It’s said that nature abhors vacuum and it’s probably no less valid to say that frames abhor emptiness. Stand an empty frame anywhere and it will instantly frame an image, be it a landscape, a portrait, a still life, a pose, a gesture, a decisive moment, or a humble snapshot.

         When I came upon a heavy, silver, ornate frame that would only fit in a uhaul, it somehow made me think of Blake’s “doors of perception” and then it occurred to me that this frame might perhaps become a means of perception by which Chicago could see and frame itself… If I were to test this idea, where should I set up the frame to provide the most revealing self-expressions of the city?

I finally chose to lug the frame to city beaches for all-day happenings. Chicago has beautiful beaches, which nearly all have their own cultures. And the beach is the place where people bare the most of themselves. Also, along the water’s edge, there are few social gradients, so it’s also easier to make connections there.

         I decided to stay mostly in the background. I’d merely record what happens when people encounter a Baroque frame on the beach. If someone wanted to use it as a make-shift studio and shoot portraits of their companions on a cell phone through it, I’d encourage them. If someone else wanted to pose in the frame for a portrait, I’d be there with my camera to give them a professional one. If a kid wanted to jump through the frame, I’d record that too. And the same would go for any dog that might choose to mark the frame as his or her territory. Meanwhile, I would also record the vistas changing inside the frame, the vendors fleetingly framed by it as they passed by, or the boats, floats and birds as they floated in the background…How does an empty frame pique the creativity of accidental passersby? Who seizes the unexpected opportunity for self-expression that it beckons, and how? And so on and on…

         Chicago’s first public beach opened in Lincoln Park in 1895. Until 1895 beaches in Chicago were privately owned by hotels and clubs and so they cost money and weren’t open to the public. Now there are officially 26 public beaches within the city limits of Chicago. We have documented 15 beaches to date. We plan on documenting all of the beaches by the end of 2026.

Chicago beaches have a colorful history which has been well documented by photographers for over a 100 years. Nobody has done anything similar to what I am attempting to do with “Framed in Chicago”. The goal is to have a gallery exhibition of the photographs, a book with a working title “Framed in Chicago”, and to then sell the actual physical frame as an art piece. The last project we did that was similar in scope was “I Am Chicago” – www.iamchicago.org. That multimedia project received a half page spread in the New York Times, was talked about on Chicago television, and written about in many local Chicago news outlets. Tens of thousands of Chicagoans liked and followed “I Am Chicago” on Facebook. To this day I have professors from Chicago’s universities emailing me to please update the “I Am Chicago” website (when it needs updating) so that they can show it in class.

Artists: Adam Novak & Dan Torres

Special thanks to Antonio Ancona for helping to build the frame and Scott Parish and Slava.