Monday, July 29, 2013

Pilsen

Haha! I was at the Mexican Museum on a recent Sunday where I saw a rendering of the Mona Lisa called, you got it, Mona Lupe! It really cracked me up. I sometimes play this game with myself at museums; I think about which piece I would take home (if the taking was good that is), and this painting was the winner that day.
The museum itself is in the heart of the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago. It was previously a park district building, but you'd never really know that today, it looks just like a very nice museum; which it is. Maybe one of the the last free ones in Chicago as well. I started going there about 30 years ago when it first opened.  I've always been attracted to the neighborhood surrounding it for its liveliness, murals, and good food. So, over the years I've taken lots of photos there. I love all the Madonnas; so many doorways, alleys, unexpected places where she turns up and in so many different forms; it's great.

The neighborhood started out Czech, where the name Pilzen originally came from. Then Latinos moved into the hood due to its proximity to so many factories, and cheap rent. At some point, artists moved in for the same reason; cheap rent. Gentrification has followed the artists, as usual, chasing out the artists as the buildings get renovated and the cheap rent goes sky high. Kind of where the neighborhood is now, a mix of both high and low-end living.

For many years I went to the Pilsen Artists Open House, where the artists lined up on either side of Halsted and its surrounding streets, open up their studios and beautiful gardens. Driving down Halsted, you just see what often looks like empty buildings on either side of the street, not much indication that there are warm, creative artist spaces and fabulous gardens out back.

I have taken many groups of people to the neighborhood on field trips. We usually start by driving around looking at murals, then hit the museum, after which we often go to a restaurant on 18th Street for an authentic meal. Many people from other countries have never tasted Mexican food so it's a fun way to share and learn about another culture.

Now, I go to their Farmer's Market on lazy Sunday afternoons or to the Jumping Bean coffee shop or Vintage store across the street on 18th.  I love the smells emanating from restaurants as you walk down the streets and the sounds too. Up where I live, it's very, very quiet, so I revel in the sounds of a different neighborhood.

Then there are the murals...everywhere. The schools often have mosaics, on the sides of buildings there are HUGE murals. There is a long wall of famous Mexican women near the museum. Along the train tracks there are many, many murals; new and old. Seems like every time I visit I see new and different public art.

I took photos of doorway Madonnas on a recent visit. On that same visit, I was dropping off my friend on Alport which is right acoss from St. Procopius Church. There was a crowd of people outside and when we joined them, we found out that they were honoring a 90 something-year-old-lady who had volunteered for over 50 years there and they were having an unveiling of a mural of her on the side of the building. We got there just, just, just in time to get the very last of the speeches and then the unveiling. I got photos of the whole thing from the guy on the roof holding the cloth until it was completely revealed. That was a choice bit of timing that day.

Once I get some of these photos collected from my various devices, I'll post them here. Here's a few:

http://s945.photobucket.com/user/shaylo9999/slideshow/Pilsen