Pac-man in subway drain tile and Easter eggs
Designing hidden surprises in everyday patterns.
Fun with trains
Photographing with a five-year-old iPhone
Most times your five-year-old iPhone works just fine as a camera. Today, I stepped off my train, and I looked up, the sunset nearly knocked me over. Whoa! So intense! I grabbed my iPhone from my pocket and snapped a few pics. Even though my iPhone 5s is well over five years old, it still …
Transit tokens as investment
Philadelphia is retiring their transit tokens. I urge people to go and buy as many tokens as you can. They will be worth the investment 20 years from now. How? Let’s use Chicago as an example. In 1999 Chicago phased out their transit coins. At the time, fares cost $1.00. Now the CTA tokens are …
From transit fare increases to Ewok poop
I love having several fictional Twitter accounts–the Death Star librarian, an Ewok, a baby Ewok, extreme croquet player, and so on. These fun accounts can work in tandem for some pretty silly responses to tweets. The Chicago Tribune digital editor tweeted about Chicago’s tax hike for their transit service. Which then eventually lead to talk …
Celestial nebulas come to planet Earth
The textures of the nebulas play very nicely with the urban textures. The rust texture on a garbage can looks just like a nebula cloud. What is so large in outer space is mimic’ed on something so small as a humble garbage can planet Earth. I take NASA photos of nebulas, print them out onto …
The day I wrapped a tree branch with the galaxy
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 around the world are embedded on the exterior of Tribune Tower in Chicago. One of …
How to photograph a window drawing on the bus or train
Time is short. People are watching you. Will you have the guts to draw something fun on a foggy window on the bus or train? These questions faced me this morning as with below zero degree temperatures in Chicago. Commuters pack the train on their first day back to work after the Christmas holiday. All …
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The cracked screen project
Someone on the train is using a phone with a cracked screen. I ask the person to pull up a photo on flickr or instagram. Then I take a photo of the person’s cracked screen showing the photo. People using cracked-glass phones are very interesting to me. How the lines interact with the content on …
23 questions on a train ride
You encounter what appears to be a wall of notes written by a crazy person. 23 sticky notes arranged on a grid by a seat on the train. Many reflective questions that question our perspective of life. Questions of self-awareness and human nature. Why would someone be rapid-firing all these questions onto sticky notes on …
12 things I love about Chicago’s CTA public transit
We love public transit, we hate public transit. Occasionally there are days that challenge us, as the Chicagoist demonstrates with its post, “9 Unfortunate Thoughts We’re All Are Having On The CTA.” While releasing angst about commuting can be therapeutic; on a daily basis being negative can wear you down. Instead it’s good to be …
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What a public artist learned from cute motivational sticky notes on the train
Boredpanda.com reports: October Jones (real name Joe Butcher), the prolific writer and illustrator… is at it again with a fun series of sticky notes featuring a grimly determined cat named Peppy posing next to motivational messages. He draws them and leaves them in the trays of the train he takes for unsuspecting fellow commuters. If …
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