Western Avenue Series

Mile 15: Kinzie-Division
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.

 At long last I have completed the next painting in the Western Avenue Series.  A series of obligations related to my studio facilitation at Archeworks, the holidays, and social obligations resulted in a stagnation in my progress.  I hope to return to more regular schedule now and I'm excited to have completed two thirds of the paintings and to be drawing closer to the portions of Western Avenue with which I am most familiar.  


It was a delight to paint this classic old car dealership with it's colorful signage and surprisingly unimpressive collection of used cars for sale.  There are 70 new and used car dealerships located on Western, so I knew that I wanted to include one in the collection.