Strange Closets

I’ve long been enthralled with FourSided founder, artist and entrepreneur Todd Mack’s framing projects, which elevate common objects to art through the creative use of mattes and collage, so I was very happy to hang out with him for a bit recently.  As you read this interview, may I suggest that you listen to the [...]

Frustrated about the high cost of existing festivals, in 2003 entrepreneur and Renegade Craft Fair founder Sue Daly decided to start her own.  To say the fair was successful is an understatement; buoyed by DIY message boards, the annual Fair quickly moved from Wicker Park (the park) to being an event that closes down Division [...]

I recently had the opportunity to meet artist Ken Gold, and I was intrigued by his kind demeanor, encaustic art technique (which involves applying layers of brightly-colored wax onto his photography) and even his “everybody’s got to pay the bills” job as an animal behaviorist for film and TV productions.  Ken has a terrific studio [...]

It’s an odd time to be an American.  On one hand, day-to-day life continues.  People go to work, break bread, visit friends, fall in love and download Internet entertainment.  On the other hand, Starbucks just introduced instant coffee (yesterday’s luxury lifestyle is today’s Sanka) and every day brings more bad news: layoffs are surging, state [...]

I recently had the pleasure to interview Sharon Bladholm for a piece that will appear in the upcoming Spring issue of CS Interiors; as it turns out, we both love to talk and our digressions were just as interesting as the topic at hand.  Sharon’s interest in the ecology, the environment and accompanying scientists on [...]

At the urging of friend and designer Phil Bernal, I recently made an appointment to see the Elvis exhibit at the Mars Gallery, which will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary in the former home of the Empire Butter and Egg Company on Fulton in the West Loop.  Located on what parapsychologists call “energy vortex circles”, [...]

“Bats!,” exclaimed writer/blogger Cesar Torres in his email inviting a group of friends to check out Deborah Simon’s exhibit at the Packer Schopf Gallery.  But bats were just the beginning.  While most definitely not decorative, much of Packer’s art most definitely qualifies as Decoratus Absurdum.  I particularly like Doug Smithenry’s piece (above).