Chicago: Halloween with Collins and SOFA show

I headed to Chicago to spend Halloween with Collins, attend the 2016 SOFA show on Navy Pier and attend Winnetka’s Antiques + Modernism Show…

The trip to Chicago was perfectly timed with the World Series Win of the Chicago Cubs!  It was fun to see the city celebrate the win!!!  It had been 108 years since the last win and the city knew how to celebrate!!

The City turned blue and red…

SOFA show on Navy Pier Chicago

Thanks to our artist friend Elis Gudmann from tenContemporary Gallery Ellen and I again received VIP tickets to the preview party.

The Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design (SOFA) Fair in Chicago is the premier gallery-presented art fair dedicated to three-dimensional art and design.

Critically acclaimed and continuously running since 1994, what distinguishes SOFA from other top art events is its focus on three-dimensional artworks that cross the boundaries of fine art, decorative art and design.  SOFA is noted for its exceptional presentation, with an elite selection of international dealers presenting for sale one-of-a-kind masterworks in handsome, custom-designed gallery exhibits.

SOFA is held annually in the fall at Chicago’s major destination, Navy Pier, with an average of 80 dealers and 35,000 people attending. Sales at the fair are estimated at 15-20 million dollars per show.

Winnetka’s Antique and Modernism Show

The Antiques + Modernism Winnetka Show (A+M Show) is the ultimate destination for interior designers, shoppers, and collectors alike. Ranging in styles from classic to modern, the Show is renowned for exquisite home furnishings and accessories, artwork, clothing, and jewelry, exclusively available for purchase from dealers who are nationally recognized specialists. The Show’s 60-year history and prevailing reputation speak to the caliber of this spectacular style and design event.

Exhibitor Julie Harris of Kansas City, Missouri had these antique bathing suits…we loved these!

I also enjoyed seeing actual artwork of outsider artist Lee Godie…a Chicago original!

In her day-to-day life, Lee Godie was a homeless woman who made a living selling paintings on chilly Chicago streets. She kept her belongings in various lockers throughout the city, showered in hotel bathrooms, and slept outside on benches despite freezing weather.

However, in her self-portraits, taken in a photo booth at the Chicago Greyhound bus station, Godie transforms into a 1920s-era “It Girl,” dramatically dressed in furs, broaches and floppy hats, posed lackadaisically like the most glamorous of movie stars. With each individual ensemble and pose, a new, glitzy character is born.

It’s the palpable tension between the two lives of Godie — the struggling drifter and the sought after art star — that makes her images enchanting. She adorned the small black-and-white prints with various embellishments, sometimes pen or paint, other times eyeliner and lipstick smudged in the appropriate spots. On occasion, Godie rubbed instant tea on her face as a pseudo self-tanner.

According to popular legend, Godie’s tenure as an artist in began 1968, when, at around 60 years old, she was rocked to the core by an Impressionism exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Shortly after the show, all shaken and sweaty, Godie stood on the steps and publicly declared herself a French Impressionist, one “much better than Cezanne,” at that.

From then on, she painted. A lot. Godie’s paintings are flattened portraits of high society ladies, wide-eyed beauties with wide-brimmed hats, smokey makeup and cherry red lips. From her self-proclaimed inauguration into the art world in 1968 until 1990, when she was 82 years old, Godie peddled her work every day on the Chicago streets, carrying her portfolio around in a big black case.

Her paintings sold for around $20 or $30 — if she liked you, that is. “She would have her canvases half uncurled,” gallery-owner Carl Hammer explained to The Telegraph. “If she was interested in selling to you, she would let [the canvas] open up so you could see more. If she didn’t like you, she would curl it up the other way.”

During the course of her career Godie became an iconic figure in the Chicago art scene, known for galavanting about in a toga one day, a fur coat the next. She’d sing and dance when interacting with her fans, adding a performative element to her tireless art making.