The curatorial premise for 2nd Floor Rear 2015 is part feeling, part idea; it’s Chicagoans’ annual substitution of “stay warm” for “see you later”. It’s also the hypnotic quiet at winter’s core that makes the season’s deep melancholy savorable. In the midst of another winter, we sought forms of art that might warm us, draw us in, and make us stay.

 This year, we hope to bring audiences anti-spectacular wonder and radical tenderness. We want Chicagoans feel present and connected even in their winter fugue states. We want to carve out a safe place to be vulnerable and wildish. We want things to resonate–to find us all again days later while we’re waiting in line at the Walgreens checkout counter.  This year, we’re offering utopic gestures, cathartic documents, collaborative making, rituals, immersion, hangouts, feminisms, forms of encounter, virtual hypnosis, and one (maybe more than one) freewheeling, sweaty dance party.

Saturday and Sunday, February 7-8, 2015

See the full 2015 photo set

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Events

Documents Bureau (Climatic Cathartic Confessions Desk)

Society of Smallness

Participatory Event

I am Logan Square Gallery, 2644 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Featuring: Carl Boyd, Lisette Bustamante, Captain Chicago, Perry Cowdery (on melodica), Caitlin Devitt, Paul Durica, David Gries, Bryant Godinez, Henry Harris, Marcos Herrera, Marianne Joyce, Karolina Kowalczyk, Vivian Malmgren, Jeff Michalski, Emmy Midnightingale, Annie Morse, Lili Mugnier, Allison Muscolino, Elizabeth Murphy, Daniela Perez, Mack Perry, Jennifer Pham, Kat Seno, Matt Stone, and Georgina Valverde

*12-1am features burlesque performer Emmy Midnightingale

societyofsmallness.com

iamlogansquare.blogspot.com

Photo by Laura Moore

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Playtime Is About You!

Elena Tejada-Herrera

Collaborative Installation

Hume Gallery, 3203 W. North Ave.

Collaboration hours: Saturday, 3-7pm

Viewing hours: Sunday, 1-5pm

Colorful ropes, confetti, and lots of fun. We will use colorful materials to build costumes, temporary sculptures, and murals. We will make videos, take pictures together and build a collective installation. If you’re in the mood, you can bring your singing while we celebrate playing. Expect some YouTube tutorials for stretching and dancing. The unexpected is welcome in this collective creative frenzy.

A collective creation by Elena Tejada-Herrera and You The Very Creative Public.

Family-friendly

tejadaherrera.wordpress.com

humechicago.org

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7

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Desert Cheese

Tegan Brace

Installation, Party, Day-time Hang, Pre-game, Performance

Crown Liquors, 2821 N. Milwaukee Ave. / noon-6pm

Desert Cheese: A ladies’ night to contemplate all other ladies’ nights (that lasts all damn day).  An oozy, psychedelic friendzone/wasteland of sights and smells, Tegan Brace’s installation in Crown Liquors calls attention to projected feminine attributes, offers up an alternative social organization, and drags your cheese stereotypes out to the desert to melt.

Tegan crafts aesthetic atmospheres and party sculptures in semi-private and public social spaces which exist at the boundaries of fiction and reality.

21+

teganbrace.com

Photo by Hannah Welever

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A*Haul: Part Duh

Betsy Zacsek + Juneer Kibria

Public Art Installations

Multiple Undisclosed Locations / noon-whenever in the evening

Sequel to 2014’s A*HAUL: Unauthorized mobile art installations, A*HAUL: Part Duh is part performance, part urban intervention, part guerrilla public art gallery, part pure mischief. 2015 artists TBA.

facebook.com/ahaul2fr

Photo courtesy A*Haul

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Directions de Digital

Dreamland D

Exhibition and Film Screening

Dreamland D, 3459 W. Diversey Ave. #1 / noon-midnight

For 2nd Floor Rear 2015, Dreamland D welcomes you into a warm and cozy wonderland of 3D animation and digital film with the exhibition DIRECTIONS de DIGITAL. Noon to 7:00pm will see an exhibition featuring Chicago artist Alfredo Salazar-Caro, whose works are digital sculptures infused with media including video, animated gifs, and virtual reality. Later that evening, we will continue in the digital milieu by screening a series of short films produced by artist Cooper Collier, who works within the realm of digital video, using non-traditional methods to produce short films that are part induced-phenomenon and part-performance. Couple the two artists’ works with piping hot chocolate, popcorn and perhaps a PBR or two, who would want to leave the toasty warm confines of a Logan Square apartment gallery? What more could you want during a nasty sparring bout with the latest rendition of the Dreaded Polar Vortex?

salazarcaro.com

vimeo.com/coopercollier

Photo by Slaveya Minkova

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Kitchen Stitch

Kitchen Space

Potluck & Stitch ‘n’ Bitch

Kitchen Space Gallery, 2716 N Monticello Ave. #1F / 1-5pm

An inclusive, welcoming potluck meets stitch n’ bitch at Kitchen Space. Take a break from the cold to enjoy comforting foods and fiber crafts. Feel free to bring your in-progress projects or start something new! Coffee and tea provided but feel free to BYOB. Stop by, bring along your favorite dish, eat, drink, knit, and make yourself at home.

facebook.com/kitchenspace2716

kitchen-space.tumblr.com

Photo by Hannah Welever

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The Non-Denominational Caroling Project

Marya Spont-Lemus + friends (and maybe even you!)

Participatory Performance

Rehearsal: 2844 W. Dickens Ave. #1 / Rehearsal: 2-4pm; Caroling: 4-6pm

The Non-Denominational Caroling Project is about friends and strangers alike coming together to share the experience of singing in public space. We don’t spread the tenets of a specific religion. We sing songs about things that connect all of us rather than divide us—celebrating the resilience, complexity, and even silliness of the human condition. And we invite you to join us in doing so! To carol with us as part of the festival, just attend our rehearsal immediately prior to this outing. Otherwise, keep your eyes and ears open as you’re walking around, because we’ll be walking around too.

Family-friendly

www.maryaspontlemus.com

Photo by Hannah Welever

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Six Acts of Witness

Dao Nguyen + Jane Jerardi

Participatory Event

1456 N. Leavitt #3F / 3-5pm

daonguyen.com

janejerardi.com

Photo by Slaveya Minkova

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Survival Etiquette

Hideous Beast

Cocktail Party & Etiquette Workshop

3060 W. Cortland Ave. / 5-7pm

Hideous Beast (Josh Ippel and Charlie Roderick) will host a cocktail party and etiquette workshop at the home of J. Gibran Villalobos and Wil Ruggiero (of JVG/WAR), who are in turn hosted by 2nd Floor Rear. So many hosts! Who to thank? What to wear? How to act?

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Etiquette and host training activities will be available to party attendees. Learn proper party etiquette, cocktail mixing and serving technique. Drinks will be mixed, guests served and the servers in turn shall also be served. We’re all experts in social rituals, so come share your hosting knowledge with us.

21+

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hideousbeast.com

Photo by JI Yang

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HI typ/O Art/In

HI typ/O

 

Participatory Event

2714 N. Francisco Ave., #2 / 5-8pm

The HI typ/O Art/in is a three-hour collaborative event designed to build camaraderie through collective and individual art-making in a shared space. The event encourages participation by including writing prompts led by The Dining Room, bookmaking with artist Chelsea Fiddyment, writing games alongside a visual poetry installation by Adam Webster, and collective performance. Ongoing and time-based activities allow audience participants to join in at any time throughout the three hours. At the conclusion of the event, participants will be given an opportunity to share the work they created at the event, or before, in an open forum.

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hitypo.tumblr.com

Photo by Slaveya Minkova

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The Extent of Something

Chelsea Coon

Performance

Kitchen Space Gallery, 2716 N Monticello Ave. #1F / 5-10pm

The furthest point in space is also inside our body. Time in lines and circles. I am starting over and at the same time I am ending. My work is a set of questions about beginnings and endings, life and death, internal and external spaces and the imminence of existence.

Photo by Slaveya Minkova

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A Cabin in the Snow

Grace Needlman + Will Bishop

Installation & Performance

Corner, 2912 N. Milwaukee Ave. (storefront) / 6-9pm

A Cabin in the Snow is an interactive, four-dimensional fairytale for all ages. Its story is told through a series of mechanical suitcase sculptures, which invite visitors to pull levers and turn cranks, revealing images that surprise and delight. Visit The Corner gallery during open hours to explore the story on your own, or join us on February 7 between 6 and 9pm to experience the story performed by talented puppeteers Antora Delong and Lara Vanderheiden, with  live musical accompaniment.

Family-friendly

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graceneedlman.com

will-bishop-online.strikingly.com

Photo by Slaveya Minkova

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Exploding Home and Garden Inevitable

Matthew Coleman + Brian T. Leahy

#OpenHouse #Home&Garden #EmmersiveInstallationProductions #ArtHysterical #CollaboboIsAllOfUs #1bdr

2115 W. Webster Ave., 3rd Floor Rear / 7-9:30pm

Why just settle for visiting an apartment gallery when you can have everything you want in a property?

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Get off the couch and come experience Home and Garden Television LIVE! Cable television is the avant-garde for YOU, and this modern urban oasis is priced to SELL. Whether you want to renovate or prefer a ready-to-move-in sanctuary, THIS property is the right experience for you! Can we convince you, a hesitant homebuyer, to take a radical risk?

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Photo by JI Yang

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Let’s Get Pataphysical!

Sarah Bastress + Bryant Worley

Apartment Exhibition & Party

1331 N. Maplewood Ave. / 8-11pm

Let’s Get Pataphysical is a cozy and silly apartment gallery and party where the artists are prompted by two guiding tenants:

1) Make “imaginary solutions” for particular impossible problems (because creating your own solutions allows you to create your own solutions)

2)  “Only the comic is serious”

The seed of this show began when a group of hodgepodge artists discovered a delightfully broad and ludicrous pseudoscience called Pataphysics, created in the late 1800s by a writer named Alfred Jarry. Inspired by our love for the possibilities of absurd we found in Pataphysics, we wanted to create a space to make work and celebrate it. We want to be weird and gross and have the best time, but we hope this exhibition extends beyond its nerdy core, becoming a celebration of the power of fun, the possibly obscene, and the just plain confusing. And beyond a curated show of set works, we hope to provide guests with opportunities to create their own imaginary solutions through art by doodling, sculpting, face-painting, dancing, and eating and drinking. We firmly believe in the transformative, transcendent, and transitive power of eating and drinking to help new ideas flow easily and create communities. We idealistically hope that one of the best artworks in this show will be the community spawning from it. Let’s Get Pataphysical!

sarahbastress.com

bryantworley.com

Photo by JI Yang

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Slo Cheese: A Dance Party

Dance Party feat. DJ sets by Tess of Slo ‘Mo

Crown Liquors, 2821 N. Milwaukee Ave. / 10:30pm-2:30am

Come cap off a long day of nonstop art-hopping at Crown Liquors, where Tegan Brace’s Desert Cheese installation will be transformed from a dystopic daytime ladies’ night to a dance floor for a late-night LGBTQ R&B dance party, featuring grooves by Tess (of Slo ‘Mo) and Audio Jack.

Artist Tegan Brace crafts aesthetic atmospheres and party sculptures in semi-private and public social spaces that exist at the boundaries of fiction and reality.

Slo ‘Mo: Slow jams for homos (and their fans) is Chicago’s party for lovers hosted by Kristen Kaza with grooves by Tess, including: Anita Baker, Sade, Frank Ocean, SWV, D’Angelo, Janet Jackson, Prince, Raphael Saadiq, Zhane, Isley Brothers, Jade, Teena Marie, Maxwell, Mary J Blige + more.

Special thanks to Crown Liquors for hosting.

21+

teganbrace.com

slomoparty.com

facebook.com/pages/Crown-Liquors/315144058692247

Photo by JI Yang

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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8

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Kindling the Flames of Knowledge

J. Thomas Pallas

 

Video

Online / 2-10am

Created for the Institute for Encyclopedic Amalgamation’s solo show at Northwestern University (Fall 2013), this video pairs video documentation of the 1954 Illustrated Encyclopedia (Bobley Publishing) being burned to ashes with an audio track of hypnotherapist Larry Garrett pushing the virtues of letting go and not feeling obligated to always have all of the answers.

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Kindling the Flames of Knowledge will play on a loop on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2 to 10am only. Follow this link after 2am CST: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kindling-the-flames-of-knowledge

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jthomaspallas.com

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A Much-Kneaded Respite

Katie Vota

Interactive Performance

2844 W. Dickens Ave. #1 / 9am-3pm

A Much-Kneaded Respite is an interactive, scent-based performance. Smell is a problematic sense in that you experience it before you are able to think about it. It defies our ability to derive pleasure in anticipation, unlike sight or sound, when you see or hear something coming. As we move through our lives, not all smells we encounter are pleasurable, but those that are leave lasting traces. Utilizing the smell of baking bread, this performance taps into this idea of the lasting trace and personal scent-memory. Visitors will be invited to sit and watch the artist knead various types of dough and bake breads. They will be invited to learn to knead or to swap recipes and stories from their own experience, and, of course, help eat some fresh-out-of-the-bread-machine breads. There will be notecards and pens around for those who feel like leaving their own traces via stories, recipes, memories or other bits of bready wisdom.

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katievota.com

Photo by Laura Moore

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 The Relaxing Lady’s Library

Jessica Speer

Collection & Performance

Tritriangle, 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave., Fl 3 / 10am-1pm

The Relaxing Lady’s Library responds to an urgent impulse to slow down, to gather friends and potential-friends together in camaraderie against the frantic pace of everyday life, to share a moment of quiet. The bulk of the Relaxing Lady’s collection consists of spoken word, sound effect, and field recordings on vinyl records and audio cassettes, with topics ranging from guided meditation to poetry to history to bird songs. The more limited print collection includes herbalist and field guides, collections of folk art, and books on science experiments for children. The Relaxing Lady’s Library will be installed and performed at Tritriangle for the month of February. For 2nd Floor Rear, Relaxing Librarian Jessica Speer will perform “Unguided Meditation” using materials from the Library, inviting the audience to immerse themselves in a sea of relaxation. Tea & coffee will be served, and the collection is open for browsing before and after the performance.

Family-friendly

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jessicaspeer.info/relaxing-ladys-library

Photo by Laura Moore

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 Tush

Hannah Tarr, curated by Third Object

Exhibition

2448 N. Spaulding Ave, Apt 2 / 1-5pm

Third Object presents the work of Atlanta-based painter Hannah Tarr.

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hannahtarr.com

thirdobject.net

Photo by Laura Moore

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I before E listening party

Traci Fowler

Installation & Listening Party

Uncharted Books, 2620 N. Milwaukee Ave. / 2-5pm

You’re invited to a listening party for I before E by The Bicycle Thieves. Texas Coffee will be served and blankets will be provided to snuggle with, including a blanket that the artist will crochet live. Visitors are encouraged to contribute to using provided yarns, crochet hooks, and knitting needles.

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This event is about comfort; the comfort provided by blankets and warm beverage in a cold body, the comfort of fond memories as well as the comfort of something new and the comfort of watching your hand contribute to the making of something larger than you.

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tracifowler.virb.com

Photo by Laura Moore

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Residence

Inside the Artist’s Kitchen 2014 Digital Resident: Kiam Marcelo Junio

Web-series Screening

2753 W. Francis Place, Garden Apt / 5-9pm

Want to take a break from a crazy weekend full of art? Come by the Residence! Housed inside what may have been a real-life apartment, we welcome you to hang out, watch videos from the Filipino Fusions web-series and eat soup! Jerry Blossom, multidimensional personality and ITAK Digital Resident will also be on hand to teach you the secrets of rolling lumpia, a traditional Filipino roll. Come over, and take a load off!

filipinofusions.com

insidetheartistskitchen.com

iamkiam.com

Photo by Emily Esperanza

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“I left your key under the mat, dear”

Ann Kreitman and Shaina Schrooten

Immersive Performance

2650 W. Belden Ave. / 5:30-6pm

“I left your key under the mat, dear” is a durational exhibition of three women alone acting out the ritual of their feminine duties. The audience is invited to move through the rooms of a home like ghosts, peering in and meditating on three women fighting against their circumstances. Three performances are happening simultaneously, occasionally interacting, giving the audience a chance to choose their own adventure. “I left your key…” creates evocative visual imagery by contrasting the realities of a domestic setting with acrobatic abstract storytelling. And hopefully, you feel something.

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Performed by Ann Kreitman, Jennifer Hadley, and Shaina Schrooten

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shainaschrooten.com

annkreitman.com

Photo by Emily Esperanza

 

The No Place

Jeremiah Jones + Liz Ensz

Exhibition & Performance

2753 W. Francis Place / 5:30-9pm

The No Place is a presentation of art which proposes radical acts, intensifications, considerations of excess, a ransacking of surplus, a potlatch, and life spent living. We gather to collectively consider spaces, places, and times in which freedom is not only possible, but actual: actual, yet invisible.

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Photo by Emily Esperanza

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Let’s Not Talk About the Weather

Ali Aschman

Installation & Reception

The Whistler, 2421 N. Milwaukee Ave. / 6-9pm

The walls of the cave in which we meet are waxy and warm. They leave a thin film on my skin when I brush my fingertips against the surface. Outside the snow dribbles down from the wide mouth of the sky. My back is aching from the journey, as the weight of my pack seemed to double with every mile. I arrive early, so I make drawings in the dirt with my toe while I wait for you; circles and spirals and infinity loops. I think about the time you tried to count my eyelashes, and gave up when you got to thirty-seven. It was snowing that day too.

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I hear the crunch of your boots, and your silhouette appears against the indigo night. Your limbs hang heavy and swollen like slabs of meat. The cave’s echo turns your breath into thunder. When you speak, it’s like a drum reverberating through my gut. It sends ripples along the soft walls, disturbing the settled pools of melted slime.

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You reach out to touch my chest. The cave is a hollow heart, expanding and collapsing around us, pulsing in a feverish embrace.You say, “You’re frozen to the bone”. I say, “Let’s not talk about the weather”.

21+

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aliaschman.com

whistlerchicago.com

Photo by Emily Esperanza

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Purple Reign / Open Studio

Autotelic Studios

Interactive Exhibition Opening & Open Studio

Autotelic Studios, 1856 N. Richmond St. / 7-10pm

Nine lovingly crafted, embroidered hoops hang in the storefront windows of the Autotelic studio. In her installation, Doelling meditates on the indulgent habits of a teenager idolater, but with the repetitive, nurturing care of a skilled craftsman fully immersed in the object of her obsession. As to be expected of any loyal Prince fan, Doelling honors the impact of the Love Symbol’s on her own life by absorbing his musical magic and translating it into whimsical musings on his likeness and the sparkle that he inspires. Enter Doelling’s crafty shrine to Prince, where reflections of his purple world of sparkle, eyeliner and pop magic manifest in a series of humorous–but sincere nonetheless–portraits of one of this cult music phenomenon. This evening, Doelling and the Autotelic artists invite passersby to come inside and nestle up with a cup of cocoa in front of a fake fire, grab an afghan and a hoop, and embroider whatever their heart desires, to the sweet, sweet sounds of Prince.

AutotelicStudios.org

Photo by Emily Esperanza

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City Alive With Dreams

The Queen of Luxuria

 

Performance

Church of the Advent, 2900 W. Logan Blvd. / 8-10pm

City Alive With Dreams is a meditative performance piece that creates a gentle offering for each person who chooses to participate. Surrounded by choral music taken from Chicago residents’ sleep dreams, this performance will carry you into an altered state of our sleep world. We are really excited to be producing this piece in a church in Logan Square. A recent  participant said, ‘May you continue to share it with the world because when you do it makes our hearts sing.’ by Hanh Pham. The Queen of Luxuria sees each performance as a kind of peace offering. Everyone is welcome to participate, or observe or come and drink hot chocolate and enjoy the atmosphere!

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Performers: Richard Blakeney, Jessica Kearney, Carron Little, Natalia Nicholson, Natalia Nicholson, Alana Parekh, Amy Sinclair, Emberley Sinclair, Nora Sharp and Aurora Tabar.

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This performance was created by The Queen of Luxuria.

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cityalivewithdreams.tumblr.com

carronlittle.com

 Photo by Emily Esperanza