This Isn’t a Proper Unboxing Video Because Then You’d Have to Watch Me Take Off Gloves and Wash My Hands

Ahhhhh look what arrived today! My first ever zine! It’s a beauty. Artists on the Lam presents: LAMINATOR Vol. 1, featuring artwork, poetry, and prose by 68 artists, poets, and writers from all over Chicago, the country, and the world. 108 pages, 5.8 x 8.3 inches, full color pages on satin paper, gloss covers with gloss lamination, perfect bound. Thank you to Mixam for printing these! And thank you again, of course, to all the incredibly talented contributors!

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Within the next week or so I’ll be mailing zines to everyone who pre-ordered it (and I’ll send email notifications when I do). If you haven’t ordered yet, head on over to this page!

I’ll also drop off five copies at The Art Center Highland Park’s gift shop this Friday during the opening reception of the exhibition I’m in; it’ll cost more there, but since there’s no shipping, the total comes out to about the same.

Can’t wait for you to see the inaugural issue of LAMINATOR!

Click into Place

My 2014 photo Petal—shot on my iPhone 5s—has been selected to be exhibited in Click at The Art Center Highland Park! I remember taking an oil painting class at TAC the summer I was 19 and it was a lovely experience, and I’m overjoyed to show my art there. Thank you to guest jurors Paula Chamlee and Rose Blouin and curator Caren Helene Rudman for choosing my work.

The Art Center Highland Park. Photo via TAC.

When:
March 1 – April 6, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, March 1, 5:30-8pm

Where:
The Art Center Highland Park
1957 Sheridan Rd., Highland Park, IL 60035

Petal, 2014.

A few days ago I was a guest speaker at University of Illinois Chicago again! Thank you again to Carrie McGath for having me in your English classes.

A zine sneak peek: Can't Shake It by Chicago painter Laura Catherwood.

And zine progress updates:

For contributing artists, poets, and writers, and for everyone who placed a pre-order: Thank you so much for your patience with the production of Artists on the Lam’s new zine, LAMINATOR Vol. 1! The publication is currently in the process of being professionally printed, and it’s estimated that this first batch will be delivered to us in bulk by March 1. Soon after we receive the bulk shipment, we’ll mail your zine (or zines for those of you who pre-ordered multiple) to you, and will send you an email notification as soon as we do.

Another sneak peek of the artwork: Água Viva (Translation: Living
Waters) 1 by Pedro Patti, a 25-year-old Brazilian photographer.

For everyone else: No worries if you didn’t pre-order a copy/copies but would still like to, or later decide you’d like to in the future; I’ll have extra copies just in case!

Zine art: An oil painting called Succession Finale by Evanston painter Kathy Halper.

Zine contributor Kathy Halper’s [relatable for many—maybe even most—artists, myself included] statement:

“A funny thing happened in 2020. I realized I was enjoying the shut-down. Like a lot. It was the life of which I had always dreamt. Suddenly the world was aligned with my anti-social instincts.

I became hyper-focused on my routines and relationships. With affection and tongue-in-cheek awareness of the tedium of life, I began oil paintings focused on the rut of 30 years of marriage, dogs in my personal space and staring at screens. My goal: to preserve and observe life while I live it.

Warped perspectives emerged as a way to create tension in benign stories, as well as insert my own ever-present anxiety where there would appear to be none.

I am inspired by artists such as Marisol and Faith Ringgold, who used folk art to simplify and subvert expectations, and Grayson Perry for his irreverent humor. I also love the painterly interiors of Bonnard and Munch. What has emerged is a personal and clear eyed, if skewed, diary of my life.”

Kathy also currently has a solo exhibition at Evanston Art Center called JOMO: The Joy of Missing Out, where you can see this piece (and others) in person. The show will be on view for a couple more days, until February 18. Congratulations, Kathy!

Happy Black History Month! One more zine sneak peek:
An oil painting called Ecstasy, Passion & Pain by Patrick Earl Hammie.

Lastly, some fun stuff to kick off 2024:

• Here’s an outfit I wanted to show off. (Thanks Chicago Fashion Coalition for inviting me to Soundpost: Perception at Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Center!)
• Do you ever get an idea for a doodle where you’re like, “This is so silly. …I have to do it”? My Eminem x Midwestern Ope mashup sketch is an example of that.

Happy and healthy Year of the Dragon!