Behind the Sticker
My map shows my journey through a city full of stickers that very few actually notice. This map shows the reader that there are so many different stickers, especially on one of the most walked streets in Chicago. The map is fun and playful, giving the effect of stickers being relatable. The map is from roughly around 2pm to 5pm on a Tuesday evening. I include a compass which helps indicate which direction is north. The compass is on a PRIORITY MAIL sticker to help incorporate it into the theme of the map. The stickers in my walk are represented by drawings of some, not all, of the actual stickers I encountered on my journey. The map and where I walked reflects on the city of Chicago by showing how diverse it is even in the fact that there are sticker placed all around the city, describing its surroundings. One of the things that influenced my map was graffiti. I chose to write the street names and the map title in a graffiti font to go with some of the stickers and the fact that graffiti is a big part of Chicago, just like the stickers. It is in a way parallel to the stickers because they both have their own impact and artistic view on the world. Since I live in Lincoln Park, my walks are influenced by the city. I like to get out from the small area of Lincoln Park and head to the big area of downtown Chicago. My map reflects this by one, I did my walk in downtown so it shows that I like the big city and two, that there are more stickers downtown than in Lincoln Park because of the fact that it is downtown. Though Lincoln Park does have a plentiful number of stickers.
Stickers. They are so simple yet so intricate. They hold stories that we don’t know about, sitting there still waiting to be told. The stories that are held captive in the small sticky piece of paper trying to escape and reach out to the everyday bystander hoping to grab their attention, but failing.
I began my walk jumping off the train at Jackson, almost face planting on the way up the stairs and out onto the street. I turn down Jackson walking past DePaul to find a RED EYE with a sticker on it of a sad piece of toast.
This piece of toast is drawn on a PRIORITY MAIL postage sticker. It is beaten up, clinging to the RED EYE. The sadness is shown in the eyes of the toast, as if it were going to cry any minute. I prepared to grab a tissue, but realize it’s a sticker, it doesn’t need a tissue. I might need one after staring into the eyes of this saddened piece of yellow bread.
I continue to walk down Jackson, trying to compose myself, to find a small grouping of stickers on a “ONE WAY” sign pointing to the direction ahead of me.
This one way sign has only a few stickers placed on it, along with some graffiti marks scribbled on it. The placing of the stickers on this one way sign is quite precise. The green square with a man’s face in it is almost placed evenly in the middle of the arrow, I twitch a little at the fact that it is crooked. Next to it there is a blue head. I am not sure what it actually is but I know it is one of my favorite stickers I have seen so far. It made me laugh as I walked passed it. The one orange tooth was a part of the sticker that confused me. Is it a cavity? Is it a missing tooth? Why is his tooth orange? Did he eat some candy and it turned it orange? I don’t know! I keep this in the back of my head as I continue walking down the street.
I come to the end of the block where Jackson meets Michigan Ave. I see a pole that has a sticker on it that says “Drop Out of School”. It shocked me that those words were written on a sticker, placed where anyone could see. It made me think about how many people had seen it; how many people had been thinking about dropping out of school, lost and feeling hopeless and to see this sticker having them think it is a sign that they didn’t belong in school all along. It actually made me mad. I wanted to take it down, but I left it. It was already ripped, what else could I do?
My emotions were all over the place as I walked passed a pair of men who asked a random man who walked passed them for a lighter. The man gave them his lighter to use. They left after they lit their cigarette or blunt, I couldn’t tell what it was. In front of me on a “Chicago Lighting” box I see a sticker that says “#LIMITLESSCHICAGO”. I think it means that Chicago has limitless opportunities in which an ordinary person could take advantage of if they wanted to. I looked it up on Google and found that it actually has to do with music, rap for specifics. It deals with a tour/rapper. I was surprised that it didn’t have a deeper meaning, but I could have just thought that because of the way my mind was already feeling towards the stickers I had seen.
I keep walking just a little bit further until I reach the end of Jackson. I look up to find a whole load of stickers on the back of a sign.
There are so many stickers on this sign. Even some that were once there, though they are no longer with us their last bit of stickiness is holding on for dear life. Many of the stickers confuse me. I decided to look up “BATLE 663K” and “BERST OHUNO PALMR”. When researching these stickers, they were found together in most cases. One of the results that came up was “ripbatle”. Looking into it and trying to understand what it means I find that it is not only a sticker but it is also graffiti found on train cars. Apparently his name is Chance Carl Daily, legal name Robert Earl Lavender, who is known as a legend in the graffiti world. He passed away about two years ago because of a drunk driver hitting him on his motorcycle at the age of 29. One of the ways people remembered him was by saying RIP or Remembered in Paint. In some of the posts it is said that these stickers should have been taken down, so I find it interesting that it is still up, because they said this over 81 weeks ago. One of the other things that is very interesting to me is that Chance Carl Daily was from California and his stickers are all the way in Chicago, showing how much of an impact he had on people, even if others don’t understand the meaning behind the stickers.
At the time I took this picture I didn’t know the meaning behind these stickers, I had no idea what they meant. That is why I love the stickers placed around Chicago because they are put there any people don’t know what they mean yet they have so much impact.
I continue to walk down Michigan Ave to find more stickers on a pole in front of the Art Institute. These are mostly torn illegible images. There is a pig wearing a police hat. I felt that this sticker was to show the brutality of the police and how some people think of them as “pigs”. It describes a feeling towards the police force that possibly not all people feel, but obviously someone does.
As I continue down the street I am distracted by something other than stickers. There is a woman sitting on the sidewalk painting. They are beautiful paintings and they gave me a nice break from all the emotion of the stickers.
I continue walking down Michigan Ave to find a bike rack. Bike racks are one of the places you will always find at least one sticker. This one just happens to have one which says “ANTI SOCIAL CLIMBER CLUB” and “DON’T GIVE UP”. I looked up the ANTI SOCIAL CLIMBER CLUB to find some variety about what it is. One example I find is a humorous poem about anti-social climbers the other is an episode of a TV show called Daria.
I find this sticker which says FILM. It got my attention because I am a film major and the layout was interesting to me.
While walking I find a road construction sign. I know what you’re thinking, “a road construction sign in Chicago???? NO WAY!!!!!”. I understand that there is always a ton of construction going on in Chicago. That’s why it was so easy to find one, but not so easy to see one with stickers on it. The stickers on this sign are interesting because I see a R.I.P one, a gender equality sticker and a Hillary sticker covered by another sticker.
As I continue down Michigan Ave I find a huge section of stickers on a pair of signs. Many that I have already seen throughout my walk. One of the stickers on these signs that caught my eyes is “BRAVE: HELL 2 OFFER” because it shows a deeper meaning. It shows that being brave can have consequences but it can also have a good impact on the choice made. Being brave about anything, whether it is speaking up to someone or doing something you never thought you could shows that you have “hell to offer” when giving what you want to give. One of the other stickers I noticed was “NUDN WAS HERE”. I looked up these choice words to find the same sticker posted on a website that posts pictures of the stickers or graffiti that people put around cities. The post I found was in Oregon, which again is interesting since I am finding it in Chicago. Who is NUDN?? And what are they doing traveling the world putting their stickers around in discrete places??
I kept walking down Michigan Ave and this little saying caught my eye. It is not the first time I have seen this written. Below is when I saw it in Pilsen.
One of the interesting things about the writing on the street lamp and the writing on the fence in Pilsen, is that they are quite similar handwritings. I wonder if the person who wrote it in Pilsen went down town on Michigan Ave to write the same message, and vice versa. It gave me a little push to be happier when walking, making me want to have a good day.
I continue past the light post and find the jackpot of all stickers. There are so many stickers in this small area of pipes. I took many pictures of this area of stickers because it excited me so much to see this many stickers in one area at the same time. I sat in the area taking pictures, setting up my tripod to take some video when a person walks passed and yells “photo shoot?? let me be in it”, I turn to see who said it because I was going to have them come over and be in it if they wanted to but when I turned around no one had stopped, they just kept walking. I was disappointed. But I didn’t let it ruin the fact that I had found an amazing section of stickers placed in one space.
I continue walking until I get to Randolph St where I turn down the road to see if there are any intriguing stickers off of Michigan Ave. To my surprise one of the first ones I find is a sticker about racism hidden on a pole that is covered with flowers. It has a game of TIC-TAC-TOE on it with a C on it in red, showing that the game ended in “cats” meaning there was no winner. The sticker reads “CAT-MAN-DO” which is in reference to TIC-TAC-TOE. There is a small statement written at the bottom of the sticker which reads “NOBODY WINS IN RACISM EITHER”, referencing back to the game of TIC-TAC-TOE. It is pointing out that racism is thought of to be a “game”. I found it interesting that the sticker about a real issue, racism, is hidden away. It shows how racism is being hidden in the bush or thrown under the rug like it doesn’t matter when it really does.
These two, also down Randolph and Washington, give a positive message. The coming out sticker shows that it is okay to be gay and that there are people that are there to help. I like this sticker because I support the LGBTQ community. The one next to it says “Don’t give up” which I had seen before but this sticker is a little different. I also saw it again after I had seen the coming out sticker and it made me think about the hope that is needed for people of the LGBTQ community that are having trouble dealing with what is going on in their life. This sticker also has so much impact. Those three words could save a person’s life. They could have been having the worst day, after having the worst week, after having the worst month, etc. and seeing this sticker could be what keeps them from doing something that they might regret. Even though it is a sticker it has such an impact on the lives of so many people living in this world.
One my way back from my walk heading to the train station I notice another pipe sticking out of the ground on the corner of a street. It is covered in stickers, but it is alone unlike the other one that was with so many other pipes. The one sticker that sticks out (haha sticks out, because it’s a sticker) is the one that says PRIVILEGE. There are many people in this world that are privileged, which you can definitely see in the city of Chicago. With the underprivileged people living in the streets of Chicago, which is unfair in many ways but also I personally don’t know the way to fix it. This sticker shows how privilege is a big deal. It shows that it exists and can’t be ignored.
