This time I’m in Chicago trying to keep up with my son. Daniel is auditioning for BFA Musical Theatre programs here an event simple called “Unifieds.” At the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, over two dozen universities gather to audition hundreds of young theatre students for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Daniel is auditioning for five different schools (he auditioned at the University of Michigan last week.) The halls are filled with hopefuls, all starry-eyed, all courageous. It’s pretty inspiring to watch.
Michigan Avenue in snow and fog.
Detail from a “Wall of Ice” installation in Millennium Park.
It’s been snowing, so I got some pictures. Then I found out this is “Free February” at the Arts Institute so I spent a couple of hours there today, again, taking pictures. I can’t help but be captured by these artists, these men and women who portray their worlds in painting, sculptures, masks, paperweights, miniature portraits, textiles, and pottery. Wandering the galleries, it is so obvious that everything changed with Modernism, as if suddenly we discovered we were something completely different than what we were before. I try to tell myself that I “get it”, but honestly, once we move beyond Impressionism, my bearings go flying out the window. I find a few pieces here and there I like for no other reason than a particular composition jumps out at me, or maybe the materials are cool, but much of it just doesn’t interest me, intellectually or otherwise.
Constantin Brancusi, Suffering ,1907
Detail from Circular Glass Plate 1880/87 (Theodore Deck – Maker / Paul-Cesar Helleu – Painter)
Detail from a Van Gogh Self-Portrait.
I could spend days just soaking it in…
JEFF BERRYMAN 
Hey, Jeff, next time you’re in Chicago, give us a little heads up and we’ll meet you down at the Art Museum. We’re just a hop, skip and a jump away! In fact, we generally visit Chicago three or four times during the summer, so we’ve got the route down pat.
We’re praying for Daniel! And wouldn’t mind at all if he went to U of M! It’s lovely out here. All that snow…
Wish I could have wandered the museum with you. The thinker and the irreverent bohemian in the hallowed halls of art. Could be fun.