These Are The First Half Of The Sacred Spaces I've Been Creating Over The Past Six Weeks. Overall The

These are the first half of the sacred spaces I've been creating over the past six weeks. Overall the project proved more time-consuming (and sweat inducing) than I'd expected, but ultimately, I'm quite happy with its progress so far. I even went back a few weeks later to find some of the more weather-sheltered spaces still in tact.

These photos make up the second half of the sacred spaces, created over the past six weeks. As the project went along, I enjoyed experimenting with new ideas like alternatively shaped spaces, spaces that extended onto walls, and encompassing benches for sitting.

I also was fortunate to catch two people using the space I'd placed in McNabb, IL. It wasn't too surprising, though, as I'd created it at the back of the meetinghouse used by the Illinois Yearly Meeting of Friends. With so many Friends in attendance, it was only natural they'd make use of a Quaker-inspired space. During the weekend there, other Friends who discovered that I'd created the space shared with me how much they enjoyed it. It was quite a gratifying experience.

Towards the end of summer, I started placing the spaces in some of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods, translating the phrases into Cantonese, Mandarin, Polish, Spanish, and Greek.

In three weeks another teacher and I are delivering a 70 minute workshop on creativity in the classroom at a Skills Development Conference for English teachers in Kumamoto City! Our preparations are in full swing now, and I hope we knock it out of the park!

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Creative Strategies- Thinking Outside of the Book

You want to do it.  Your students want to do it.  We're going to work together to make it happen. 

Note- A large portion of this workshop will be creating, discussing, and accumulating ideas.  Please come prepared to participate.

In case you missed it! Four interviews with four different comics artists from four different cities (Detroit, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago) at the first ever CAKE!

My nights this week are still filled with editing the south side photos from The Other Side project. I can't wait to escape the computer screen and start placing the photos throughout the north side. If exploring Chicago's south side for this project forced me to rethink a lot of my beliefs and misconceptions about that part of the city, I hope traveling to new parts of the north side will similarly open my mind about that smaller, more populated section of Chicago.

(My Yia Yia's tombstone, located in a cemetery on the outskirts of Champaign near my great grandparents', Uncle Johnny's, and Aunt Vi's tombstones)

Ever since the death of my Uncle Johnny my sophomore year of college, I've worried about what would become of his side of the family's Greek legacy and more specifically, what would become of the Trebellas family name. Uncle Johnny was the patriarch of the Greek side of my family and the last remaining child of my great grandparents. Because of the premature deaths of Yia Yia, my great aunt Vi, and the estrangement of my great aunt Mary, he was the only blood relative I knew from that generation.

When he passed away I understood that it became my responsibility to carry on our Greek heritage for the subsequent generations. Though I only speak a little Greek and didn't grow up Orthodox, since Uncle Johnny's death, I've worked to memorize my immigrant great grandparent's life stories  and have delved much more seriously into Greek cooking, among other things. 

Still, the issue of our family name has always bothered me. The only relative I know of with the name Trebellas is my great aunt Artemis, Uncle Johnny's wife. Once she's gone, beyond a few distant and unreachable cousins, the name will go too. It's been hard for me to know what to do to preserve it. I thought a bit about changing my last name or adding it as a second middle name, but both decisions seemed too drastic. Just a few weeks ago, I hit upon the idea of using it as a pseudonym when making art. The idea struck me as a bit pretentious at first, but talking it over with a few people, it began to seem like a more reasonable idea. After all, there's a long traditions of actors, writers, and artists using professional names. Furthermore, my Uncle Stevie already uses Steven Trebellas as his pen name when he writes poetry.

The only thing that will be odd about this second name is that my art-making activities and non art-making activities are so intertwined. I'll have to use one name when writing about art, curating it, etc. and another when making it. Still, despite the inevitable confusion, I'm feeling good about this decision. It puts me at ease about the future of the Trebellas name and gives me confidence that I can help carry it on. After all, whether or not I have kids, at least I'll have some sort of legacy through art. Art is what lasts, as they say, I'm glad that through that, this name can too.