Roadside LA Highlights
Visually, LA is a great place to visit. Here are some highlights from the Society for Commercial Archeology s recent LA road trip. The post Roadside LA Highlights appeared first on Interesting Ideas .
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Newly Visible at La Rabida
The strip of land that runs along Lake Michigan from the entrance to Jackson Harbor at 64th Street, behind La Rabida Hospital, then down to 67th Street is home to more than 1,000 rock carvings. Those carvings, some dating to the 1930s, are on limestone blocks that once formed a revetment protecting park and beach from the lake. The beach is gone as is most of the revetment s structural integrity.…
The Barcelona Rock Carvings
Chicago s lakefront rock carvings are unique in the world for their quantity and their extent along a modern shoreline. But the impulse to carve on rock is not unusual, from prehistoric to Roman times to now. The modern example closest to the Chicago carvings is on the Mediterranean shore in Barcelona, Spain. Two decades ago, Sebastian Bugallo, an Argentine artist then managing a restaurant in…
The Art of Street Food – Update
The era of Washington, D.C., hot dog wagons featuring hand-painted signs is nearly over. These colorful trucks and trailers once lined the National Mall, which stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and is home to most of the Smithsonian museums. But these days there are fewer trucks, and photographic imagery has replaced the old painted signage. In other words, like most art…
Outsider Art Fair 2026
Some highlights from the 2026 edition of New York s Outsider Art Fair. Pardon the not-so-great photography, please. The post Outsider Art Fair 2026 appeared first on Interesting Ideas .
Margaret’s Grocery
If you took the cutoff from Highway 61 into Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had need of 1. sundries 2. spiritual uplift or 3. a powerful folk-art environment, you could stop at Margaret’s Grocery. The Rev. H.D. Dennis, who encased the country store inside and out with his sculpture and fantastic architecture, would preach you a personal sermon while his wife Margaret stood ready to meet your earthly…
Vollis Simpson Whirligig Garden
After Vollis Simpson died in 2013, his massive back-country whirligig garden in Lucama, North Carolina, was relocated to the center of nearby Wilson. Simpson ran a machine shop, did heavy equipment repair and was involved in moving houses. In retirement, he started tinkering with odd parts he had lying around. And he started making whirligigs. Big ones. His original whirligig park was the world’s…
Q.J. Stephenson’s Earth Museum/Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge
Q.J. Stephenson’s Earth Museum/Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge in Garysburg, North Carolina, was on my list of places to visit for years. Finally made it early one morning in September 2025. It s a sweet little spot whose story you can read at Spaces Archives. The post Q.J. Stephenson s Earth Museum/Occoneechee Trapper’s Lodge appeared first on Interesting Ideas .
Unsealed: The Art of the Bottle Cap Book
(This page contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.) $35.00 Dive into the eccentric world of 20th century bottle-cap sculpture. Description Discarded caps from beer and soda containers inspired a quintessentially 20th century folk craft as creative individuals strung millions of them into baskets, figures, buildings, animals, chains, furniture and other shapes. This book features…
Lakefront Carvings Walking Tours – 2025
I m giving four walking tours of Chicago s fabulous lakefront rock carvings over the summer of 2025: The post Lakefront Carvings Walking Tours 2025 appeared first on Interesting Ideas .