Monthly Archives: November 2021

My Art Photography: JACOB WATTS (b., American), Moose Bubblegum Bubble, 2014, 33 E. Congress (South Wall), Chicago, Illinois.

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Jacob Watts, Moose Bubblegum Bubble, 2014, 33 E. Congress, Chicago,  11/2017 5.19 mb

Jacob Watts is a photographer and visual storyteller based in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of Oswego (Illinois) High School (class of 2008), Watts received his B.F.A. from Columbia College Chicago in 2012. The photo-illustration of a moose blowing bubblegum hangs on a blue wall in the South Loop of Downtown Chicago at a size of 48′ by 43′.

Jacob Watts has been passionate about the medium of photography since before he was a teenager. From the start of his interest in photography, Watts was wholly intrigued by Photoshop. Today the artist creates illustrative and conceptual images with an emphasis on post production. Most of Watts’ work consists of graphic, imaginative, surreal, and composited works from his own images. His current headline work includes images in areas entitled Strangers, Recovery: Movie Posters, Some Time Alone. Portraits, Hvrbrd, Motion, Conceptual, Things are Strange, and Building A Universe.  

According to the artist’s website, he is passionate about collaboration and finding creative solutions to exceed expectations. Watts is represented by Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago.

In the spring of 2014, Columbia College Chicago’s Wabash Avenue Corridor (WAC) Campus Committee launched a student and alumni competition to install artwork in the heart of the South Loop. Watts’ Moose Bubblegum Bubble was selected as one of the winners.

The scores of educational and cultural projects and programs that WAC advances strengthen the ties between students, artists, curators, academic institutions, cultural organizations and local businesses. Artists and curators from around the world have participated in WAC projects and programs to create murals, performance, installations, actions and large-scale projections that are always free of charge and open to the public.

This public arts program brings together the visual, performing, and other arts and media which are expansive, diverse and accessible so to provide a transformative experience to the many tens of thousands of urbanites who live, work and play in the city on a daily basis.

Starting in 2016 WAC began a focus of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and developed one of the largest street art and public art collections of women artists and artists of color. This effort continues in 2021.

SOURCES:

http://www.jacobwatts.net/

Jacob Watts

https://patch.com/illinois/oswego/former-oswego-grads-art-receives-prominent-downtown-chicago-placement-0

photograph and text:



My Art Photography: RUTH AIZUSS MIGDAL (b. 1932, American), Here, 2012, Chicago, Illinois.

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Ruth Aizuss Migdal, Here, fabricated painted steel, 2012, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago. 5/2015 3.73 mb

Ruth Aizuss Migdal was born in Chicago. The artist was educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.F.A.) and the University of Illinois at Urbana (M.F.A). Migdal was awarded an honorary doctorate from U of I, her alma mater, in 2019. Classically educated and trained in painting and printmaking, initially she created abstract paintings. Migdal turned to sculpture where, in 1971, she began exploring the female figure.

Her towering sculptures begin as a maquette and, then, as a wax mold, they are each pieced together section by section. Today the artist continues her work in bronze and steel, creating large abstracted figurative sculptures that have been installed in popular locations throughout Chicago and around the United States.

Here is a 14-foot-tall public sculpture, painted a shining bright red, that depicts a dancing female figure on the runway and poised for flight. Standing in Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo next to the Chilean pink flamingos pond, Migdal’s sensuous, voluptuous, and muscular female dancer sculpture (and others like it) are constructed and deconstructed with multiple body parts. It exemplifies a spirit of joyfulness, independence, and perseverance. Further, the artwork is an expression of strength and a lust for life.

Here is one of the major examples of Migdal’s red dancing figures – another, entitled Whirling Dervish is in Chicago’s Douglas Park. La Diva III at 2650 N. Clark Street in Chicago was Migdal’s first monumental red painted sculpture installed in a public space. The photograph is from May 2015.

Here is installed in Lincoln Park Zoo. Founded in 1868, Lincoln Park Zoo is one of the most historic zoos in North America (fourth oldest) and one of the only free admission zoos in the country. It attracts over 3.6 million visitors annually.

SOURCES:

https://sculpture.org/member/ruth_aizuss_migdal

wgntv.com/news/features/85-year-old-chicago-sculptor-has-no-plans-to-slow-down/

http://www.lincolnparkchamber.com/news-item/art-on-clark-ruth-aizuss-migdal/

https://ruthssculpture.com/

http://www.lpzoo.org/

Photograph and text:

My Nature Photography: Land, Sea, Sky — AUTUMN. (86 Photos).

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FEATURE image: Downers Grove, Illinois. October 2018.

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