Moving in to the New Digs

Arriving again to the space at 2515 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, we approached with and enthusiasm to get started and an expectation of the unknown. and we knew there was going to be a lot of unknown.

It was cold in Chicago, wish is not unusual for the 13th of March, and inside this cavern of a space it was even colder. Tali and I stood there looking at this place as a blank canvas and the very next thing we did was pull my Yukon XL inside and unload all of it's contents.  What completely filled the vehicle looked about like the contents of a happy meal compared to how expansive the space was, and this was our first realization that we had a lot to do.

With that much room to move around we still realized that we had to think fairly seriously how we were going to set up our work place. Before we moved things around we plugged in the sound system and started playing some of the 300 some odd CDs I had brought with to listen to.  Before long we had tables and easels set up and had decided where the stage would be. About this time Gabe Patti from The Phantom Gallery stopped by to size up what was needed to construct the stage. 

Getting things in place.

The rest of the day was spent hooking up lights and cameras and organizing bins that held everything from paint and brushes to food stuffs.

We spent the day working non-stop and by the time we knocked off for the day, we still didn't feel like we really had gotten much done. But we had a shopping list that we would take to Home Depot in the morning before we returned.

Along side of all that was going on Tali had her own little docu-drama unfolding. I think Tali should tell this story.

Before coming to Chicago this time, I found an old pen pal from way back when I was a wild kid in Haifa, and he was a good nice boy from Maine. Fate brought him to Chicago eighteen years ago, and after about thirty years without contact, I found him through Linkedin. 

The high point of this first night in Chicago was having dinner in the home of my old pen pal that until then I had never met or even talked to, to hear his voice. The story could go on and on, and I won't tell it here, but having dinner with Bill and his wife Karen was a most incredible evening as we read through old letters, (we each kept them all) we each had so many memories from forty years ago that we could share, and we did. I read my own letters that I wrote about my experiences during the Six Day War. How I had to run to the shelter as the air alert went on while I was on the way to school. It was amazing that we kept corresponding as long as we did. I was even reunited with some old photographs that I had sent him and forgot that they even existed. 

Bill's pen-pal Tali.

 In one of the last letters I wrote to Bill, "See you sometime, somewhere." I DID, in Chicago! It was very emotional and was really a great start for The Colorboration Project - Chicago.

And Bill and Tali did meet after all.