The Curious Peach

Sarah and I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Chicago Design Museum in its current temporary home, a repurposed stove factory in Humboldt Park.  Intrigued by their pop-up museum premise, we went to see for ourselves how well they achieved their goal of creating a more intimate space than typically found in traditional brick-and-mortar museums.  We must say that we were truly wowed by the beautiful space and the varied work selected for the graphic design-focused exhibitions.  We were both charmed by a collection of whimsical hand-painted signage inspired by the fluorescent signs dotting colorful local grocery stores, designed by a series of artists specially for CHIDM.  Particularly of note were the movingly dramatic textural essays of New York artist Debbie Millman, which artfully bridged the gap between everyday objects and true design.  A snippet of her pieces is pictured above, but the entire essay, displayed similarly, was truly a heartbreaking work.  Beautifully written and constructed, her work was by far the most compelling section of the wonderfully open gallery space.  

And in case you were wondering, they won high marks for their desired intimacy with an incredibly cheerful and knowledgeable curator of sorts available to answer all of our questions, and even offer us beverages!  Highly worth a trip, if you can make it before the Museum closes its doors on June 30th.  We can’t wait to see what they do next…

-Jessie