I am lucky enough to have one of the five Great Lakes of North America right in my backyard. How cool is that?

DePaul Art Museum (DPAM) is a world-class museum located in the heart of Lincoln Park on DePaul University’s campus. DPAM is open to the public and presents four to nine temporary exhibitions per year with a permanent collection of more than 3,500 objects with strengths in international modern and contemporary art. DPAM enriches the university’s commitments to excellence, diversity and social concerns.  Built in 2011, the LEED-certified building was designed by Antunovich Associates.

Lost Eras has easily become one of my favorite shops to explore; hidden just outside of Chicago, it stretches far and narrow, crowded with lost treasures. Walking through it, it's hard not to begin imagining the stories of the objects that turn up in its walls, and the people that once held them. Not to mention the building itself is a piece of history, as in the 1920's it was home of the night club the "Club Detour" which had many artists play in it's halls such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basey and Ella Fitzgerald.

Making leather, kink, BDSM, and fetish accessible through research, preservation, education and community engagement

Chicago is a gigantic open-air museum of hand painted signs and murals where you can still find gold leaf lettering in shop windows and ghost signs litter the city's brick walls. This handmade sign is on the wall of a Mexican garage near my apartment.