AnySquared in Logan Square, Chicago

Finding and building an artist community, connecting and networking with other artists -- this is what joining AnySquared in Logan Square, Chicago has allowed me to do.  At the center of the collaborative network of artists stands Tracy Kostenbader, whose studio space serves as a local artists meeting and work space where collaborative and community art projects such as a large scale neighborhood dog park mural were organized and planned.

 Over the unusually warm summer of 2016 an enormous mural facing the Logan Square dog park that was 300 feet long and from 17 to 22 feet high was painted by artists from AnySquared and two other artist groups.  This was my first long term participation in such a project.  Likely I spent around 13 or 14 near full days that stretched into the long summer evenings working and helping out on this project.



It was a chance for me to enjoy a new experience in participating in a large scale, outdoor, collaborative art project.  For me it represented at times an ideal experience -- working together and meeting other artists, enjoying (or sometimes suffering) the summer sun, and taking in appreciative comments from passerbys, many of whom were walking their dogs to and from the nearby dog park which the mural faces.  This is quite a different experience most artists have of working alone in their studio space, which can help one concentrate, but can also prove stifling and confining. 

My first feature news article that I wrote for the LoganSquarist, an online news source for the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago was devoted to this group that I joined about a year or two before that.  There more can be learned about AnySquared -- its origin and activities.




  http://logansquarist.com/2016/01/08/anysquared-make-art-logan-square/