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Yes, we can also point out and extol the virtues of artists we admire.

One of the greatest treasures Chicago has is the photographer Dawoud Bey.

Bey was one of my surprise discoveries last year when I was in the Chicago Art Fair. He came to my booth, we talked, I found him very interesting. Back at Wesley's where I was staying, I googled him, my favorite spy tactic. I was amazed at how outstanding his photos were! I had suspected that he would be a good artist, but here I was presented with a great one. His works unite a strong humanism (that disgraced word) with striking formal qualities in service of an art at once aesthetically challenging, sociological (in the best sense) and personal. And all that depth is carried lightly, under a mantel of (seemingly) direct image making.

His most recent works feature pictures ...

California Moray (Gymnothorax mordax)

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Leave the woman where she is.
She has two arms of her own
And two legs for that matter
(Which, sir, are no longer any affair of yours).
See that you yourself come through.

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In 1811, near the end of his life, poet, ornithologist, naturalist and illustrator Alexander Wilson named this common North American warbler after observing it for the first time in the branches of a Mississippi magnolia tree. This bird, which breeds in spruce trees near the Canadian border of the United States and in Canada, is commonly called the Black and Yellow Warbler.

A kind of woodpecker, the yellow bellied sapsucker harvests sap from trees for food, as well as the insects the sap they tap attracts. The holes these birds make appear as unmistakable horizontal lines of dots that can illustrate the entire trunk of a tree. They manage the trees they use, like any conscientious user of natural resources.

I photographed so much, that I can't make sense of everything yet. But, the churches were the most comforting. The child mannequin and projector came along for the trip, smashed in a suitcase. Fortunately, no problems with airport security, at least in Chicago...

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You artists who perform plays
In great houses under electric suns
Before the hushed crowd, pay a visit some time
To that theatre whose setting is the street.

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The male woodcock’s courtship flight is spectacular to behold. At sunset he flies to the singing grounds and gives an insect-like “peent” call.