Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Monday, April 17, 2006

Where the Artists Are

For all that Wicker Park and Bucktown have an artistic reputation, people who have lived in Chicago for a while say many, if not most, of the artists have actually moved elsewhere. On Friday I found out where they went: Pilsen.

Pilsen is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago that's in an early stage of community development. The cycle generally goes like this: In Stage One, artists, who usually don't have a lot of money, move into what was an industrial area and turn all the old factories and warehouses into studio space and galleries. In Stage Two, places like restaurants and bars open to serve the new community. In Stage Three, yuppies and other young people start moving into the area because it's the cool place to be. In Stage Four, the artists start to leave because the yuppies have driven the rents up too much and they can no longer afford the space. They find another industrial area and start again.

On the second Friday of each month, the artists in Pilsen all open their galleries in the evening and the result feels like a hip block party. Most galleries offer snacks and wine, and some even feature live music. A friend of a friend was one of the artists exhibiting, and he said while most of the time Pilsen isn't that exciting, once a month it feels like they're a real community. We stayed after things closed down to go bowling in his hallway (yes, you read that right). We threw a small, heavy (not really a bowling) ball about 30 feet, through a small hallway and two rooms, where it would (hopefully) land in the middle of a set of pins set in the middle of a short, angled, three-sided wood wall. And projected the scores on an overhead, using names like Jeffery I, Jeffery II, Jeffery III (it was a running gag), and Everwood (because someone got an email at work from a man named Dick Everwood--he must have hated his parents). Many near-death experiences later, we left to grab some late-night food and wondered at how two twentysomething musicians could feel like they hadn't been in surroundings quite that cool before.

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