Saturday coffee.

The street art of Chicago’s Vicente Jasso Jr.

The calories in a Peets large latte is the same as in a 12 ounce can of Coke.

They’re not sugar calories. But they are calories just the same. There’s a lot of milk in a large latte, even if it’s non-fat. And calories are calories even if they’re not fat calories.

So this morning I shifted over to a cafe au lait. 

It is part of my retiree life-style change of eating more carefully and exercising regularly at a gym and working with a trainer.

But not today. Not on Saturdays.

It is a beautiful morning in Chicago. After enduring a week of cold and gray the sun is shining. The sky is blue. The streets have turned white. Not from snow but from the dusting of salt and chemicals that remains after the melting of  our record  setting - so far for this year – two inches of snow.

Chicago has a long history of public murals. In the seventies there was even an organization of artists known as the Chicago Mural Movement whose art still can be found on buildings all over the city.

They included activists like John Pitman Weber, William Walker, Mario Castillo and retired Whitney Young High School art teacher Catherine Cajandig.

While street art has never disappeared from the walls in our city, I’ve noticed a lot of ink being given to a new gun in town.

Vicente Jasso Jr.

Vicente is a former student at Telpolchcalli, a Little Village public elementary school.

He is self-taught. And he has adopted the new style of putting large scale prints on walls using art paste.

Contratiempo has an article here.

Here is his Jedi Zapata on Cermak in Chicago from his Facebook page: The Art of Vicente Jasso Jr.

Tomorrow they are predicting sleet, snow and freezing rain.

Today would be a good day to get out and around Little Village and Pilsen to enjoy some art.

Free and open to the public.

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