I decided to invite three other street style bloggers who are also passionate about their "craft" and who have consistently posted pictures I wish I had taken myself. They are:
Monica Dimperio, from The Midwasteland, the first local street style blog to gain a considerable amount of followers and the most popular Chicago street style blog to this day;
Amy Creyer, from Chicago Streetstyle Scene, whose work has incredibly evolved over the course of one year and who updates her blog with an impressive regularity;
Emma Arnold, from Trés Awesome, who actually first approached me with the idea of putting up a street style exhibit. I had been meaning to do one for a while, but thanks to her suggestion I came to realize a show was long overdue. Emma is soon to be Chicago's street style correspondent for ELLE.com.
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So I had two weeks to set up the whole thing: promote the show, pick out the pictures, have them printed... and display them. As I was sticking posters for my show I saw this beautiful plywood wall with ripped overlapping posters on it, and I had the idea of doing something similar with the pictures: display them as if they were posters glued on some wall in the street.
I love street art, and I love ripped posters on plywood walls. The idea seemed fun and it made sense. What didn't make sense is me wanting to organize, curate AND create a kind of photo installation at the same time IN TWO WEEKS.
I did have the help of two amazing artists with the installation though.
Brett Manning, whose work I absolutely love, did the background on the panels, some of which have unfortunately been covered by the massive amount of pictures I had to show. It's still possible to catch a glimpse of her soft and whimsical touch in most of them. The reason why Brett got stuck with the background is merely due to not having pictures ready on the day she came over to my place.
Nick Marzullo, street artist, responsible for the Pawn Works Sticker Club, did all the sticker/graffiti work on the panels. His contribution was pivotal to this project, from conception to execution.
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I also had the help of my adored Efram and Asher, the two 7 and 5 year-old boys I watch. They did some abstract work on the background. They're really into Basquiat so they knew what they were doing.
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So yeah, Brett and the boys came over on Monday, I had photos printed on Tuesday, Nick came over on Wednesday and before I knew it, it was showtime. I was writing all the participants' bios literally one hour before the show. Then my computer crashed in the middle of the process and I lost it all. I REALLY apologize to Monica, Amy, Emma, Nick and Brett for not having included their bios in the show. That will be done asap.
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I also apologize to everyone who stopped by before I arrived at 8 pm. I'm sorry for having missed you!
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I'd like to specially thank Alma and Dave for allowing this to happen and for being such great hosts to my show. And my husband, Paul, who had to live with five 8x10 ft panels inside our basement apartment for a week.
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PS: THE. MOST. STYLISH. TURNOUT. EVER.
PICS COMING SOON!
PS2: If you missed the opening the photos will be up for a whole other month. You can stop by Heaven Gallery during our big sales (one happening this weekend from 12 to 6pm, and another one on the first weekend of March), during gallery hours (Saturdays 1 - 5 pm) or by appointment (pls contact Heaven Gallery).
PS3: A LOT of people whose looks I adore ended up not being portrayed in the murals. That's because 1. I simply had no space to put all the pics I like, 2. sometimes the style is great but the picture is not (which is my fault), so I ended up passing on those and 3. I had some accidents with a few of the pics and I had no time to reprint them.
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I can't begin to tell you how stoked I am to have so many dear and beautiful people show up last night. I deeply appreciate all your support.
THANK YOU FOR STOPPING BY!
