October is Chicago Artists Month, and now is your chance to get a peek into artists’ work spaces, galleries and other non-traditional art locations. Last Friday, I checked out a couple galleries in the Bucktown/Ukranian Village area with my mom.

My mom’s friend, Iwona Biedermann is a photographer and the owner of Dreambox Gallery on North & Western. She recently shot a cool series of photographs that show snails very close up on tombstones at a Polish cemetery. She also has some amazing shots of nuns in everyday life. Her exhibit featured seven artists, including another family friend, Jerzy Kenar, an accomplished sculptor, who showed a couple mixed-media pieces.

We then realized that there was another gallery right across the street, the Tom Robinson Gallery, so we decided to check that out too. The theme for his exhibit was Black White Gray, and featured some very interesting drawings and prints. One of my favorite series’ was the one below – sketches of women sitting in various poses. Really simple, but very eye-catching.

Robinson has been doing these portraits that seem to be made of wood which are pretty cool, but what me and my mom liked even better were the sketches he used to map out his wooden pieces. Basically, tracing on photographs/prints how he would divide up a woman’s face for one of his wooden pieces.

There are countless other events still happening this month, so be sure to check out the full schedule here.