Day 177 June 27 Grant Wood’s American Gothic Statue

Grant Wood’s American Gothic Statue is located just south of the Chicago Tribune building in a large courtyard next to a taxi stand.

The original painting “American Gothic” is housed in the Chicago Institute of Art.
J. Seward Johnson the sculptor of this giant piece also sculpted the famous “kiss” in San Diego
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“Chicago is a city laden with great outdoor artworks, not the least of which is this 25-foot interpretation of Grant Wood’s famous (and often parodied) painting American Gothic by renown sculptor (and Johnson & Johnson heir) J. Seward Johnson. The original painting resides just down the road at the outstanding Chicago Institute of Art, so who better to host this eccentric eye-catcher, which rests along the city’s Magnificent Mile at 401 Michigan Avenue. It’s awesome in its incongruity: earnest farm folk among gleaming skyscrapers, the Midwest’s salt of the earth among the Midwest’s most sophisticated urban backdrop, humble farmers blown up to giant urban dwellers. It’s also awesome in its execution as a really faithful and really beautiful work of art in its own right. And its just plain fun to walk around, gawk at, and have your picture taken in front of, as any really big thing ought to be. I’m not quite sure what the suitcase signifies… perhaps the sculptor is imagining the farmers are visiting the city for the weekend and are looking for their hotel. In any event, you can’t miss it, nor should you. It’s pitchfork perfect.

(text borrowed from http://eccentricroadside.blogspot.com/2009/05/chicagos-25-foot-american-gothic.html)

We spent today in Chicago. The morning began with me running to the farmers market for some sugar snap peas, and other veggies, then my two friends and I packed a picnic and headed to Ikea, as one of my friends is moving into a new apartment and needed some furniture. After walking around the HUGE Ikea for a few hours we were done. Successfully I might add, with a bookshelf, a chair and some other odds and ends. Thankfully we’re all pretty short so we managed to fit the tall bookshelf wood into the car and still had enough room to be comfortable. Once leaving there and going back into the hot car, we headed to O’hare to the park and ride in order to catch the Blue Line CTA train into the city. We couldn’t find the park and ride so we went to Rosemont to the CTA station there. It was quite the adventure trying to find parking. Once we got downtown, we got off the train and headed to Grant Park, where the Taste of Chicago was happening. We walked through the park, saw Buckingham Fountain, and had our picnic lunch.

By the time we had our picnic lunch it was nearing 4pm. So we quickly ate and headed back through the taste. To take a bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. We had tickets for the 5:15 entry into the new Harry Potter exhibit. The exhibit was awsome! It had many pieces of the costumes used from all of the movies, along with pieces of the sets and other details. So cool!! It really made my friends and I excited for the new movie which comes out soon!

After going through the exhibit, we headed back out into the Chicago heat, and went to a Cafe nearby that my sister and I had been to before. It has Gelato, which was prefect for such a hot day! After getting out Gelato we headed back towards the Museum and caught the 6 express bus back downtown. After sitting and enjoying the airconditioning of the bus, we got out and walked across the Chicago river where we saw the above sculpture. We walked a bit longer then headed back to the Blue line to go back to the car.

As we rode the train the sky darkened. We used our phones to check the radar and saw that a huge storm was coming, thankfully it didn’t hit until we were safely in our car. There was some magnificant lightening, and pouring rain but not as bad as it could have been. The only thing that we didn’t get to do that day was go to Summerfest, I had really wanted to go to the Barenaked Ladies concert that night, but we were too tired to head to Milwaukee. So we just headed home. A wonderful day in the “big” city.