We hope you will join us on Thursday 17 October at the new Seacrist Beach Gallery … The Design Museum of Chicago creates amazing design experiences which are free to the public. Karen recently joined the DMoC board and is Co-Chair of the upcoming benefit. There are a small number of tickets and sponsorship opportunities still available

Above, a photo of some of Karen’s restoration+ design work at Edgar Miller’s Carl Street Studios on Burton Place in Chicago’s Old Town. The building was conceived as a collection of artist’s studios, each one with unique handmade features. They were completed in 1927. The exhibit “Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917-1967” at the DePaul University Art Museum at 935 W. Fullerton will be up through 23 February 2025. Miller created inhabitable works of art, blurring borders between art, design and architecture. Each of his spaces has its own personality. #specialhomes #handmade #Gesamtkunstwerk #homedesign #artiststudios #oldtown

The exhibit “Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917-1967” at the DePaul University Art Museum will be up through 23 February 2025 and I hope you will have a chance to see it. Edgar was a mentor. He continues to inspire us every day. Miller created inhabitable works of art, blurring borders between art, design and architecture. Each of his spaces has its own personality. Karen Lilly Mozer led our 24 year-long efforts restoring Edgar Miller homes at the Carl Street Studio and at the Glasner Studio and designing spaces within them. Karen’s projects are featured in the book “Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home” by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. Above, a photo of some of Karen’s work at Edgar’s Glasner Studio. The DePaul Art Museum is at 935 west Fullerton in Chicago. #specialhomes #handmade #Gesamtkunstwerk #homedesign #artiststudios #oldtown

The exhibition “Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917-1967” has opened at DePaul University. Miller is an under-celebrated Chicago genius, an artist/designer/architect who made inhabitable works of art, 24 hour a day Gesamptkunstwerks. He has been a lifelong inspiration. Karen Lilly Mozer led our studios 24 year-long efforts restoring Edgar’s handmade homes at Carl Street Studio and the Glasner Studio, and designing spaces within them. Her Glasner Studio project now houses the Edgar Miller Legacy. Above, a double height living room Karen created at Carl Street Studio. #handmade #Gesamtkunstwerk #homedesign #oldtown

An artist’s intent is arbitrary. What is legible to the audience? Of the Three Sisters, the enlarged popcorn easily conveyed thousands of years of celebration embodied in the fireworks of tiny grains exploding into food. Ying and yang were on my mind as I sculpted the squash and beans. The Three Sisters completed one another. Together they provide complete nutrition. They also protect one another in the garden. But when we hung the beans, Chef Cordúa’s face lit up. He called out to the forty folks hustling to open the restaurant, “Ha, look at Jordan’s Mexican Humping Beans !” The beans were transformed. Now, some of the beans were coupling. Some were tired of coupling. Some were feeling experimental. Everyone was smiling. The Three Sisters did create bigger human populations. Beans are seeds…reproductive imagery suits them. In an interview Margaret Atwood said, “…writing isn’t for the writer it’s for the reader….writers have an old convention, ”… go little book out into the world, here is your train ticket and here’s your lunch bucket: go out into the world – go out and make new friends,” because once you’ve finished something it’s not yours any more, it belongs to those who receives it…” #sculpture #threesisters #publicart #restaurantdesign #theamericas #contemporaryarchitecture

Squash, the second of the three milpa sisters… MILPAS The three sisters were the heart of milpa gardens “…in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including corn, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melons, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jicama, amaranth and mucuna…... Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make protiens and niacin; ... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan ... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins, avocados have fats. The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, “is one of the most successful human inventions ever created.” — Charles C. Mann, “1491: New Revelation of the Americas Before Columbus”

Popcorn, as American as it gets… Chef Cordúa has an intimate relationship with three sisters, The co-stars of gardens which transformed the Americas: Corn, Squash and Beans. Only ingredients indigenous to the New World are welcome in his kitchen. Popcorn Florence Fabricant of the New York Times wrote, “…Popcorn has existed in the Americas for thousands of years. Archeologists have determined that kernels found in a cave in New Mexico are 5,600 years old, and have also determined that popcorn was the earliest form of maize. Popcorn grains 1,000 years old found in Indian tombs in Peru can still be popped. The best-known tidbit of popcorn history is probably that it was introduced to Europeans at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Mass. Quadequina, brother of Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag Indians, brought some popcorn for the colonists to try…” MILPAS The three sisters were the heart of milpa gardens “…in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including corn, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melons, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jicama, amaranth and mucuna…... Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make protiens and niacin; ... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan ... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins, avocados have fats. The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, “is one of the most successful human inventions ever created.” — Charles C. Mann, “1491: New Revelation of the Americas Before Columbus” #sculpture #restaurant design #theamericas #popcorn #milpas #indigenousfood #threesisters #art #experientaldesign

The façade of the third project with Chef Córdua, tattooed in in bronzed steel with images inspired by the enormous, and enormously mysterious, 2000 year old Peruvian Nazca Lines; by a ceremonial wedding vessel depicting a two headed llama; images of the Andes and the Amazon River; the flora + fauna of the new world and a dog from the old one… #tattoos #contemporary facades #contemporarydesign #theandes #Nazcalines #restaurantdesign #finedining #houstonarchtiecturre

“I want a gringo fantasy of the Americas south of the US” said Chef Cordúa…together we read “1491” by Mann, about the pre-Columbian Américas in which…he described a thick leafy canopy allowing only trickles of light to illuminate jungles below….A pilot told me they employed the same protocols flying over the Pacific Ocean and the rain forest…Pencil sketches exploring how those trees might define spaces... #sketches #1491 #magicalrealism #américas #contemporarydesign #narrativearchitecture #contemporaryart #contemporaryarchitecture #finedining