Tag: Sidewalk ideas

Poems are stamped into sidewalk squares throughout Appleton, Wisconsin. Any resident are eligible to submit poems to the program. How wonderful! What a great way for people to feel a little more ownership of their community. Resident poets can walk…

Printouts of moon rocks are being found across downtown Chicago. On the back of each printout reads: You Found a Moon Rock! This printout is the exact same size of an actual lunar sample brought back from the surface of…

I had a feeling something was going to happen while I was carrying around a eight-foot long print of the Carina Nebula.

photo by marissandrew What would you write in wet cement? Guerrilla artist Uncustomary asks this question. (She answers with “you are beautiful” in her cement) A fun phrase to write in wet cement would be, “Carve your dreams on the…

Every artist has their go-to methods when creativity runs dry. Tools like sketchpads. Working in locations like coffee shops. For me one of my methods is to make artwork to place on the front of Tribune Tower. 149 rocks from…

When one photo is able to capture multiple stories, you have a photo that tells one million words. Read about each of the stories below this loooong vertical pano photo. Flowers Emerging from a long cold winter, Chicago’s flowers grow…

Magic covers the ground with the first snow of the year. Everyone is an artist with boots acting like printing plates on the fresh white sheet. Creating prints in the ground, we look back to admire our work. Start a…

It was quite a challenge trying to re-photograph this pole at the exact same angle. The gumdrops on the sidewalk proved to be a great comparison device. Standing at the pole staring at my iPhone memorizing the exact location of…

The hand-written tag “FORGIVE” has been appearing all over Chicago for the past three years. Who does these tags? What is the origin and meaning behind this work? I made a flickr gallery of the 11 earliest FORGIVE photos found…

It always shocks me how many people have such a love affair with their cars in the city. The Chicago Tribune reported that my street Lawrence Avenue will have wider sidewalks and less lanes. Many people complained about the move.…

A Ukrainian woman yelled at me while I photographed the word “forgive” on the sidewalk. Walking down Chicago Avenue in the Ukrainian Village on a bright Sunday, I was looking for small things that I like to photograph for the…

A few years ago I was walking up the sidewalk to my parents’ house, and there was one clover growing out of a sidewalk crack. That one clover just happened to be a four-leaf clover! Since then I always look…

One of the great avenues of the world is missing something. A red carpet. Chicago’s Magnificent Mile has wonderful shopping, skyscrapers, historic buildings, and even horse carriages. But now imagine a mile long red carpet on the sidewalk. That would…

A chalk drawing on a sidewalk will dissolve when it rains. So if you leave a piece of chalk outside in the rain, will the chalk dissolve? That’s a logical connection, but I think when it rains on a chalk…

What is up with all these new lego-like plates being installed at the edge of sidewalks in Chicago? Purpose A) General Safety: The bumps would (in theory) make it harder to slip into the street. (I’m not sure of that,…

In America we drive on the right side of the road, and pedestrians tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. What about in other countries where they drive on the left side of the road. Do they…

Policeman in Chicago are now giving tickets to adult bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk and disobey stop signs. (according to Chicagoist, Gapers Block, Chicago Notebook. I’m trying to picture the scenario of a policeman giving a bicyclist a ticket…

I’m looking for a super small flatbed scanner. One that has a bed size of 4×6 or 5×7. And I’m not talking about those pen scanners. It needs to be a flat scanner. I want to take my scanner out…

Have some kid ralf all over the sidewalk in front of your booth. I saw it happen last week in front of the Staples sidewalk giveaway.

Dots on the sidewalk left by people’s gum. It’s quite amazing how so many dots form. The history of sidewalk gum dots. A) For all these gum spots to appear, there has to be lots of people who spit their…

What does a sidewalk taste like? Would it be more acidic or basic? After internet research I found: Wet cement is the number 1 cause of occupational skin disease in the United States. Wet cement burns with a pH of…

When sidewalk planters function like a Richard Serra sculpture.

i was just thinking more about that inbetweenedness stuff while i was playing around with a rubber band. It kinda relates to when you stretch a rubber band really far. That moment right before the rubber band snaps. How far…

you do anything crazy for 200220022002? y’know as much as i’m a fan of this unique number and appreciate it’s palendromic and balanced nature, I think the moment between balance and unbalance is much more interesting. Like when you’re walking…