lucid daydreams

I arrive in Chicago on Wednesday evening after barely making my connection in San Francisco. Over the next few days, the others converge: Mariah on Thursday evening, Dave and Roman on Saturday.

We're all at Gallery Provocateur by a little after 8:00 pm. It's smaller than Veronika's last gallery, three rooms: A lobby, a hallway with a bar, and a larger room to the left.

My work is in the hall, just to the right of the bar; four 11x17 or 16x20 images. Dave's work is at the far end of the larger room, and Mariah's is at the near end of the same room. The other five artists, painters or related media, are scattered about.

It's already getting crowded by the time we get there, and over the course of the evening the space ebbs and flows, ranging from near-claustrophobic to moderately crowded as people come and go, or move among rooms, or step outside to catch a breeze on this warm night.

Mariah is "creatively attired" with a long skirt of black glass beads and a black butterfly glued over each nipple, with a few small leaves glued about her torso. I'm in a black jacket, Dave in white. Friends arrive: Lauren, Natalya, John, others. V wears red pasties and tight jeans, her and Mariah walking by on occasion in front of my photos of them on the wall.

Near midnight the crowd finally thins, and we move down the street to Lucky Number to see SS-Triple-X perform. The performers are of course scantily clad, bits of black leather and electrical tape in an updated burlesque with bite. A few young goths who had been at the opening walk up to talk to us, perhaps a bit over-respectful and in awe. One of them decides she doesn't need that shirt after all, and finds a few pieces of black tape instead. Toward the very end of the evening Mariah's butterflies finally begin to succumb to the movement of dancing, and she peels them off and hands them to me. No one says anything, and the looks, while perhaps increasing in frequency, remain discreet.

We leave a few minutes before 3:00 am.

7:00 am comes much to soon, and by 8 we're at the designated Starbucks, downing coffee as Dave and Claudine arrive. We carpool to the Iron Works, and spend the rest of the morning shooting a series of nudes among the old ruins. At noon, with the temperature climbing over 90 and shade becoming sparse, we find a nearby ice cream place and relax for a while.

Now, after a few hours of sleep, It's time to prepare for tonight's O'Banion's reunion. More on that after the fact.