Under the Tiffany Dome

Stoked to announce that LAMINATOR Vol. 1 will also be available for purchase in Buddy, the 2,500 sq. ft. shop inside the Chicago Cultural Center! (Dropped off 10 copies in the store on Monday. The staff told me they’ll be on display in about a week!) Thank you to Buddy for inviting me to be a vendor!

And thank you, as always, to the 68 artists, poets, and writers from all over Chicago, the country, and the world whose wonderful work is published in this volume, and to everyone who’s already bought it! So far, 80 have been sold!

Make a lovely little day of it in the Loop: Visit the beloved (and newly reopened!) Bean, then hop across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park and pop into the beautiful local gem that is The People’s Palace and pick up a zine!

It’ll cost more there, but since there’s no shipping, the total comes out to be about the same.

Otherwise, you can order online here!

I’m also delighted to share that I’m one of the Urban Photo Awards 2024 Selected Photographers! And they received a record number of 17,000 submissions! Here’s my page in the competition’s gallery, featuring my photo of Shenzhen’s Zhongshuge bookstore, shot on my iPhone 12 Pro.

Almost forgot about this one since it was announced while I was traveling for the first time since The Before Times: Shot on my iPhone 5s in 2015, my photo One Step at a Time has been awarded an Honorable Mention in the 13th Annual Mobile Photography Awards in the Silhouettes category! This is my third year in a row being selected by MPA and Urban. Thank you and congrats to everyone!

(My photo: A candid of a stranger walking down the spiral staircase in the Morton Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.) View more of my iPhone 5s photography here.

And some fun stuff since our last catchup:

• As I mentioned, I traveled (and found that I was a little rusty since it had been so long): Hong Kong and Shenzhen for family and art, New York City for friends and art, and, as you’ll see below, another impromptu trip for family (and [I managed to squeeze some] art [in]). I micro-blogged about my trips on my socials; check out the photos, stories, mini history lessons, cultural highlights and recommendations, and more that I’ve posted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (like the Sears Tower and Marshall Field’s, I will never call it by its other name), LinkedIn, Tumblr, Threads, and Mastodon.
• I cannot believe I saw the northern lights in the Chicago suburbs. My mom and I were literally hoopin’ and hollerin’. Crossing seeing the aurora borealis off the bucket list, and all we had to do was go to the park across the street!
• Singling out this travel highlight: A few weeks ago I went to Las Vegas for the first time as an adult (first and last time I was ten and it was winter and I rode my first rollercoaster outside the MGM Grand) because my parents renewed their vows for their 40th wedding anniversary with an Elvis impersonator!(!) It was my Dad’s idea, and I’m glad I went because it rocked. Read more about the experience and view our group picture here. (Yes I’m wearing a Starry Night Over the Rhône by Vincent van Gogh dress.)