IN PERSON:
Millennium Park Refresher and Holiday Sing-Along
4:30 p.m. on Friday, December 10
North Boeing Gallery (at Randolph)
Is your Millennium Park tour commentary feeling a bit rusty? Do you have the desire to see CTPA members? Do you want to plan an evening to enjoy Chicago’s sounds of the season, holiday lights, and good cheer?
Several guide associations around the U.S. have been holding “refresher” classes to help their membership prepare for post-Covid return of tourism, especially now that vaccinated foreign guests may enter the U.S. As a walking tour of Millennium Park is often an inclusion in a 4-hour highlights tour of the city, what better location to focus on during a CTPA refresher class?
RSVP and bring your family and friends…the more the merrier! Meet in Millennium Park at 4:30 p.m. on Friday December 10, at the North Boeing Gallery (at Randolph).
We think an outdoor walk in the park, might help everyone re-discover the winter wonders and beauty of Chicago’s most popular green space. Experienced guides will be tapped to share their circuit and commentary as we walk through Millennium Park in about an hour, relearning essential information, hearing little told stories, and discovering how to lengthen or shorten your park tour.
After the tour, you may wish to linger downtown. Check out the 108th Annual City of Chicago Christmas Tree (in MP near Washington St & Michigan Ave) or watch the skaters circling the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink or the Maggie Daley Ice Ribbon. Walk up Michigan Avenue to see the lights of the Mag Mile or go south to view the wreathed lions in front of the Art Institute.
Wander over to State Street to admire the windows at Macy’s, or stay right in MP near Cloud Gate to listen to or join in the Holiday Sing-Along that starts at 6:00 p.m. when the Chicago High School for the Arts Chorale Ensemble will perform! The Chorale Ensemble is composed of students in grades 9-12 from across the city of Chicago that have auditioned and selected to study vocal arts. The students usually perform in three separate ensembles but have combined for this special performance.
The new Millennium Park Holiday Sing-Along (previously “Caroling at Cloud Gate”) series has been reimagined to be more inclusive of Chicago’s many faith backgrounds, cultures and holiday music traditions. DCASE NOTE: Face masks are required for all Holiday Sing-Along guests. Free Chicago masks available (while supplies last). Standard & Large Print songbooks will be available onsite.
Whether you join us or not, here is some online information about the park: https://millenniumparkfoundation.org/art-architecture/
Below is info about two relatively new exhibits on view until Spring 2023.
Screenhouse by Edra Soto
Constructed from approximately 400 charcoal-hued, 12-inch cast concrete blocks, the 10-foot high pavilion-like structure comes out of an ongoing series exploring symbolic transplants of iron grills and decorative concrete screen blocks found throughout the Caribbean and the American South. These decorative screens, known as rejas and quiebrasoles, are ubiquitous in Soto’s birthplace in Puerto Rico. Born in Puerto Rico and now based in Chicago, Edra Soto is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, curator and co-director of the outdoor project space THE FRANKLIN. Edra Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico. She teaches Introduction to Social Engagement at University of Illinois in Chicago and is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
"When we call…” by Christina Tarkowski
Christine Tarkowski’s work is as extravagantly conjured as its title, taken from the 18th-century British astronomer William Herschel. The startling presence of candy-colored hand blown glass boulders suspended above and about earthbound boulders evokes a strange, yet elemental landscape–ironically similar to our environment, both natural and built. The installation, set down in the midst of the highly manicured garden of Millennium Park, seems a gentle critique of how cities build, manipulate, and re-present natural forms. Christine Tarkowski is a Chicago-based artist who works in a variety of mediums including sculpture, printed matter, photography and song. Her works range in scale from the ordinary to the monumental. Her solo exhibitions include Imitatio Dei at the Museum of Contemporary in Chicago and Last Things Will Be First And First Things Will Be Last at the Chicago Cultural Center. She is a professor in the Fiber and Material Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tarkowski’s full artwork title: "When we call the Earth by way of distinction a planet and the Moon a satellite, we should consider whether we do not, in a certain sense, mistake the matter. Perhaps - and not unlikely - the Moon is the planet and the Earth the satellite! Are we not a larger moon to the Moon, than she is to us?”