Western Avenue Series

Mile 12: 34th-25th Street

This painting is a part of my Western Avenue Series, through which I'll be making 24 watercolor paintings, one to document each mile of Western Avenue, in Chicago.  I started this project because while it is not considered to be among the most “beautiful” of Chicago’s streets, Western Avenue is a perfect place to document the humanness of Chicago, the positive and the negative. In the words of Stuart Dybek, "Western, with apologies to State Street, is a great street,  Unlike State, it is a street that goes to the interior, the heart of the city, as it glides and glows through a United Nations of neighborhoods."  Check back next Monday to see a post about the next mile of Western.

This painting is of a stretch of Western Avenue just south of 31st Street.  From a bridge which crosses the South Branch of the Chicago river one can see a building owned by Domino Sugar (my second Domino Sugar Factory painting).  This scene reminds me of a previous painting I made of the Finkel Steel Factory.  From this vantage point, one sees the serenity of the river, the industry which remains in Chicago, and the grace of our skyline in the background.  These scenes, where nature, industry, and large scale architecture mingle always strike me as unconventionally beautiful.


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Where do you find unconventional beauty in the city?