Indian Delights, Indonesian garage rock, Incense & a little piece of mind.

Yesterday, I had a lovely afternoon with my long time friend, Kara, traveling to the far north side of Chicago, visiting a street in a neighborhood I lived in for a time as a child. The street we spent the day romping aorund on was Devon Ave, in West Roger's Park, home to one of the largest Indo-Pakistani communities in the U.S. We went to countless fabric stores, jewelry shops and home goods businesses, absorbing all of the amazingly vibrant jewels, fabrics and garments, while Kara searched diligently for a new nose ring. We ventured into a few of the markets, inhaling scents of spices, incense and fresh pastries. It was such an incredible day. We also managed to take ina few snacks while we were up there, first diving into oven fired dough pastries filled with cheeses and potato from a Georgian (provincial region of Russia) bakery, in the more Russian inhabited portion of the street at the western end of the stretch, as well as naan breads and lamb patties, accompanied by highly refreshing rose water yogurt drinks at the Indian Garden, a restaurant dedicated solely to delicious Indian cuisine. Needless to say, we spent the bus ride back to Logan Square in totally delightful food comas.

Though I don't have any photos from yesterday's adventure quite yet, here's a photo of Kara and me from her first day after moving back to Chicago. Together, we make quite the brightly colored adevnturous duo.


When we got back to my apartment, we vegged out on the couch for a bit, burning our new incense finds and listened to the sounds of Dara Puspita, this super amazing surf/garage girl band from the 60s & 70s that originated in Indonesia, but was later exiled to China. They rule.


After Kara left that evening, and my boyfriend went out skating with his friend, I decided to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and work on a new illustration. It's been a while since I've had such a relaxing day and had the opprtunity to work on some new art without the pressure of work or commissions or deadlines, so I was thrilled to have a little piece of mind. I didn't really have anything particular in mind to draw out, but I was also pondering different ways to promote my burlesque endeavors and where the fall will take me in terms of my career as an artist and a relative newbie in the Burlesque field in Chicago, so I decided to combine the two work/extra-cirrculars I love and came up with this new piece. Of course, as with most of my artwork, it's not really finished, but for now, I'm pretty happy with the direction it's going in.

Take a gander.


xoxo,
erin