"And we shall organize them for the victory! We shall bear down the opposition, we shall sweep it before us-and Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours! CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!"- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

The following are a few on-the-spot sketches (one of which suffered some water damage from wet pavement) of Occupy Chicago gatherings. Some minimal color and tone was added in Photoshop.

Ground zero for the occupiers is at the corner of La Salle and Jackson near the Chicago Board of Trade, where they gather every day at around 1:30 PM. A couple of the sketches are from a rally co-sponsored by Occupy Chicago and various senior citizen's rights groups which was held at the Federal Plaza on Nov. 7th to protest proposed cuts to Medicare and Social Security. The gathering, which featured brief appearances by Sen. Dick Durbin and other local politicians (notably absent was other state senator Mark Kirk), was followed by a march and sit-in which blocked traffic at the intersection of Clark and Jackson until police peacefully arrested some of the protesters in what amounted to a staged act of civil disobedience.

From an artist's perspective, the gatherings provide a great opportunity for spontaneous, lively sketches, since the participants tend to be fired up and in constant motion. And despite some efforts to paint the protest movement with a broad brush, it's members seem to come from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and each has their own story to tell.

As with a previous post of "Faces on a Train", I hope to make this the first installment of a series.

Thanks for looking. Comments welcome!