During my stay in Chicago, I read something in the Tribune about a newly installed art installation of a bunch of headless sculptures in Grant Park. I didn’t take any note of the artist or the exact location, but it sounded cool and creepy.
Fast forward a week: Tim came to town and I dragged him to the Cultural Center because I’d never been there and I’d heard the building was an architectural delight. After eating some soup and looking at a the galleries and staring at the cool stained glass Tiffany dome, I thought Hey, we’re near Grant Park, let’s check out those creepy headless sculptures I read about. We crossed Millennium Park, took the requisite photo of The Bean, then found the north end of Grant Park. We turned south and started walking. And walking. And then we got to Balbo Drive and stopped walking.
Where could they be??? Everything across Balbo looked like sports fields, hardly a venue for an art display. So we headed west across Columbus Drive, looked around, and gave up. I for one was getting too hungry to enjoy art of any kind.
F*** the headless beasts. Let’s find ourselves a vegan philly cheesesteak.
But wait! Where’s Tim’s scarf?!
Tim’s lovely gray cashmere scarf was missing. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much, but it was a gift. A gift! And it was warm. And I could tell how much Tim loved his scarf. So even though I was getting grumpy hungry, I didn’t complain when he started retracing our steps, walking at my running pace through the park.
It seemed like a hopeless mission. But we had to at least check.
Tim joked that I should check the camera for a photo of him wearing the scarf. We laughed at that one, but I turned on my camera anyway. The last picture I took was on the lawn of the Petrillo Band Shell at the northern end of Grant Park:
Tim! I think I see your scarf!
Tim saw it, too….
That IS my scarf… in the process of falling off!
Like a couple of Sherlocks, we hurried past Buckingham Fountain and past some dead flowers and sad gardens. And then we were at Jackson Boulevard and Petrillo Band Shell was across the street.
What’s that splot of gray on the lawn?
Is it cashmere?!
It was a gift!
A break in traffic. Hurried feet across the street. Closer and closer. The edge of the park. The lawn. The bundle of joy!
Some kind stranger must have found it, realized it was a nice sweater, maybe even a gift, something that someone would come back for. So they wrapped it into a ball that wouldn’t blow away and left it for us.
People in Chicago can be so kind!
And Tim was happy.
The next day we hung out with Dawid who informed us that our intuitions were wrong: the installation was indeed past the sports fields at the south end of the park. I’ve since learned that the sculptures are by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz and the title of the piece is “Agora”. It is a permanent installation so I will be able to see it next time I’m in town.
So that is my story about the scarf and the camera and Grant Park and nice Chicagoans. I love a good caper.
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