I finally finished illustrating the “Chicago Memories” book. It should be out sometime in the spring. Since finishing I’ve been trying to catch up with artwork and life details let go in September. Then, of course, the holidays will take over, but I hope to have new cartoons posted soon. In the meantime, I’ve been posting a series I started in the blog called “Nurse Alphabet.”
The Chicago book was a great project to do. Focusing on Chicago buildings led me to finally dive into “Devil in the White City,” which has led to an obsession with the 1893 Columbian exposition and anything even remotely connected to it — taking me back, once again, to one of my favorite places in this city, if not the country, Graceland Cemetery. How often can you be completely engaged in a book and go visit the graves of its main characters?
A few characters who don’t appear in the book are also famously buried in Graceland. I seemed to have missed a few of them in previous visits, so I got around to that. In this holiday season, to those of us are missing our now gone Marshall Field’s, here’s the statue on his grave.
I have a post to write on two recent Chicago cemetery visits. I highly recommend Forest Home, out in Forest Park/Maywood, right off the Eisenhower. Ask the office for the location of the Haymarket graves. Then, check out Emma Goldman’s place, just down the lane from the Haymarketers. r