31 May 2013, Day 360 -- The Wall

This Father's Day weekend, we'll celebrate the twentieth annual Artist of the Wall festival along the lakefront in Rogers Park. In preparation, the entire length of the wall has been whitewashed, with the sad exception of one small section, painted last year by a young man named Terrence, who died a victim of gun violence since painting his section of the wall last June. 

For more information on the festival click HERE.

POSTSCRIPT: The Artist of the Wall festival is something that i look forward to every year, and some of the earliest posts on the Photo du Jour show last year's preparations and the festival itself. My original plan was to try to maintain this blog for one year, posting at least one picture a day; at this point i am just five days short of reaching that goal. I've decided to continue the blog through the upcoming Festival of the Wall before putting it on hiatus while i decide how or if i should continue it in some other fashion. To be honest, i've surprised myself by keeping it going this long, and am amazed at how rarely i've had to resort to posting pictures of my dog, my cat, or my tschotskes; but there are days when i realize that i've taken pictures that are almost exactly the same as ones that i've posted in the past: it's surprising how small my area of operations tends to be. So rather than get stale or repetitive, i'll be taking a break in the middle of June.

17 June 2012, Day 12

It was a gorgeous day today, and i returned to the beach for the conclusion of the Artist of the Wall Festival. Here is another picture taken from the same vantage point as the ones posted yesterday and 13 June. 

Here is a random sampling of some of the paintings: 

This was my favorite. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do it justice. There was a lot of gilding and the colors were much more vibrant in the sunlight.

One of two variations on Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

In these trying times, even Marlin has been radicalized.

Parody of Magritte's "The Treachery of Images" (translation: "this is not a shoe")

16 June 2012, Day 11, Pt.2

This picture was taken from the same spot as the one that i posted on 13 June. What a difference a few days and a well-organized community festival can make! The Artist of the Wall Festival got underway this morning, and as you can see, people are having a good time transforming the wall for another year. I'm planning to take more pictures tomorrow afternoon when the painting is completed.

An odd little side note: Holy Wall-scrawler, Batman! Apparently, much as nature abhors a vacuum, the Almighty abhors a blank wall and sees it as an opportunity to reach out and save our wayward souls. Sometime between the whitewashing of the wall earlier this week and the beginning of the festival today, messages like this one were written on several sections of the wall. According to the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, this is not the first time God has turned graffitist, but i think She must have had better materials than this crayon to work with back in the day. Mene, Mene, indeed!