Stumbling around the tighter turns of procrastination yesterday I came across an interview with my favorite local artist, Tony Fitzpatrick.
I see Tony as one of a very few and dwindling set of representatives of the Old Chicago. The Chicago that I believe in, but, really, never knew. Tony comes from a time when you could walk down most streets and, if a story wasn’t there in the flesh, the walls still had sharp enough memories to speak clearly about the shadows that cast past them not so long ago.
Now, most the building’s memories have been wiped clean or torn down. This city’s soul has become so cold it’s balls have shriveled right up tight against it’s belly, like two rotten prunes all shifty eyed and fearful of the heat they need to drop back down. Sure, you can still see Old Chicago’s nuts if you hunt around in pockets long enough, but this city just don’t dangle like it used to.
Tony’s art celebrates this city in a meter that rings true, from a time that was forever Chicago. Less polished, less preoccupied with futures, Tony is preserving our city like a stead, surly, architect, building a memory of Chicago from the same violent, vulnerable and pissed off primacies that forged it in the first place. And he’s one of the few still able to do this.
Stay plugged in to Tony’s work and hillarious stories that accompany them on his blog and be sure to check out his show “This Train” playing for the next two weeks at the Steppenwolf.