Chicago reflections

July 2017

The Cloud Gate or "the Bean" was a mandatory sketch for the Urban Sketchers Symposium visitors. It was a really hot day and people were gathering in the shade under the bean and under the trees surrounding the square. Children were running about playing and tourists were making faces in the shiny metal surface while taking selfies. This shiny bubble that gives a distorted version of the city, of our reality. Suddenly I couldn't help overhearing two men sitting next to me discussing how terrible it was that they were not allowed to bring their guns to Chicago. It seemed like they had to have a special license to carry that kind in the state of Illinois. I did not believe my ears as the intense discussion went on and listening to their arguments about carrying guns. Were they inside another reflecting bubble distorting their reality?

There was a lot of things going on in Chicago during the symposium, not just the almost 600 additional people sketching buildings and art all over. Tourists and everyday life filled the streets as we sketched and had fun meeting new and old friends. But the darker side of Chicago street life was also present. With homeless people sleeping and begging on the sidewalk. Every night I passed a homeless man with a cat on the sidewalk outside Vapiano at Wabash and Monroe. I'm embarrassed to say I don't even remember his name, but his cat was named Angela. He told me didn't even like cats earlier, but Angela found him a night in an alley when he was half beaten to death and they have been inseparable since then. Would I even have stopped talking with him if he didn't have the cat? 

Crown Fountain was a cool place in Chicago. Moving images of smiling faces facing each other that suddenly started to squirt water. Children were splashing around in the water screaming and laughing. A perfect place for a hot day in the city. Some young men were passing looking like they wanted to cool down but when the water squirted from the mouths they decided that "this is too weird". A man was calling his children who did not want to go home. He seemed to be prepared for this and unfolded a red umbrella, walked straight into the water collecting his children without getting wet.