She sneaks around the world

First words: I’ve been invited to be a VIP at the Asia Contemporary Art Show, happening this May at the same time as the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong, which I’ll also be attending as a VIP. Weeee.

Words of gratitude: Thanks to everyone who came out to The Funny Story Show last week (art, comedy, tarot card readings—it’s everything you didn’t know you wanted), and congratulations to Caitlin Bergh for a super successful show! Caitlin will continue killing it at Studio BE with CHUNKS: A One-Woman Show all February long. Here’s a preview / review by The Qu.

Words of wisdom: The other day, one of my Dreams of a City assistants told me how leaving postcards for the project is a wonderful way to actually get out there and explore your own neighborhood. She’s also seizing the opportunity to meet and get to know the owners of her local / indie businesses as she drops off a postcard in each one. These, friends, are the real-world connections we often forget we can still make. (Interested in being an assistant? Hit me up.)

Photo by Stephanie Lindquist, 2013.

Word: Glendalys Medina, one of the artists from I CAN DO THAT, is doing great things in Rome! Also check out Master Dabblers, which she, Courteney Ervin, and Stephanie Lindquist (the friend referenced in this post) started.

A tip: The Art Institute of Chicago is free for Illinois residents on weekdays, this month through February 13! (To beleaguer museumgoers or not to beleaguer museumgoers? Choosing the former did produce the top 2 most read posts of 2012 and was among the first steps in the road leading up to I CAN DO THAT. Hmmm.)

And a[n ever incessant] reminder: Are you following me on Twitter? Your feed will be lavished with everything from weekend art show and art party picks and documentation of said art show and art party picks to art and science news (at times I will be the one to break the news, unnecessarily—yet characteristically—long hashtag included) to pop and nerd culture news to local weirdness to rare windows into my life. And that’s just from this past week. (And, as a Curator curator, I promise I’ll never call any of this “curating.” People who do, you’re now on my shit list.)

Looking ahead / back / good

Happy [belated?] New Year! 2012 will be hard to surpass (see the previous post for the year’s highlights), but I have confidence in 2013 (and, based on this alone, ‘13 has already far exceeded its predecessor / leave it to me to get wound up over Twitter / but seriously Mykki Blanco really was flawless / seriously).

More of 2012’s best: My piece on Arow Collective made it to Sixty Inches From Center’s top 10 most read articles list. Check it.

Photo by Justin Barbin, 2012.

But, as great as 2012 was, we’re (yes I’m guilty of using the royal “we” and what) hitting the ground running in 2013 and have much to look forward to: Thank you so much to the current Dreams of a City assistants. Most of whom are folks I’d never met before, eager to help with a project they’d just heard about. Chicago’s art community is truly a community, and I’m ever grateful for that. If you, too, are interested in helping out, drop me a line.

And the first art event of 2013: Exquisite Corpse performance artist and I CAN DO THAT storyteller Caitlin Bergh’s first one-woman comedy show is this Sunday, and I’m helping curate the show’s accompanying art exhibit. It’s one of Chicago Magazine’s top 5 things to do this week. Go go go!