My Wall Story

Veni. Vidi. Amavi (We came, we saw, we loved)

Have you ever wondered how I got interested and find all these artsy wall around the city of Chicago? So it all begins when.... 

Every millennials want to have a dope Instagram page, me including. I used to be posting a lot of travel pictures (Hawaii, Japan, Indonesia, etc.) or just lifestyle stuff in general. One day, my friend Maria showed me a couple of wall blogger pictures. I believe they are Jennifer Lake and Rosie Clayton. If you have not seen their page, you should! They have a great collection of pictures of walls from all over Chicago and the world! 

Anyhow.. Maria and I ended up researching some mural/wall locations around the city via Jennifer Lake's blog, which lists out mural locations in Chicago. Both of us tried to dress up and snap a couple pictures with the three murals we selected. 

The result is - really satisfying! I feel like I have the best version of my own Instagram page. I really love the colors that pop from the mural and how it goes with each outfit that I wore. It is so lively and cute! So I ended up continuing the journey. Once in a while when I am bored in the bus, I will be scrolling through hashtag searches (chicagomurals, etc.). I will then screenshot the wall, and try to look for the exact mural location. This is the most difficult part! A lot of people (including me) tag their Instagram picture with "Chicago, Illinois" location - so as you know, it is not easy to find where this wall is exactly in Chicago, Illinois. To find the location, I need to dig through the comments or hashtag that the poster use. For example, I can find a hint of "Wicker Park" or "Little Village" - then I will either explore that location via Instagram or simply google "Murals in Wicker Park". It honestly feel like the real investigation!! Sometimes, I will need to send a comment or message to the person asking where the location of the wall is to get the exact place. The weirdest thing I would do is to find nextdoor building and search for that building in Google Map. Once all these research are completed and I found the location, I will star/save them in my Google Map and name them (E.g. Geometric Mural - White and Black), so next time I can simply open my Google Map to find that mural!

Dress - Romwe | Popcorn Purse - Micha | Statement Necklace - Micha | Strap Heels - Forever XXI

The day of (normally in the weekend) I need to have a decision of where (normally multiple places) I am going to go and what outfit I need to wear for each of the mural! Normally and generally, white outfit works with almost all mural, I mean it is super neutral and fun; so I wear a lot of whites. It is, however, more fun when we use colorful outfit that matches the wall itself. For example, if the wall is blue, you can wear a blue stripe outfit, or yellow; if the wall is pink, I can wear pink polkadot outfit or violet, the point is the colors speak to each other! 

In this post, I planned to visit this little Peruvian wall by Lincoln Park area. It is really difficult to pair this wall with colors and patterns, because it is already crowded. So like I said, my go to outfit was the whites! I pulled out this off shoulder dress from Romwe, try to go all neutral with the heels and necklace. The style of the outfit is a bit cultured/hippies - so I thought it kind of match the feel of the wall. I pulled off my outfit with this little popcorn bag, too, as it matches the red. And a little bit promotion for my own store, Micha ;p.

Now time to get to my car, bring all my outfits and hit the road! I try to make sure that the location of the murals are close to each other (the same area) or at least the route I take is in one way (not here and there in a circle). Note that sometimes mural gets removed (so.. this is annoying and this has happened to me quite a few times), if you don't see the mural anymore - it is possible that they have been repainted to solid, or another mural. Be patient! What I do normally is to find another mural from my Google Map mural collections, that matches that outfit, and start driving away! 

So.. I do have three outfits, three locations! In the middle of each, I normally change from outfit to outfit.. in - the - car? Sure. I also sometimes take my portable changing room that I got from Amazon! Open it up, fold it back, and it works like nobody's business. Seriously, try it!

Once I am done posing (fun poses, ok! no boring ones!) and pics are taken, I will go home - or if I don't go home right away, I will pull out my portable memory card reader for iPhone, get my memory card out from DSLR and start transferring my pictures to the phone! This is another trick I would like to share. I used to wait to save my pictures, once I got home on the laptop. Nope! I like it quick, so I got this memory card reader for iPhone in Amazon. It is one of the best purchases I have made! 

So I would edit my pictures from my phone using an application called "Snapseed" and once it's done, it will line up on my Instagram post.

So now, you know how much sweat and tears go to each of my Instagram pictures right? Or my blog pictures? Nope, I don't mean to scare you off! Give it a try, to me I've been doing it for the whole year and until now I still enjoy doing it! To me, it's more than just "Instagram Picture" - doing all these things really teach me to appreciate all the things in this city - I never realized how much murals there are until I started doing this thing. On another note, I also feel like I get to explore the city more as I go to different places. Just like the quote above - I came, I saw, and I love it! So give it a try and let me know how it goes!!!

Oh free wall location below! And on each of my blog post :)

Mural Location:

N. Clark St & W. Arlington Pl. (Lincoln Park)

Chicago, IL