Grafitti Hearts & Upside Down Signs

Just another typical Saturday-- it was sunny again today so I decided to walk the mile or so up to Wicker Park, did some window shopping and stopped in Lovely, A Bakeshop on Milwaukee for an iced coffee & some cookies. Just discovered they now have French macarons and for Valentine's Day they had three types of cupcakes on offer (sadly still haven't tried one from them yet).

Art from the Underground

Had a very arty Friday... started off the day with dropping off one of my framed photographs at a gallery in Pilsen (I'm in a show opening next Friday). The pinatas were part of an upcoming exhibit in one of the new Pop Up Art spaces that have been all over the city lately-- the idea is that artists take over unused business spaces (with permission of the owners of the buildings) and can stay in the space until the owner rents/leases it to a tenant. So a pretty good idea in this economy when there are a lot of closed businesses/vacant buildings!

Went to the open studio night at the Flat Iron building in Wicker Park for the first time. I walk by this building on a near weekly basis but never went inside it. It's pretty bohemian inside-- the second two floors are all tiny galleries or private studio spaces that mainly house painters and photographers. Today they had a special event where resident artists painted one or more wall murals that would only be up for a 4-hour time span, they called the event "Now You See It, Now You Don't" as it was all going to be painted over at the end of the night! Above are some sections of the mural that interested me, I especially liked the paper airplane installation.

Closing Time

I've only lived in my Ukrainian Village apartment for 2 1/2 years but so much has changed in that time... businesses that opened the same time we moved in have now closed. Dominicks grocery store is obviously still going strong, but the popular brunch spot JAM replaced the short-lived Dodo, piccolo gelato shut its doors last autumn, several florists went out of business, a small Ukrainian grocery store, a coffee shop... the list goes on. Sadly today I found out that one of my beloved bakeries, located only three blocks from my apartment has now closed, without any warning. Sweet Cakes bakery had THE best blueberry scone I've ever tasted, they also had mini cupcakes in flavors like mint chocolate chip and last year my surprise birthday cake was from there... to be honest I'm not sure how people can live in a place for DECADES and not get upset about how things change. I'm all for progress but it's like an old friend is gone now.