Park Sculptures 2017

On Wednesday 21st 2017 I participated in a tour organized by the Chicago Sculpture International. It took us as far as Garfield Park in the Southside of Chicago and up to Edgewater neighborhood in the Northside. It was a $20 tour that lasted two hours. We met at the Chicago Cultural Center and a trolley bus droves us. It was a sold out tour and among the riders there were the artists whom sculptures were going to see. One of them was Vivian Visser (www.vivianvisser.com)

Her work intrigued me- the three sculptures in view at Portage Park is a series of elongated vases created with woven branches and standing on an already existing cemented platform. As soon as I saw them, I felt moved by them. There are pleasing to the physical eye as well as to the spiritual realm and they have an air of Remedios Varo's work. They stand as an invitation to contemplate and meditate on nature and the meaning of safety in our lives.

In her art statement she states "... I see the shelter form as embodying the souls desire to retreat into a comforting and protective environment. The human experience is explored through natural materials..."

Flame Dancers

Frustration

Summer is Here!! Time for planting ...

Nothing more enjoyable for me that to spend time adorning my back porch with plants. The process of going to the nursery, viewing and choosing the colorful plants to dress my porch with brings a level of spiritual satisfaction and joy of life.

This is probably a trait I got from my parents who loved plants and flowers of any kind.
As a child, I accompanied my mother during her daily early Spring and Summer afternoon walks through the garden to prune her greenery.

There was always a vase with flowers in the house - cuts from my mother's garden or flowers my father brought her. And like my father I also wanted to bring flowers to my mom so I used to go to the lot crossed the street from my house and picked small white daisies that I arranged in a bundle and happily gave it to her in spite of getting a skin rush from those flowers.

This weekend Jon and I did just that- went to the nursery, got a bunch of flowered plants & grass, and I spent the afternoon arranging them in planters and ceramic pots. After the work is done, sitting among them zipping a glass of wine makes the world a perfect place!.

The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902

Yes! Rats!

Back in 1982, just arriving to Chicago, a Mexican mystic man told me that Chicago was going to be dominated by rats "you will see... rats are developing an underground city underneath of the streets..."
The thought of it was disgusting to me. I think of his words often when here in the Lakeview neighborhood where I live, the rats are immune to any poison offer to them and they keep multiplying.

Back in the late 90s, in a long article written in The Chicago Reader by Ted Kleine (1998) I read
"... in 1991 a rat burst out of a bank president's private toilet in Lincoln Park..."

That was all I needed to increase my disgust toward those creatures and to develop a fear that one of them would appear on my toilet when I'm using it.

In spite of my fear I also have a fascination toward those rodents that seem to be casted under an evil spell. So any article(s) on rats gets my attention.

I found one of those articles few weeks ago on the Atlas Obscura newsletter titled: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902. Fascinating story of battles against the rats, money, and the final success of rats. Click on the link to take you to the story: the great Hanoi rat massacre of1902

And to finish on a more positive note about these disgusting rodents, I searched for the spiritual-symbolic meaning of rats and I found very positive qualities attributed to them such as:
success, sharing, helpful, opportunistic, resourcefulness, astute, intelligent, kindness, ambition, expansion and creativity. No bad, wouldn't you say?...