Two years ago at the annual Pilsen East Artists’ Open House, Douglas Grew spent two long afternoons on Halsted Street doing clown routines and passing the hat. Crowds streamed by, strolling in and out of artists’ studios, looking for bargains, walking past him with hardly a glance. “In the lobby of the Blue Rider Theatre some artist had his paintings set up, and he made about $3,000,” says Grew. “I made 25.”
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Last year Grew tried to skip the event. He’d just moved into an apartment a stone’s throw from the Blue Rider with fellow performance artist Margaret Goddard, and they hoped to hunker down until the whole thing blew over. But as they quickly learned, there’s no escaping the Pilsen East Artists’ Open House.
This year they’re taking a different tack. “Instead of sitting here and grumbling about the crowds, we thought we’d exploit the situation,” Grew says. “We’re turning our apartment into a sideshow and our backyard into a circus.” He says it’s a natural outgrowth of the open house. “There’s such a voyeuristic strain to the event, all these people in our homes, gawking. We want to satisfy that need. Look at the geeks and the freaks and the queers!”
Goddard will do a little snake handling, while Grew will be clowning–and passing the hat. “And there will be a lot of tasteful huckstering going on,” he says. What, precisely, will they be selling? “Oh, it’ll be plenty surprising what we’re selling.”
