Striking Out on Our Own

So, what are we doing during the Chicago Teacher's Strike? We are reading, doing the remainder of our Summer Bridge activities (which we were too busy to do during summer), and we were sightseeing around the city. We stopped in the other day at one of our favorite sites. The Garfield Park Conservatory. It's a gorgeous place to visit...in an unfortunate neighborhood.

And we picked a great time to visit. They have ART! Art amongst the plants. This is something that they have done a lot in past years. I remember seeing the Dale Chihuly sculptures when Hannah was still in a stroller. The conservatory is over a hundred years old, and Jens Jensen was one of the movers and shakers in its inception, but it was very badly damaged by hail last summer. They're still working on restoring the plants and rooms, and replacing the glass.

One of the great things about the conservatory is that I am always surprised by the creativity that they manage to put on display. This year, instead of importing an artist, the conservatory employed twelve different Chicago artists to make art installations throughout the conservatory. We had a great time finding them all. Although I didn't manage to photograph everything, here are a few of our favorites.

There were the hanging fruits...they looked like tomatoes hanging from the ceiling, but they were planters. They also looked like little round squid, or an alien about to drop on your head, but hey, it's art!

There were towers of caps from detergent bottles. It was really kind of neat. I never would have done it, but I don't pretend to be an artist.

There was this...net thing. Balling wire, screening, and...well, we thought it was a cocoon from which a large butterfly must have emerged. This thought was enhanced by another display that looked exactly like a large rice-paper cocoon prior to the emergence of  a super-sized butterfly, but I didn't get a photo.

But even without the artists, there is plenty to contemplate and observe at the Conservatory. Like These melon shaped things. I don't recall what they were, but the kids were kind enough to stand beneath them looking thoughtful...or angry. Or thoughtfully angry because their mother put them in danger of being brained by mystery fruits and they really question Mom's judgement sometimes.

The Conservatory is more than plants inside. Outside, we were able to not only interact with nature, but also with traffic cones. The kids played conservatory bingo, looking for everything from rabbits to goats. This unusual sculpture was not on their bingo card, surprisingly enough.

The traffic cone sculpture from a distance. The lily pond is gorgeous.

These goats were on our bingo cards. The placard explaining the presence of goats on the west side of Chicago was, unfortunately, written in chalk. I was unable to read most of it. They appear to be at the Conservatory as part of an urban farming experiment.(?) To the credit of the goats' proprietor, you can't get much more urban than the west side of Chicago.

A lovely Morrocan fountain. More beautiful art...and more interactive than you'd think. I saw someone washing their hands in it after they ate lunch. 

My kids are fascinated with the idea of meditation. Lucky for us, there is a labyrinth that is well-maintained here with instructions for walking it. They waited until another lady was done with the walk, and they took off--reasonably slowly. Hannah later said that her favorite part was getting her shoes wet in the waterlogged beginning and ending. I guess that if that's how she achieves inner peace, I can't knock it. I just wish she hadn't been wearing my shoes.

Precious, precious fishes! Actually some really honking huge koi. We always have to visit them.  We were even allowed to feed them once. It was a highlight. I think the kids like to hang out here just in case we're ever asked to feed them again.

The kids and I wandered around the Conservatory for several hours. Hannah and Caleb insisted on travelling apart from me for most part of our visit. I didn't mind. I like it when they get along; it happens so rarely these days. The quiet was soothing to me, and the ultra-oxygenated atmosphere is good for the lungs. 

Did we learn anything? I'm sure we did. I'm just not sure what yet. Sometime knowledge takes time to sprout and grow. Like the plants there. The Conservatory is growing a lot of new plants after the destruction of the hail storm. It's going to take awhile though. They have the huge Show Room closed so that it can be used as a makeshift propagation house because several greenhouses were mostly destroyed. It's going to take time to regrow and rebuild. 

Damage from the hail storm on a greenhouse roof.

The Fern Room after the hail storm.

The Fern room today.

But in the midst of this rebuilding, regrowing, and searching for elusive knowledge there's always room for fun! The Museum of Contemporary Art has an installation right next to the gift shop. It's a room filled to the ceiling with balloons. White balloons. Thousands of white balloons. Visitors to the Conservatory are invited to go inside.

So we did...
...and we got lost in the art...
...and it was a great place to spend the afternoon. I think I want to go back. Funny that something that's been around for 105 years can feel new all the time.

Hannah and the TorNATO

We had the NATO conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Hannah began drawing a cartoon for me. She had no idea what NATO was, but she watches a lot of storm-chaser shows. After listening to the news, she decided that Chicago was in for a torNATO. Here is her artistic interpretation of our week in Chicago. (And yes, Hannah is a HUGE manga fan.)

We watch a lot of weather shows. The story starts with the meteorologist predicting the weather...

Read from right to left. These two are police officers. You can tell because they are wearing badges...sorry the quality isn't great. I'm doing my best here.

On the left, cut off in the picture is lightning and a note that we are now downtown

Of course, the storm isn't the only thing getting violent downtown!

Our intrepid police officers off to help their comrades!

...and from behind the buildings downtown comes a ???
(the word is VOOM...some people have interpreted it incorrectly)

Luckily the officers stop in time!!

Yes, the torNATO has arrived. If you look closely you can see that all the protesters are inside of the torNATO along with several protest signs. The big one in front reads "We are the 99%" (Of course, she pointed out that we are kind of like the 50%...we aren't super-rich, but we aren't poor either.)

And finally, left alone, the officers are a little bit freaked out. The meteorologist, however, is pretty pleased with himself.

And there you have it! A ten year old's interpretation of NATO! She wrote the script, she developed the characters, she drew and shaded the pictures. My photos really doesn't do her work justice. She did a very good job with black and white shading, characters, concept and execution. She was very organized. Very thorough...and she used correct spelling and punctuation. In the whole thing, only one apostrophe is missing (the apostrophe in "let's", and honestly, that's a difficult one.) She figured out all the spelling and grammar herself. I am pleased with her commas, but I'm just a geek.

No...I'm not just a geek. I'm just a proud (and geeky) Mom. That's my girl. She made me laugh. 

Crazy Hat Day

The kids were talking to the girl who lives across the street. She's currently attending Portage Park School (our school) and let my little chickens know that it's spirit week. So in honor of Spirit Week in our school, we have a different theme every day. Today the theme was "Crazy Hat Day!"

Caleb made his hat the Tower of Gogurt
Hannah made her hat the Rainbow Cat.


I told them to use whatever art supplies they wanted, and just go to town. They went into the recycle bin and the art drawer and then followed my instructions and just went to town. When I woke up this morning, they were both walking around with their wonderful hats on their heads, deservedly proud of their creations. Their creativity always catches me by surprise, and I don't know why. "Mom, you know us. Why are you always surprised?" Hannah asked, rolling her eyes at my delight.

Good question. I don't know why their creativity tickles me so much. Maybe I'm so used to being let down,  that I'm always grateful to be pleasantly, happily surprised. Maybe it just proves that I'm not as cynical and jaded as I think that I am sometimes. I hope these kids never stop surprising me--in a good way-- no matter how much it frustrates my daughter to have her mother giggle over the wonderfully silly and thought-provoking things they create.

One more view of the Rainbow Cat. Notice the ears?

My Artistes

We finally made it to the Art Institute today. (Note: this Chagall mosaic is not in the Art Institute, but rather in Exelon Plaza, which used to be Bank One Plaza or something like that. I don't know.) We got off the el at Monroe, went upstairs, and there was this lovely mosaic. This set the tone for the day. Beautiful, slightly insane, off kilter...
"Why are there birds falling from the sky?!" at the top of our lungs kind of day.

"Because, my dear, my darling, my love, my life--that is how the artist saw the world," said Mommy for the umpteenth time wearily.

"So lots of birds used to fall out of the sky? This says 1942. Did a lot of birds die in 1942?"

"I don't know, we'll have to look it up, won't we?"

"They were strange in 1942."

*sigh* And you are totally normal, I suppose?

The day was fun, but a mixed bag. We took the el downtown--always a treat--saw this Chagall, went to the museum, saw the Impressionists, some Old Masters, American Art prior to 1900, Architectural Artifacts, Textile art of the United States prior to 1900, the America Window (another Chagall) the Thorne Miniatures, Asian sculpture and art...it was kind of like the Cliff Notes of art. We were speed dating the major artistic movements that predated the 21st century.

"I like art, don't be offended," Hannah announced to me as we also saw the cafeteria, "But when you see a lot of it in big quiet rooms, it gets a little um...." she was thinking of a nice way to say boring, I was sure. "Too much," she finished.

"You know what I noticed?" Caleb asked, again at the top of his lungs when we were standing in front of  Monet's water lilies. ("These rooms are so quiet I don't always know if you can hear me," he explained.) "These artists--they're artists because when you look at what they did, they just globbed paint on their pictures, but it actually looks like something! That's why it's art."

"Do they have a museum store?" Hannah demanded.

Why, yes. There was a museum store. I didn't get them anything though. Enlarging their minds should be enough. It's a tough job to squeeze more in those big heads of theirs though. I only hope some of it sticks--like the gobs of paint that make up water lilies.

Arts Week - Day 2

On the Banks of Plum Creek--Nellie gets suckered

The Mouse and the Motorcycle-Ralph Saves the Day

Esperanza Rising-The cabin & occupants

Runaway Ralph-Ralph on the road

  So today we had spelling, math and history. After that the kids decided to make dioramas of their favorite scenes from the books they recently read. The top two dioramas are from earlier this year (On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder made by Hannah, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary made by Caleb) Today they made new dioramas of the books we just finished. Caleb read Runaway Ralph (second in his series) and Hannah read Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz. There weren't the books that we were sent by the homeschool company, but I didn't feel like teaching the ones they sent. What's the use of a MA in Reading Education if you can't improvise? I'm glad we changed the books. Esperanza takes place in California during the depression and since we traveled to California, we had a lot to compare and talk about. Caleb loves the Ralph books, and I like them better than the basal reader we were sent. Nothing against the basal, but Caleb doesn't get much out of it.

We also had a great discussion comparing the books. Hannah decided upon reflection that Esperanza's life was tougher than Laura's simply because she didn't have a father and wasn't used to being poor. Caleb let me know that if he had to choose friends from the two books he read that he would rather have Keith than Garf. Garf was always making deals, and he didn't seem to be much of a friend if there was nothing in it for him.

Not bad for an art day. And the dioramas were great. Hannah's isn't quite finished. She wants to put some pictures on the wall like Isabelle did in Esperanza Rising. I'm glad she remembered, because I sure didn't.