Packing up and Moving out.

Well there you have it and this brings us to the last day that we were to set foot in what has really become our second home. Actually, it had become our home, that is if home is where you spend most of your time. Since Tali had a flight back to Amsterdam the next morning we thought it would be great if we broke things down and got all packed up by 1pm and then were able to take a quick Chicago sight seeing tour and pick up a few souvenirs for the folks back home.

We knew all the paintings and the gear had to fit back into the Yukon, but since we seem to have added more things that we got rid of we were not sure how it would all fit. 

After a conversation with Cara from I AM Logan Square the other night, where we joked about her taking the 68" X 96" Marbin painting and displaying it in her apartment. So, in a moment of concern for the possibility that I might have to disassemble the canvas  and roll it up to take it home, I called Cara to ask if we could take the joking the other night a little more seriously. I left a message for her.

Before getting to the space to break down easels and the table with the lights and cameras, Alpha called and said to meet her at Murphy Hill Gallery on Homan, just south of the Eisenhower Expressway to talk to them about placing our Fellini painting. Since Alpha had hinted at wanting us to meet the owners of this gallery all week, so we swang by there on our way to Logan Square from Bridgeport.

Murphy Hill Gallery

We met with Ralph Murphy and then William Hill. Since we were just on our way to the space the only image we had of  Fellini to show them was on Tali's phone. Thank goodness for that, Bill Hill took one look and said he loved and would like to have us bring it to the gallery to be there for the opening of their East Meets West show, that would be their last show at this location. (The whole third floor of the original Sears and Roebuck offices and headquarters.)

Great we said, but how?

We left the gallery with a new  predicament how would we move this painting that was too large to fit inside this huge truck I have.

As we were driving both happy and perplexed, we got a call from Cara saying she would be honored to have the painting in her home. LOL Now we were twice as happy and also twice as perplexed.

Roof top painting transport!

Once the Yukon was back inside the space I scrounged around for something that might work. I found two 8 foot, 2 X 4's with huge nails in it. They would work by zip tying them to the roof rack... but those nails. As it turns out the only hammer I have is a half sized toy hammer that broke after the third nail was pulled. So the others were simply bent over and we were in the moving business.

Marbin being delivered.

Since Cara lived  only about four blocks away on Francisco we arranged to take that one first, as sort of a test run before having to attempt driving a painting all the way past the Eisenhower.

Moving big paintings up stairs is a fun challenge.

 

Leaning where it will hang.

 We got to Cara's met her husband and we carried the painting up three flights of stairs and after a couple of kartwheels we go the painting in place. Next stop Murphy Hill.

The old Sears Headquarter, the home of Murphy Hill Gallery.

By now, by the way, it was a bit past 1pm, in fact it was already getting to be rush hour. While we were later than we wanted to be, I was happy about two things. One it was a sunny warm day to drive with a painting on the roof, and two, we were going to have to take side streets to get there as our max speed could only be about 20mph. The stars must have been in all the right places because the delivery went flawlessly. There we were, we had our two biggest paintings safely delivered and on display. 

Up the stairs to the third floor.

Finally in the Murphy Hill Gallery

As long as we coming this far south, we thought we would also deliver a painting to Kate and Steve Strong in Bridgeport where we had been staying. So much for any sightseeing.

Tali in the salon of the Strong's house with her painting installed.

We got back to the space again about 6pm and were set to just get the rest of the stuff packed up. Alpha showed up to start cataloging all the art for the Phantom Gallery archives. Did I mention we had been not packing the art so that this task could be done? LOL Alpha announced she really wanted to go see the Chicago Urban Arts opening down on S. Halsted St. and we would have to leave in thirty minutes.

Off we go thirty minutes later with a yet unpacked truck to go see an art opening. This show was all about bicycles. Some of the art was interesting and some was not. What was fascinating was not only were there tons of people there, but so was every bicycle currier in the city. While by this time we were tired and very hungry, we did not see anyway that we would ever get packed tonight.

Is that the Parthenon or the Acropolis?

I knew that I just needed to eat something before we got back or I was going to have some sort of chemical imbalance problem. As you may well know, Greektown is on Halsted and we had to drive right through it on our way back to Logan Square. Mr Gyros, I believe was the name of the place we ate. All of the restaurants in Greektown have gyro in their name if they are not called Athena's or The Parthenon. So, at 9:30pm we were eating the first real meal of the day surrounded  by the most amazing and disgusting sea of humanity you might ever want to see while you are eating. from a man wearing what was quite possibly the worlds largest button down shirt, that fit him perfectly, to the homeless guy staring at Tali and Alpha six inches away as they ate while he proceeded to spit. Lucky for every one, he was outside on the sidewalk.

Leaving Greektown...It was snowing.

I am going to leave out the next part of the story that includes Rick Neuhaus because you just will find it too hard to believe. I mean would we ever get packed?

10:30pm, we dragged ourselves out of the Yukon so  we could pack it up. So Alpha set up her laptop and digital camera to finish documenting the hundreds of paintings and drawings we had done. As time went on, it was more and more absurd and comments became more and more sarcastic. LOL

Back to the bricks and only the bricks.

Well we did it! Yep we did, by one o'clock we were out of there. Unfortunately it was 1am. The good thing was that Alpha was going to stay in her Logan Square office all night. It was a very good thing since she had to sit on Tali's lap for that short 3 block drive. I don't think Tali would have survived driving her all the way down to 23rd St.

It was done now. It was really over. We were so over tired that we could not process anything that would have been sadness for leaving that place. Maybe it was better that way. But we were more than tired. We got back to Bridgeport, at least I think we did, I don't remember waking up in the car, so we must have made it back safely. Chances are we fell over as soon as we were inside and didn't wake up till it was time to get Tali to O'Hare.