Before she moved to New York in September, artist Michele Brody left her mark on the Chicago landscape. She went to four locations and sewed fabric around trees, poles, and posts, a project she called Presencing. Each of the sites held strong memories for her.
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Brody worked surreptitiously, either early in the morning or at night. Using dull red pongee, a delicate Indian silk, she encased 15 fence posts by the Art Institute, 3 streetlight poles in a north-side alleyway, 10 young trees in Grant Park, and 3 tall trees by Automatic Art Gallery, which sponsored the artistic “intervention.”
A Brooklyn native, Brody received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 1994 and later enrolled in a gardening program through the University of Illinois. For the last four years, she has combined her interests in public art and urban horticulture by doing temporary and permanent installations at various Chicago-area locations.
–Jeff Huebner
