Brick Mugs: Street Scenes from Chicago

March 7th - April 5th, 2025​

​

Brick Mugs is an ode to Chicago brick streetscapes. It is an exhibition by and for Chicagoans, that brings scenes from our daily lives into the intimate space of a domestic household object: the ceramic mug.

​

In a city famous for its architectural attractions, this body of work instead focuses on ordinary experiences of our neighborhoods by calling on local artists who work in clay to notice and create their own rendition of the clay-based structures that surround us.

The artists celebrate the link between craft and place by creating unique pieces, variations on the theme of vernacular brick and terra cotta architecture. They do the double work of highlighting the labor that built Chicago as well as demonstrating the broad range of their own artistic voices. The artists’ interpretations of sites in their neighborhoods on the surfaces of their mugs are paired with reference photos and a map of locations from which they draw inspiration, to offer audiences multiple perspectives and multi-media impressions of the places we call home.

Brick Mugs blends many types of knowledge--trade, historical, design, architectural, craft, spatial--with a focus on sharing and the collective over an understanding of art or public space as the product of an isolated individual “genius.” We want to learn more about the versatility of our medium of clay from each other, both by seeing the techniques and perspectives different artists use to solve the same artistic problem, as well as studying the original buildings and the work of the bricklayer.

​

Brick Mugs includes an exhibition, a zine, and a public program. The exhibition invites artists from across Chicago to select a brick or terra cotta architectural feature somewhere in the city, and create a mug inspired by that surface. A panel of jurors, including architectural historian Will Quam (Brick of Chicago) and Jackie Townsend (Chicago Women in Trades), will select their favorites. The zine will feature reference photos and photos of the mugs, essays and interviews about Chicago brick and terra cotta, and maps of local architectural quirks, oddities, and wonders.