I just returned from my 6th show of the year, this one in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. It was a fairly typical fair, with all the stimulus that entails: the thousands of people in the hot sun, the hundreds of fantastically talented artists’ booths, bands playing, dogs and strollers jockeying for position and making their standard noises, the smell of the brats being cooked on the corner. It can be overwhelming, and occasionally I have to seek a reprieve in the back of my booth, a quiet moment to myself that acts as a reset of sorts.
At this particular show, however, my booth space backed up against the front stoop of an apartment building. For this weekend, it too became a place of respite, the rest stop for the tired or overwhelmed fair goers. I was fascinated by how this public place had become a quiet, intimate place of rest, and began documenting the people that sometimes needed a break like I do. The ones that need a moment to themselves to reset, to recompose. And it struck me that it was all the same – the back of my booth, the front stoop, the open plain. They all can become a place to catch your breath, a quiet interlude before diving into the fray once more.
