. We had a view of Michigan Avenue. There’s a two story Forever 21 store on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Ohio Avenue. I saw people going in and out of the store all night long – I guess they close at 10pm. I went into the store and was surprised at all the hustle and bustle going on. It was like Christmas Eve at the mall – women were tearing things off the racks. There were clothes laying all over the floor. Who says there’s a recession going on?

Just returned from doing what used to be called the Chicago Tribune Magnificent Mile Art Festival. However, the name had to be changed at the last minute because apparently Magnificent Mile has been trademarked or copyrighted or somehow exclusively claimed by someone else. Really, now,  it’s getting ridiculous – you’re always in danger of treading on someone’s toes these days.

However, Michigan Avenue really is a Magnificent Mile. I love downtown Chicago and I want to live there. I love the hustle and bustle and tall buildings and the architecture and all the shops and all the people. I can’t afford to live there, but I want to. A ZERO bedroom condo costs as much as our 4 bedroom house in the suburbs of Cincinnati. That’s right – a  ZERO bedroom. You get a Murphy pull down bed. Or you sleep on the couch. I talked to a woman who lives in one of those ZERO bedroom condos. She says you just learn to do without a lot of possessions.

Our booth was right in the shadow of the Tribune Building. The architecture is beautiful – modern buildings just don’t have all of that intricate detail. The show was right across Michigan Avenue from the new Trump Tower. We had breakfast every morning in an intimate little restaurant next to Donald Trump’s building. Well, okay, it was a McDonald’s, but at least it was a McDonald’s in a really, really nice neighborhood. And maybe The Donald sends one of his lackeys (or Apprentices) down stairs occasionally to bring him back a Sausage Egg McMuffin. Even The Donald must crave McDonald’s every once in a while.

When I said the show was right on Michigan Avenue, well, it was right on Michigan Avenue. It was in a little park owned by NBC     Studios. This was a Howard Alan show which means BARE BONES. No amenities what-so-ever. Well, okay, they had 5 port-o-lets  for 200 artists and 75,000 customers. And the port-o-lets all ran out of T.P. everyday around 2pm. And they weren’t serviced until the next morning. Like I said – BARE BONES. We walked two blocks from our hotel to check out the show location before driving our car up and attempting to unload. The booth space numbers were supposed to be posted on the Howard Alan website that morning, but they never were. We had to ask someone already setting up where we could find a show representative. We finally found Howard Alan only because he was holding a bunch of papers in his hand. He told us our booth number, vaguely pointed out which street we should park on to unload and then we never saw him again.

We had to cart everything about 1/4 mile from our van to the booth site. NBC personnel made us move our van once because they didn’t like where we’d parked. Fortunately we didn’t get a parking ticket. Then Tom ( or should I say The Tom) had to drive the van back to the hotel and walk back to the show. We’d decided to use valet parking at the hotel because for $41/night you got in/out privileges.  Apparently in Chicago it’s a privilege to be able to use your car without paying extra $$$$ every time you take it out of the garage. Of course, you have to tip the bellman every time.