So my art department went on its semesterly trip to Chicago last Tuesday. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago and to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and of course I brought my camera and took many photographs. So I thought I’d give a narrated tour of my trip to Chicago in pictures.

Part One – Art Institute

We took three charter buses at about 8am Eastern Time and left Grand Rapids to get to the Art Institute fifteen minutes before opening at 10:30am Central Time.

Art Institute Lobby

Now, I’ve been to the Art Institute half a dozen times in the last 18 months, I have the place memorized forwards and backwards, and since we weren’t on any sort of tour, I hit up all my favorite rooms. I oogled my favorite painting in the impressionists wing again and looked at all the Miniature Thorn Rooms that I have a fascinating book on at home. There was some spectacular photography by Yousuf Karsh in the basement as well.

Part Two – Park

Cloud Gate "The Bean"

Once I had skipped through all the exhibits I wanted, me and a small group of people walked through Millennium Park in 20ºF winter weather. It’s my policy, that any chance you have to see “the bean” in Chicago, do it. So, we went to the bean!

And as is tradition for most people with the bean, you always take fun self portraits. Here is one of mine.

Self Portrait in the Bean

After that, we made our way into the nearby Giordano’s Pizzeria for lunch. My four friends split a large deep dish pizza. But I’m a sucker for pasta so I ordered a delicious plate of cheese ravioli. I don’t regret it, though I’ve still never had deep dish pizza. Hahaha!

Part Three – Cultural Center

Fat Pigeons

So we backtrack a little bit and go to the Cultural Center which I still, to this day, don’t quite understand it’s purpose. But we saw some enormously fat pigeons and two more small art exhibits which were not that fascinating.

Cultural Center

Though one thing I love about the Cultural Center is the fact that it used to be the public library and they have amazing tiled ceilings with famous author’s names and quotes about books and reading and several glass domes inside.

Part Four – Hike

Frozen Chicago River

After that, it was a journey across the city to the Museum of Contemporary Art.  Along the way we crossed the Chicago River which I had never seen frozen. It was cool. (Haha! Get it? “Cool?”)

Me and the Silver Moose

Then we walked past on of the coolest scupltures ever. I just call it the silver moose. I got my picture taken with it because meese (yes, meese) are one of my favorite animals and it’s just full of bad assery.

Then, I made sure we stopped into the Apple store. I had to update my Twitter,  of course! Apple Stores are always fun though. And they’re a safe bet when you’re a broke college student because you know you can’t walk out with any purchases because it’s all too expensive. Yay!

Part Five – MCA

We finally made it to the Museum of Contemporary Art which had really awesome exhibits but they were dumb and didn’t allow photography. Still, there were these awesome light exhibits by Jenny Holzer that would have been awesomely fun to photograph but their security guards watched like hawks and were rude. But here are two videos of the different installations on the MCA website.

Orange Floor Installation

Purple

I also got a picture of the underside of their staircase which is really cool and sculptural, if not oddly uncomfortable to walk up.

MCA Staircase

And that was the end of the trip! Other than the bus ride back home where I got bored and started taking long exposure shots of car and street lights going by. Go here to see a map of the full route I walked and buildings I visited.

So, I’ve done something I promised myself I wouldn’t do this year, and I’ve done it twice. I’ve become an officer of two student organizations. Before you say, “Oh, but that’s such a good thing to be a part of!” let me tell you that I agree. But I have something to explain.

In high school, I was Secretary for two organizations, a grant giving committee my sophomore year and my school’s chapter of the National Art Honor Society (NAHS) which I helped to start my junior year. Let me tell you, that it sucks to be the “responsible kid” and be voted Secretary which means you’re stuck taking lots of boring notes. This is even more of a pain when you don’t even take notes in your classes as it is, but people always assumed I was the “smart kid.” FALSE! I hated taking notes and I had been slacking off in my classes since middle school and was a solid A/B student. And I was the furthest person possibly interested in taking notes.

Whatever! Point is, I’m a decent person, and I did it anyways, and I did my job well. So well, that my senior year, both organizations had voted me President. With a busy senior year schedule of both high school and college classes, and meetings sometimes at the same time (not by my choice) I would often have to end up choosing which meeting was more important for me to attend. This meant a lot of pressure.

Long story short, my freshman year of college (a busy one by most standards) I promised myself I wouldn’t get too involved in student organizations so I would have more time to relax, de-stress, do homework, etc. Well, I joined Apples & Oranges, the university’s Mac user group and I became one of the regular members (cuz I’m an awesome dork like that) and they needed a Vice-President ASAP for some requirements, so BAM! I’m a VP. Which was okay because I honestly don’t do anything.

But, I made it worse by deciding one night where I was obviously light on homework, that my university of 20,000+ students really needed a Photography Club! You’d think that a university of this size that they would have a photography club already! I mean, there’s a Harry Potter Club and a Knitting Club but not Photography Club??? So I started one. Yes, me. Which means my freshman year, I’m running around from building to building, playing e-mail tag trying to reserve a classroom, messaging masses of potential members, trying to get this club up and running and make it interesting so members will want to come and stay.

Yes, student organizations are a great thing to be involved in, but I promised myself not to join too many. I went out and did worse than opposite of that and started a brand new organization which means 10x more responsibility than joining too many in order to preserve my sanity. So, why did I do this? 1- because I’m awesome, duh. 2- because I know that it will be so worth it later.