City of Bliss

Growing up I used to think that Chicago was just a city of big blocked buildings with no artistry whatsoever. Maturity and more time spent downtown has taught me that beauty and bliss exist throughout the city, if we only take the time to look.

I've made several sojourns downtown recently and it seems as everyplace I look there is amazing art and artistry in the most unexpected places. We've made several trips to Rosehill Cemetery over the last year or so to look at the amazing funerary art and wonder at the stained glass windows in the mausoleum. Once you get past the creepy and oppressive feeling of being surrounded by tons of granite and monuments to the dead, the mausoleum is an amazing place that is full of beauty. The lower level has individual rooms that each have a beautiful and personalized stained glass window. When you walk through in the afternoon when the sunlight is streaming through the windows, the corridor is full of rainbow light that brings peace and happiness to your soul. The John G. Shedd (yes the aquarium guy) has a chapel on the first floor with blue lights that when the sun is shining just right transform the chapel into the color of the Caribbean.

Downtown Chicago, artisans have turned even the ordinary into the artistic. One of the bridges over the Chicago River has amazing bronze medallions along the steel railing. Although at first glance, they look like five pointed stars, in reality they are flowers. At the entrance to the bridge, there is another medallion of a six leaved clover. Even the rusted steel itself provides beauty to those who look closely enough and see beautiful play of light and patterns on the structure.

Chicago is also a city full of art both big and small. Our most famous sculptures are the Picasso that stands guard over Daley plaza and the giant silver bean downtown, but other sculptures can be found throughout the city. I was walking back from Ogilive station to our hotel tonight and I detoured so that I could walk by the Brittanica building and I found an amazing sculpture that looks like a boy walking along the top of an inverted V.

Chicago also hosted the "American Gothic" sculpture downtown and it was viewed by millions in its spot by the Chicago Tribune building. Although the original is housed in the Art Institute just downtown, more people visited the statue in the 18 months it was in residence than have ever gone to see the original.

That's the amazing bliss of street art, it brings unexpected beauty, humor, and bliss to our everyday lives. The art of the everyday isn't something you have to make a special excursion (and pay an entrance fee) to see, all you have to do is pay attention to the wonderfully blissful world around you.