Vote

LEXICON made it to the final round of the Chicago Reader’s #BestOfChi voting, thanks to you! Now, vote for LEXICON (the artist statement-less interactive show I created and curated featuring 47 talented artists from diverse backgrounds in the 10,000 sq. ft. exhibition space of the Zhou B Art Center) for “Best Gallery Exhibit”! (Click the Arts & Culture category.) Thank you! [Update: Voting has now closed!]

  

(Important tip: I’m unable to view the ballot in Chrome so I assume many of you might come across the same problem; if that happens, try your phone instead, or, if you have Windows 10, use Microsoft Edge on desktop. Update: Basically, I think you need to disable ad blockers for the Reader.)

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day Weekend! (Mine consisted of this loveliness, this life-long tradition, spotting this helpful reminder in the form of street art, and—of course—this.)

Chicago house music blasted in the background
of this photo. Lurie Garden, Millennium Park.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival, everyone!

Can you tell me how to get

Artists, take charge of your own historical narrative! Submit your ephemera to the Chicago Artist Files at the Harold Washington Library; refer to the last paragraph on this page for details. I started a file of my own at Sixty Inches From Center’s Chicago Archives + Artists Festival this past Sunday, which was, well, amazing. (Here’s another [completely unrelated] reason why Sunday ruled.)

And:

As I’d mentioned in this caption, although I was born in Chicago, I’m actually ESL; Cantonese is technically my first language and I picked up Toishanese listening to my maternal grandpa. I taught myself English as a baby by watching Sesame Street on WTTW, the local PBS station. PBS is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, one of about a dozen agencies (along with the NEA and NEH) that will be eliminated under the proposed Trump Budget. These programs literally change lives. In my case, they start them. #Resist.

New Frontiers

An original story of mine (including artwork by me) will be published in New Frontiers, an original graphic novel anthology inspired by George Takei by the team behind the Asian American superhero anthology Secret Identities! Thank you so much to the editors, Jeff Yang and Keith Chow (founder of The Nerds of Color)!

Image courtesy of SIUniverse.

(Fun fact: When I was 16, I founded a free English tutoring program for immigrant youth in Chicago’s Chinatown called New Horizons. So I’d like to think this is fate.)

Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month indeed.

The back of Saturday’s daily Dreams of a City postcard has always been, on a purely visual level, one of my favorites. Thanks to Mary Iwanicki who helped leave this one. To read what was written on the front, visit @DreamsOfACity, where I’ve been sharing one mapped dream a day, every day. [Keep] follow[ing] along!

Postcard 1009 back: January 2013, Komoda (2559 W. Chicago).

And a reminder: If you haven’t done so already, I’d love it if you could take a couple minutes to nominate LEXICON for “Best Gallery Exhibit” in the Chicago Reader’s annual #BestOfChi poll! (More details and tips about the process in the previous post.) Thank you! [Update: Thanks to you, LEXICON is a finalist! Now, time to vote!]