You may have seen the remains of one of his more public projects on the Bucktown rooftops along the O`Hare elevated tracks, where artist Keith Lawrence Turner Alexander painted large Aztec-style graphics in white on the vast expanses of black tar paper.
Now Alexander has a new way of expressing himself and drawing attention to Chicago`s environmental underbelly: climbing bridges-or rather climbing under bridges.
”It accomplishes two things,” Alexander says. ”First, it`s another way to point out the underside of something seen by everyone in the city all the time. And it`s a different look at the bridges, which are an environment that captures the technology of the time when they were built.”
Like his 1984 painting escapade, when as the ”phantom of the rooftops”
he climbed the buildings at night to etch his designs and signature, Alexander also explores the cables and girders of the city`s bridges under cover of darkness along with fellow artist Mark Allgier.
So far they have done the Lake Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue, State Street and La Salle Street bridges and have yet to find a bridgetender to interrupt them, Alexander said.
In fact, he even has advertised in community newspapers for people who want to do some ”urban spelunking” and has found a few takers, including the daughter of a prominent suburban politician and one 300-pound man who ”I thought would never make it across,” Alexander says.
Of course, like rooftop painting, it`s probably illegal, certainly dangerous and, as many have told him, ”just crazy.” But Alexander, 27, says so far no one has complained.
”It`s real adventuresome,” he says. ”Afterward I feel real confident, a real exhilaration.”
SOURCE: Steven Pratt.
THUNDERING DEBIT DAWN Jerry had busted out of the suburban poker game before ”Saturday Night Live” hit the screen. His host urged him to stay for the midnight chili and hot dogs, a meal paid for by cutting pots that had swallowed all of Jerry`s money.
”Yeh, I`ll hang around,” Jerry said as he sat down in front of the TV, challenging Steve Martin to make him laugh. Martin failed.
The poker game went on, with Jerry`s bundle scattered around the table of nine.
About 11:45 he asked: ”Where`s the nearest Cash Station?”
In Schaumburg the answer means a bit of drive.
”Two lights down, northeast corner,” the host said. ”But the chili`s almost ready.”
”I`ll be right back,” Jerry said.
He was gone a long time.
The remaining players were finishing their midnight snack when Jerry returned.
”Would you believe it? There was a line!”
The reason, for those who never have needed their cash limit twice in one day: The new debit day begins at one minute after midnight.
And the postscript, for those who might wonder: Jerry ended up winning big. SOURCE: Larry Townsend.
HERE COMES SANTA CAUSE A teddy bear sits patiently next to a basket of cookies on one. Silver trees stand in stark contrast to a night sky on another. A child`s drawing of a cigar-smoking snowman covers another.
All are holiday cards that show not once but twice that the sender appreciates the spirit of the season.
Many nonprofit and charitable groups sell holiday cards as fundraisers. Those who purchase them extend their good wishes not only to friends who receive the cards, but to the benefiting organization as well.
The Chicagoland Sudden Infant Death Syndrome chapter (657-8080), for example, offers the card with the teddy bear. The Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation (332-1371) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (922-8000)
offer, among others, the card with the silver trees against the night sky. The Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago (648-1666) offer the snowman card, drawn by a 12-year-old club member, among their selections.
Among its 1987 cards, the Leukemia Research Foundation (599-5778 or 385-8060) offers a white church scene silhouetted against a gray background. The single card from the Women`s Architectural League (810-5986) features a silver Frank Lloyd Wright design detail on a dark blue background.
An assortment of 10 cards per package, each featuring a drawing of one of five zoo animals, is sold in Brookfield Zoo`s shop (485-5225).
Some organizations do imprinting. Some even mail cards for a purchaser. Prices vary according to services rendered. So think of your favorite cause, then call to see if you can send a doubly merry holiday wish this year. SOURCE: Margaret Carroll.
`MESSAGES` PHONES HOME Longtime Hyde Parker Eleanor Petersen walked in, took a long look around and then declared, ”It`s wonderful that the Cultural Center has let Don Baum loose.”
The ”Urgent Messages” exhibition in the Cultural Center`s fourth-floor gallery clearly has the Baum touch-though it doesn`t have any of the artist`s distinctive wooden house sculptures.
Baum, former curator of the Hyde Park Art Center, was asked to conceive the theme of the show for the center`s 10th anniversary. He co-curated the show with Kenneth Burkhart, the curator of exhibitions for the Chicago Office of Fine Arts.
The result features 129 works by 53 emerging and well-known folk and contemporary artists, primarily from the Midwest. All combined words and images to communicate their meaning.
”This whole show is so extremely nostaglic of the Hyde Park Art Center,” said Peterson, who was among the 500 people crowded into the gallery for the opening reception. ”Don and the Hyde Park Art Center have always had this strong interest in the primitive artist-somebody who is working in an isolated, primitive, unsophisticated way, trying to express his or her thoughts on canvas. Most other people think these artists are just
eccentrics.”
The jovial Baum also was on hand, wearing a distintive pair of black-and- white pony-print boots.
”I`m interested in artists who seem to have a need to make it very clear about what they want to say,” he said. ”All of these artists have some urgent message about politics, sex, love, autobiography or religion-something that they don`t think they can convey in just a picture. This seems to happen the most in the Midwest, where the art is more diarist, personal and emotional, as opposed to more formal and conceptual. You find it in a lot of naive art.”
”Urgent Messages” also has its share of established names, including Roger Brown, Jim Nutt and Karl Wirsum.
The art ranges in size from the huge installation of David Dunlap, of Kalona, Iowa, who created a powerful environment that included his
”notebooks” of running commentary on his life, to a piece by Korean native Jin S. Lee.
Lee, who now resides in Chicago, framed a sealed letter-size manila envelope along with these words: ”Here are all the photographs from my last relationship. Although we remain good friends, the photographs do not mean the same and are no longer useful.”
The show, free and open to the public, will continue through Dec. 30. SOURCE: Marla Donato.
