<\/p>\n
Derek Erdman shows one of the flyers he made for his neighborhood. He taped the first one to a vacant storefront window four years ago. <\/p>\n
Anastasia Busby\/For the Sun-Times<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, how many things these days are not a scam? This is one thing that is not a scam. Just cat pics,\u201d Erdman explained after overcoming his own skepticism about the authenticity of a newspaper reporter calling to enquire about his service.<\/p>\n
Erdman, 51, is a self-taught artist who lives in a Logan Square apartment filled with paintings, large plants, records, kitsch and two rescued cats: Chichi, who\u2019s shy, and Archie, who\u2019s simple.<\/p>\n
A regularly-plucked standup bass, a catharsis buy after a recent breakup, leans in a corner.<\/p>\n
He spends about four minutes a day happily fulfilling cat pic requests.<\/p>\n
When he was a kid growing up outside Cleveland, Erdman and his friends would swap the yard furniture of nearby homes and revel in the ensuing confusion. They also posted fake \u201cNo Parking\u201d signs and rearranged traffic cones to change the flow of cars.<\/p>\n
Erdman refers to such acts as civil disobedience, or \u201ccivil d\u201d for short.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a time when it was teetering on mischief, mean spirited, I\u2019ve definitely tried to swing it the other way since,\u201d Erdman said.<\/p>\n
A more recent sampling of Erdman\u2019s anonymous antics includes:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Slipping a fake book entitled \u201cTaylor Swift Without Skin: A Child\u2019s Guide To Anatomy\u201d on a rack of children\u2019s books at a Target store on the North Side.<\/li>\n
- Hanging a \u201cJussie Smollett Dog Park\u201d sign that was a reasonable facsimile of a Chicago Park District original on a fence surrounding a grassy lot in Logan Square.<\/li>\n
- Affixing \u201cFeed The Rats\u201d posters to utility poles in alleys that mimic the look of official city posters imploring people to prevent rodent buffets by securing garbage in bins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Erdman describes his Cat Pix project as \u201cpure joy civil d.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Johnson, co-owner of Esquire Barbershop in Andersonville, saw one of the cat flyers in Logan Square last summer and texted a request for photos.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Examples of cat photos provided by Derek Erdman through his Cat Pix texting service. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019re a cat owner, but whenever you leave your cat at home, you miss your cat,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd with this, you just text and say \u2018Hey I\u2019d like some pics of cats please\u2019 and he sends you f— ton pictures of cats. I say \u2018thanks\u2019 and send back a picture of my cat, but we\u2019re not having a conversation or anything \u2014 and that\u2019s it. It brightens my day, and I move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erdman initially got into art as a commercial enterprise.<\/p>\n
Shocked by the price and quality of art he encountered while living in Pilsen in his 20s, he thought: I can do that. So he painted goats on plywood, hawked them for $12 a pop and \u201csold enough of those to take it more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, his art covers the walls and shelves of his Logan Square apartment, which he turns into an art gallery open to the public twice a year.<\/p>\n
Bibles with a peep hole installed in the center occupy the mantle of a fireplace. The altered books \u201coffer a new way to view the teachings of Jesus Christ,\u201d he said. Gideons bibles, he noted, are the easiest to drill through because of the type of paper used to make them.<\/p>\n