Get Yo' Geek On

Every once in a while I feel the need to unequivocally declare that I am now, and always have been, a nerd.  That said, I go through phases of different flavors of nerdiness, the way I go through phases where all I want to eat is pho noodles, or Mexican (actually, every damn time I'm home...ask me how many times I ate at Chipotle while I was in Chicago, go on - I dare you).  When I was in middle school, it was Dragonlance.  As a freshman in high school, Star Wars.  Later in high school it was the X-Men.  During my time in Ras Al Khaimah I got hooked on Doctor Who.  There are a few fandoms I haven't gotten sucked into, but they are rare.  Anyways, regardless of my current fandom, being a nerd is sort of my thing, and so when I found out that there was a comic con thing happening in the same convention center as the national art teachers' conference I went to last month, it was only a matter of time before I broke down and bought a pass.

Well?  Have you???

The convention was actually the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo: C2E2, which sounds like a robot from Star Wars and most of the time I have referred to it as "that comic con thing," since that way people actually know what I'm talking about.  Now, a little FYI for all the haters out there who may find themselves feeling salty thinking that I took time off to go to a comic convention...I didn't.  I dutifully walked past all the cosplayers (I'm SO sad I didn't see Captain America and Iron Man in historic civil war garb until the photo showed up on my facebook feed) and the big entrance to the hall with all the booths selling shiny wonderful merch until the last session of my professional development was over, around 20 hours before I flew out of Chicago on the flight I'd booked long before I heard about C2E2.  I'd have to be stupid to miss out on my kickass art teacher workshops, the whole reason I went there.  That means I paid $40 for a pass that I got to use for about 3 hours, but it was worth every penny. 

Lego Rey

A big part of the reason I decided to go was the fact that I've never been to a comic convention.  My certifiable nerdiness notwithstanding, I've just never been in the right place at the right time.  So I decided to carpe the fuck out of my last diem in Chicago and find out what it was all about.  I mean, I had an idea, of course.  Panels and cosplay and all sorts of stuff for sale.  But to see it firsthand?  To experience people walking around in the most unbelievable costumes, with the most beautiful hair and makeup - not because it was their job but just for shits and giggles?  To watch the mania of consumerism unfold in all its geeky glory?  To hear experts in the industry talk about their shit?  In short, to meet with my people?

Totally. Worth. It.

I've got to say that nerds are actually the best.  For being hot as balls and super crowded, "The Floor" (as it is known) was actually a very polite, upbeat place.  People were actually really friendly and basically in a great mood.  I had my backpack on and bumped into more than one person while I was navigating it, and always found my apologies accepted by a smiling face.  If you're reading this back home, this may not seem like a big deal (unless you've been to a Trump rally recently, in which case, my condolences!) but after doing my two years in China I've come to appreciate it a lot.

Then there was the line for churros.  It was ridiculously long, as I figured out by asking the woman who was actually selling them.  I said I'd pass - I was too hungry to wait in the line, and she just handed it over to me to eat while I waited to pay.  Maybe that wasn't being nice - maybe that was good business sense, because by the time I'd made it to the front of the line I was ready for another.  Either way, it was super effective.

One thing that caught my eye while I indulged my impulse shopping (for the bajillionth time that week) was Valiant's superheroine, Faith.  I know it's a thing now, for comic books to have more representation of different races, such as the new Ms. Marvel, who is of Pakistani descent, and I think they've represented characters who are differently-abled.  To be honest, I haven't actually read American comics for a while, so I'm not sure how much they've come to be inclusive of other body types, but I thought it was really cool so see they had a fat woman for a superheroine, in her own limited series.  Like, not cutely chubby...definitively fat.  I only got to read the first issue, so I'm not sure how legit she is - there was one scene where she was defending puppies, which are cute and all (even if they grow up to be dogs) but made me wonder if they'd actually let her be a badass - but the fact that they had her out there with her own cardboard stand-up was definitely a step in the right direction.

For the last two years, my nerd boat has been docked in the harbor known as Anime, so the only panel I actually went to was the Funimation one.  I was actually kind of sad at how little representation anime actually got, both in terms of merchandise and in the convention generally. 

When I messaged the Kawaii Kid about it later, we both agreed that if we combined his knowledge with my mad craftin' skills we'd make a fortune.  But I found at least a few things to spend my cash on.  One of the great things about cosplaying is that it highlights what you may be looking for, so when one of the vendors told me they had the Nendoroid figure of Celty (the character I'm dressed as) I forked out a chunk of change, and then did it again when I found a dakimakura of my favorite male character, Yato.  I bought a bunch of Lego minifigs for Five, who has been amusing us by setting up and photographing tiny adventures with the two she already had - honestly, she only cared about the Batman one I brought her, the others were just bonuses.  The art historian (what little there is) in me loved stumbling across the Ukiyo-Pop booth - BD Judkins takes pop culture icons such as Star Wars and envisions it as Japanese prints from the 1800s - the golden era, one of my favorite art forms!  I ended up buying Deadpool, because OF COURSE I BOUGHT DEADPOOL.  (Hello, ninjas!)  But my favorite find was actually a new game - Superfight.  You remember being a kid and having debates with your friends about who would win in a fight - Batman or Superman?  (If not, sorry, but your childhood sucked).  This game is basically built on that premise.  You draw three character-type cards and three attribute cards, then create your best fighter using one of each.  The difference between some of my other favorite card games (such as Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples) is that you play your character openly and argue for why they would beat the other character.  I've only played it a couple of times, but it's awesome, especially when you get the right group of people together (ie, total nerds).

Far be it from me to belabor the point, but lest anyone have any doubt that going to C2E2 while I was in Chicago for the NAEA conference was work related, it did spur me on to organize my school's first (ever, as far as I could tell) anime night.  I have written ad nauseum about how awesome my kids are, and after experiencing C2E2, I wanted to share the excitement with them.  I teach a LOT of nerds (possibly why I like my students so much), and when I had permission and started telling them about it, the response was fantastic.  We watched a movie, ate sushi, did a trivia quiz, and - of course - had cosplayers, most of whom were hardcore and did a LOT of work on their costumes.  I found it kind of hard to believe that nobody had organized something like this before, especially since the two who got me hooked on anime were actually IN the student council the previous year.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and the next time I go to a convention it will be anime-centered to get the most out of the experience.

Working/Holiday

Since coming to Mongolia and moving back into a secondary art position, I've been constantly stepping up my game as an art teacher.  I've seen teachers do amazing things with elementary art, but (in spite of teaching elementary students for seven years) it is really not my cup of teach.  In the last four years (sometimes it's hard to believe I have been in Mongolia for four years!), not only have I worked harder IN the classroom, I've participated in professional development outside the classroom - actual, art related PD, by the way, not the typical sort of thing I've attended as part of life in a school that never really applies to me - and, as amazing as it is when you know how little effort I put into my general teacher ed courses at university, I LOVED IT.  So when this school year was in its early months, I asked my principal if I could have time off to go to the national art teacher convention sponsored by my professional association each year, this time in Chicago.

This is not my teaching blog (that's been on hiatus even longer than this one was), so I'm not going to tell you about the conference, other than to say, if you're an art teacher reading this, to try and go, if you ever have the chance.  It was awesome.  This IS, on the other hand, my travel blog, and seeing art is one of my raisons de voyage - it's kind of my thing (along with spirituality, culture, and one or two other things that I won't mention lest I scare off any new readers).  So I watched with interest, as people on the facebook Art Teachers group I subscribe to started posting about different works of art you could see during the conference.

Now, there is a LOT of art in Chicago.  One of the best art museums in the world is right there in the loop - the Art Institute.  Less than a block away is the very famous Cloud Gate (so famous that I didn't even realize it was there and go look at it, which is a shame, because my students keep asking about it...oops).  There are potholes filled in with mosaics and tons of other public art and art galleries and basically, a shit ton of art.  In fact, it's way too much to see if you're going to take your art conference seriously and do any shopping at all (which I for SURE was).  So I narrowed it down to 3 - the Art Institute, the Cultural Center, and the City Gallery.  I'm not going to tell you anything about the Art Institute, which I visited Tuesday after I dropped my stuff at the hostel (which was my first legit hostel stay, and if I trusted that they'd all be that great, I'd never stay in anything else).  It is big and amazing - there was a van Gogh exhibition that I got to see while I was at it - and although looking at its collection online is cheating and not the same thing as standing in front of its works of art in person, you can at least get an idea of what it was like without me attempting to wax poetic about it.  But the other two...they had some unique opportunities.

Wednesday after my preconference workshop for secondary teachers on the national standards and AP (which I'll be teaching next year), I moved to the Chinatown Hotel (actual name, which was weird since it smelled like corned beef and cabbage on St. Pat's), then took the L north of the river to the Water Tower.  I'm sure it is a historic piece of architecture, but I didn't read the plaque outside, because it was 6 by then and it closed at 6:30.  The City Gallery, inside, was hosting an exhibition about Cards Against Humanity, and yes, that was the reason it made my list.

Now, I don't know if you love Cards or not.  When I added my own post about this exhibit to the Art Teachers group, the first comment was that we should, "Boycott that racist, sexist game."  It is true that it is NOT politically correct - unless you can argue that by embracing all stereotypes and being prejudiced against every race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc, you are, in fact, supremely egalitarian.  I believe my Dark Lord and Master once made that argument, so that lends it some legitimacy.  That said, if you took it seriously, it could be incredibly offensive.  Fortunately, most people don't take it seriously.  However, it would be equally easy to dismiss an art exhibit about the game, since, if you've ever played it, you know that it has a very basic black-and-white design.  Surprisingly, though, it was a well-curated show - it had a lot of info about the typefaces and graphic design the makers used, and I took lots of photos to show my students the next time I talk to them about text as an element of art.

What really drew me in was the recent stir over their threat to cut up a Picasso print, Tete de Faune.  This year I've been trying to get my students reading more about art topics, and when I came across the story of their Eight Sensible Gifts, I knew this was one we'd read and discuss when we did printmaking.  Basically, for the past couple of years Cards Against Humanity has done a promotion where 150,000 people buy into it and they are given 8 Hanukkah gifts.  This year, one gift was the Picasso, which the participants had to choose to either donate to the Art Institute of Chicago or cut up into 150,000 equal-sized pieces.  After the votes were in, the decision was to donate it, but before that happens they displayed it as part of the show.

The following night was the big NAEA St. Pat's shindig, welcoming all.  I'd signed up for it, but figured I had enough time to hit the Cultural Center first - my last chance to do so without blowing off part of the workshop, and I wasn't going to do that.  But I did want to see Theo Jansen's Strandbeests, which have fascinated me ever since I first came across them scrolling through my facebook feed.

As he puts it, his creations are "new forms of life," the basic material being basic yellow tubes.  Using the power of the wind, they shamble along the beaches of the Netherlands (where I might have tried to find him, if I hadn't been able to see them in Chicago).  You actually can't understand how cool these things are, so I suggest going over to youtube and watching some of the videos.  Otherwise you won't get a proper idea of how plastic tubes and wind can make something that looks so organic (and possibly a little bit creepy, but you know what?  Who cares!)

The actual mechanisms he uses to make the Strandbeests are fairly simple.  Sails, joints, and wind stomachs are basically what it boils down to, and the exhibition was fantastic, with a few different hands-on displays that you could use to get a feel for the structures.  They also had daily demonstrations of actually walking the Strandbeests, but I was too late for that (so sad).  In fact, the simplicity of the structures makes it possible for other engineer/artists to create their own, something that Jansen encourages - he sells books and kits, and the exhibition included mini-beests by others.

This was actually my first time visiting Chicago since I was a kid.  The two times I went with Mrs. Andrew's Bright Ideas class, we visited the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum, both of which were absolutely incredible and left a lasting mark on my impressionable young mind.  Academically, I knew that Chicago was like that, but on an order of magnitude that you can't really understand unless you've been there for longer than 24 hours.  Besides the awesome conference and the fantastic art, this trip also showed me that I need to spend more time in Chicago.  At some point.  Probably not in the near future, though.