One of my ongoing projects is learning to speak spanish. At least get beyond “hola” and “como esta”. When I moved to my home quite a few years ago I became immersed in the sounds of conversational spanish all around me and only caught a few phrases. While my dedication to lessons ebbs and flows, I seem to comprehend better than speak it myself, so guess that’s a bit of progress. Shopping at the corner carnicería helps too, the check…

Yesterday I met my friend for lunch and around the corner I noticed this block of trees with huge, eye-catching tags hanging on them. Turns out this is an Arbor Day campaign by the Morton Arboretum to encourage planting of trees and announce their value to the environment. Pretty nifty. http://www.mortonarb.org/arborday

In searching out an old friend and creative collaborator I came across her blog on the creative process and workshops she offers. This was a featured video on just such an endeavor that speaks for itself. Watch it! http://corpuscreative.org/

I read this article in Sunday’s paper and liked it’s take on the subject. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/opinion/sunday/lefties-arent-special-after-all.html?pagewanted=all I also like being left handed. It’s given me a completely different take on how the world is set up favoring right handedness. Beginning in grammer school, I was taught to use scissors right handed not out of some firm belief I was harboring evil traits but because there was no lefty pair of scissors available. The lefty supply market hadn’t developed yet in the…

For years I have subscribed to the New York Times and it’s a must for me to acknowledge the photographer credits of each photo. An obligation that has introduced me visually to some fantastic photographers. I’ve come to really admire the work of Sara Krulwich who shoots the majority of the theatre and performing arts pictures. I was going to mention my desire to know more about her, if these are stills or taken in action and general observations when…

If you’ve watched my slideshow on the homepage you noticed the identity design I produced for local filmmakers Kim Lile and Sharon Zurek of Black Cat Productions. A Mind in Quicksand is their documentary on Kim’s struggle with Huntington’s disease. On May 5-7 the film will be playing at the Siskel Film Center in Chicago and please, if you can, give it a chance and go see it. I am preparing for the next phase of our marketing push for…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-listening-project/listen

The other evening I participated in my local neighborhood’s town hall meeting at Gage Park field house, set up by the city as part of the larger Chicago Cultural Plan 2012 initiative. The turnout was a few folks when I arrived but soon filled up with families and their children who it turned out were some of the dancers for the evening’s entertainment. Gage Park and Pullman were the last on the list of the city’s neighborhoods to be included…

I volunteer from time to time at Old Town School of Folk Music. It’s a great way to see a wide range of music for free and all I have to do is show folks to their seats and pick up their discarded plastic cups afterwards. (Note to those folks…really? The garbage can was sitting next to you all night long.) Anyhow, I was there last sunday to take a trip down memory lane and caught Karla Bonoff. She played…

Me and my family are once again opening the spring season by fundraising for the annual Arthritis Walk here in Chicago, May 19. Our team, the Southside Strollers, consists of siblings, partners, friends and cousins all united by our experiences with rheumatoid arthritis. My mother, a young widow, was severely disabled from the disease which thrust us as a family unit into a unique situation as adolescents and adults to become caregivers when the term wasn’t quite as fashionable as…