Back from an eight-day stay in Chicago, where I worked at — where else? — Art Chicago. I rarely have time to poke around the city when I’m at fairs like these, but what little I’ve seen of Chicago in the last two years I’ve really loved. The architecture is astounding, and I think Philly could learn a lot from their approach to having art in public spaces.

I took some video footage of Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain. It’s a piece that’s hard to describe unless you can see it in action. One catch: I took the video in a portrait format with my camera and Flickr doesn’t have the capability to rotate it. So here’s one end of the fountain (there are two of these video pillars facing each other), sitting on its side!

[flickr video=3507504832 secret=bdf2a381e7 w=400 h=300]

This piece, as well as the other pieces in Millenium Park, all have an element of interactivity that, when presented together in such a great public space, makes for an art exhibit like no other. But you know, whatever. I’m not jealous or anything. We’ve got Rocky.

The rest of the week is too much to recap. I met some lovely people, some famous people, and some real jerks. I got hit on, I got yelled at, I got thanked. My faith in art was dashed and then restored daily. I’m exhausted.

One thing keeping my spirits up right now is that I returned to my house after a week of rain to find that my little container garden has really taken off. Here’s a picture from before I left:

I returned to:

So I had a nice side salad with dinner tonight. Can’t wait for tomatoes!