The River North Design District of Chicago celebrated the art and design community with its sixth annual River North Fall Gallery Walk, an event that took place on September 10, 2021, comprising 17 design showrooms, as well as kick-off and after parties. At this year’s event, a total of 25 artists and 18 designer vignettes were featured and displayed in each showroom until October 11, 2021. Within each participating space on opening night, guests walked into a transformative experience—exquisite displays of art and design, the gathering of Chicago’s art and design community, and various food and drink pairings courtesy of event sponsors. Great Lakes By Design Magazine had the opportunity…
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Great Lakes By Design: Bold Graphics
CONTENTS DESIGN CORNER 17 100 Years | Joel Stone, author and curator emeritus at the Detroit Historical Society, leads readers through the history and story behind the organization 18 Blue Tulum | a Minneapolis-based contemporary painter creates dream-like renderings of places in her exhibition series “After the End” 19 The Loon and Boundary Waters | the studio and fine artist offering creative services and popular prints transporting viewers into hyper-realistic scenes DESIGN SPOTLIGHT 42 Missing middle vernacular | an innovative and contextual multi-family rental building concept within a Minneapolis neighborhood pushing the envelope 63 Alchemy | the new collection by an Illinois-based design studio and international textile resource reflects a narrative grounded in the seemingly magical process of transformation…
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Momentum in medium
Uplifting, multi-modal, and expressing hope amid challenging times, the exhibition “Illuminate” by Springboard Arts Chicago—one of Wicker Park’s latest arts tenants—brought a timely curation of fresh artworks to the gallery’s opening in November 2020 through February 2021. This spring, the gallery has built off its inaugural exhibition with a new exhibit, “Momentum,” which embraces the challenges that “Illuminate” brought to light, using them as a catalyst of change and for fueling forward motion. “We had to keep moving forward. We’re in a time in our world when there are lots of walls put up; we’re stopped sometimes, because COVID is stopping us and all sorts of things that we would…
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IFWTO: expression in fashion
In a celebration of Indigenous expression in fashion and the arts, the second edition of the biennial Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto hosted runway presentations from 16 designers, a series of panel discussions on topics like land-based fashion and fashion journalism, a virtual art exhibition, and more, online last week November 26 through November 29, 2020. Co-founded by Artistic Director Sage Paul in 2018, IFWTO features distinctive and progressive Indigenous-made fashion, craft, and textiles, and is a celebration of these mediums’ foundations in Indigenous knowledge and ways of life. Foundationally, the festival celebrates and advances current Indigenous designers, while welcoming audiences to experience their work in accessible ways. “All of us…
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Sculpted experience
Museums tucked within nature, sculpture gardens offer unique experiences for those with a love of the outdoors and for the discerning art and design enthusiast that are increasingly appealing in a currently deepening digital reality. The Midwest is home to a variety of sculpture gardens of varying sizes, whether independently owned and operated, or a result of rich, decades-long collaboration between organizations invested in regional arts, design, and environmental wellbeing and education. Great Lakes By Design takes a moment to marvel at sculpture gardens throughout the Great Lakes region, where visitors can find everything from curated explorations of tropical flora, a carnivorous plant house, and brass-cast depictions of America’s first…
