The International Photo Booth Convention.

"Since the invention of the photobooth, artists around the world have used photobooth photos in painting, collage, film, and video, taking advantage of the photobooth's uniquely expressive qualities."--from the Center Portion website

Enter through the yellow door for a day of photo strip art, film, talks, free photo booths, and a workshop.


Center Portion is a unique artist project space imbued with Celtic, folksy energy emanating from the home of a talented poet in Logan Square from which the space has been "carved." The theatre space was especially folksy with eclectic purple and blue seats watching the oldest photobooth at the convention on the stage. The younger booths were in the gallery space but "Betty's" had admirers from as far as England paying homage to her introspective gaze, these hardcore convention revelers were friendly and engaging. Laid out to dry, our strips were an invitation for conversation. One woman was fascinated with her feet that day and dragged a small table toward the booth to lean on so that Betty could capture them properly naked. She had quite a few pieces in the gallery show.

Works created during the "Altered Photography" workshop are on the left. The (kraftacular) convention poster hangs center. On the right are the beginnings of the exhibition of photo booth inspired art. From the literality of strips mounted in their original form to strips scanned, blown-up, remixed, and reprinted culminating in the transcendental: strips knitted punched and juxtaposed with found objects. I was especially drawn to the last permutation of photo-chemical strips and found objects; neither element has a negative, their union singularly normative yet abstract.

I love this piece by Andrea Vizzari, my photo does not do it justice. Andrea and Anthony Vizzari run 312photobooth, a company which provides photo booths for weddings and other events along with their case of costumes. They generously provided their (three!) photobooths and costumes for the convention furnishing all attendees with free strips!

Various wigs, specs, & hats in a vintage suitcase.
I foraged for the bunny ears, feather boa, feather mardi gras mask, tiger print cow boy hat, red bandana, giant scissors, and kitchy black specs but was a little disappointed at the lack of fairy wings. 
I went into the color photobooth with my journal where I had pasted a copy of a photobooth picture of myself as a child holding my Puffalump soul mate and when I walked out there was a little girl staring at me who looked just like me in the picture and at five she could already work a room.  She had her parents, Agent Pineapple, and I doing pirouettes and swaying like trees. I discovered that we had more in common as she gravitated towards traditionally masculine costumes like a clear mask with a painted mustache and a knight's helmet. I was a ninja three times for halloween and a knight once. The mustached little girl instructed her father to go in a booth solo with supersize hot pink sunglasses and a feather boa and of course he complied with a big grin because there was no saying "no" to this cutie. I hope she discovers the strips ten years from now and smiles.

Some people didn't realize that the curtain was see-through when they did cute kissy face pictures...ahem.  Nothing wrong with a little tasteful relationship documentation, we saw 60 year olds doin it. Needless to say if I ever get married there will be a photo booth and an espresso bar with those barista-artists that make designs in the foam!

I think those are the feet of Carole from Photomovette (cute little feet in cute little shoes). The duo flew in from London and encountered a stuffed monkey during their travels who was featured in his very own photo strip. I pointed out that he had a belly button.

Rummaging through costumes and smuggling them into the booth, drawing the curtain, hastily assembling inside away from curious eyes, the count down, four chances, tearing off the disguise, waiting to snatch the print, joy.A sample of the results:

I can't wait to burn, scratch, and generally deface them some more. Transfer, glitter, paint, and cut. Journal journal journal fodder, oy!

xo Lara

Plumbing pianos.

Marisol, a kindred photographer and friend, initiated a Chicago adventure this weekend. She spirited me away in the dead of night to Hyde Park, which is where I spent a few of my "formative" years. We stayed at her friends apartment for the night two blocks from my old one. In the morning after coffee coupled with pitas and olive oil we poked around his apartment with our cameras (including the rooms of his roommates...)

There was this great enclosure between the apartments with a lid of windows. The photo below was taken through a window.

Then we grabbed all day CTA passes and decided to start in the loop. She took me to her favorite building, a relic from the late 18th century, and it instantly became my favorite building as well. We spent hours here, discovering hidden rooms and lonely instruments and

this magnificent white room with windows overlooking the water

twins

Crawling, sliding, clicking shutters and posing all over the these dusty surfaces for art

The grand white room contained a stage and a shrouded piano

harmonious trinity

plumbing pianos for their secretslooking through keyholes and opening doors


finding ghosts at work

we slipped through a door, went down a short flight of stairs, into a dark room through a thick plastic curtain filled with machines with red and green lights from floor to ceiling and thick wire tresses flowing across the ceiling. Marisol found a door, the light from which illuminated the machinery, leading to this fire escape on the 8th floor. I'm afraid of heights so i had to take this picture as proof :)

Click the mosaic to see the full set. Our next stop was the Museum of Contmporary Photography which is featuring a series of work by Michael Wolf entitled The Transparent City. "Chicago is known for work by innovative architects such as David Adler, Daniel Burnham, Louis H. Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright. After World War II, it established itself as a world capital of modern architecture influenced by the international style of Mies van der Rohe and home to notable projects by Helmut Jahn, Philip Johnson, and more recently Frank Gehry. [...] Wolf depicts the city more abstractly, concentrating less on individual well-known structures and more on the contradictions and conflicts between architectural styles when visually flattened together in a photography. His pictues look through the multiple layers of glass to reveal the environment, focusing specifically on voyeurism and the contemporary urban landscape in flux. Wolf explores the complex, sometimes blurred distinctions between private and public life in a city made transparent by his intense observation." --Natasha Egan, Associate Director and CuratorChicago is a fascinating metropolis by virtue of it's claim of the only throughly modern city in the world all because it nearly burnt to the ground in 1871. The building we played in was built a few years later and is remarkably intact. I can't see myself choosing to live in a metropolis (although the prospect is intriguing) however, I feel honored to live near enough to be able to explore its relics and learn its history through exploration. Marisol and I ended our jaunt by hopping on the El again and rode it until we exited at stop we deemed compelling, wandering around another hour before returning home. It was just the ticket to get out of the house, meet warm people, wander about, and take hundreds of pictures.
Happy wandering :)xo Lara

Adventures in Library Land part 1.

Making collages when bosslady is in a meeting or out to lunch using scraps, junk mail, and office supplies.

Discovering the beauty of delicate white-out webs.
Slipping away to browse the stacks, admire the artwork, take pictures, and find natural light.

The starry eyed magician.

The leader of the pack (vroom vroom)

The lush.

Love From Chicago.

This week we explored Chicago like a new breed of tourist--one without purpose but with a sense of direction. How silly to deprive myself of the best attractions my city has to offer because of my disdain towards those who adhere to the beaten path and its sickening commercialism.
In truth, I have found that it is also those whose goal it is to live "off the beaten path" who are deluded for they naively believe that path less traveled is not comparably commercial and restricting. Na'mean?

First stop: a water taxi to Navy Pier. The driver was fond of our Chucks (furry leopard print and classic black, respectively) and we were fond of his very important dreadlocks.The Museum of Modern Art is free on Tuesdays. This was in the shop--where I agonized for a good hour about which books I couldn't live without. I decided on The 1000 Journals Project, The Guerrilla Art Kit, and This Book Will Change Your Life (in a facetious sort of way).
We had the pleasure of seeing Cindy Sherman's work.MOMO also has free jazz concerts Tuesday nights --a swanky cashbar on the patio and couples picnicking on the lawn below.We fell in love with this place and its amazing gelato. It took a lot of staring and a few taste tests but we opted for Chocolate/Spumoni and Pistachio/White Chocolate.She wanted to show me the sunset over the city.
I pretended to be foreign.
So many beautiful accents and people.We had sat at this beach earlier.The fountain in front of L'Appetito at night.
We both have a thing for falling water--from both natural and human-made structures.
We seek out secret fountains and waterfalls. The only caveat was that we spent an unholy wad of cash on coffee at Starbucks and Ghiradelli and it was mere water dressed in brown. This is my disappointed face.Luckily dashing out of one's car and dancing randomly in subdivision parking lots and at railroad crossings can cure the bad coffee (and most) blues.
...
I've been thinking a lot about decision making this week--and in just looking over this post it is evident that I have serious probs when it comes to making them. When you stare at an ice cream freezer in Jewel for forty minutes before deciding which two flavors to purchase, you need help. If I freak out about the most inconsequential of decisions--how can I decide which college to transfer to? How will I make the right decision about the the things that are important? Simple: stop agonizing about making the right decision in the first place, pooface.

- ♥ -

Summer adventure planning.

This past weekend was aweshum. On Saturday we went to Navy Pier for the Chicago Green Festival, which was filled with yummy organic food samples with some dancing hippies and cat ears thrown in (my fave). We walked back to Ogilvie in the pouring rain trying to keep each other warm and then stuffed our faces with the contents of a Taco Bell Big Box affirming my poorly practiced belief that just because it's cheap doesn't mean you should do it.
Sunday was Museum Day in my neck of the woods so we made sure to hit the art museum. Took quite a few pictures with our camera phones for inspiration. Then walked over to Caribou and relaxed for a few hours to play with our journals and make lists of all of the things we want to do and experience this summer together.

by agent pineapple
Me making the list below in her journal at Caribou

by agent pineapple
Our supplies and adventure brochures gleaned from The Green Festival and Museum Day

The list
This weekend there will be bike riding, forest preserve, taboo taboo, fireworks, and a BBQ :)
I can't wait to check things off.
We're list people.
-♥-

winter birches and adventure.

This week has been amazing with four wonderful snow days (some self-declared) and resulting adventures. I've been thinking a lot about how to connect with others and am working to forge new friendships. I feel lucky every time I have the pleasure of meeting someone who is eager to reach out to others. They encourage me to reach out back and to reach out to those that are more apprehensive and less trusting.

On Monday night my lovely lady and I went to a beautiful bohemian apartment located above a storefront, being rented by two of the warm people with whom we have become recently acquainted. We had a couple beers, chilled to music, and talked for hours. I'm always pleasantly surprised to encounter warm, hospitable folks my age. It seems to be on the decline with my generation.

On Tuesday, we watched Across the Universe with my mother, which only furthered our collective love for director Julie Taymor. If you're into the late sixties, it's a must see. The characters are modeled after sixties greats such as Ken Keasey and Timothy Leary with Terry Gilliam style animation.

Yesterday we trekked to a big box store and Jewel in search of sleds with a friend of mine from high school without any luck. But we did have a dance party in the cramped flower refrigerater and played with the squash at Jewel. It seemed like a good idea to drive behind the shopping center and dumpster dive for cardboard boxes to use as sledding implements at the time. We did not anticipate getting stuck in the snow though. After half an hour of shoveling and pushing we managed to escape unscathed (unless you count the snow ball fight). We dragged our boxes up the hill with the aid of tequila only to learn that cardboard is not as conducive to sledding as we had been led to believe. Fortunately, there was an abandoned deflated air bed that was the perfect size for all three of us to slide down together. There was also a skateboard deck that picked up mondo speed :)

It seems all to easy to succumb to one's hermitic tendencies in the winter, especially when it snows for most of the week. In sending out the right energies though, opportunities present themselves that entice one out of the house . It was just the ticket: a little fun and adventure.
-♥-