Arty farty The arty genes in my family belong to my brother and my brother alone, but in recent years I have started to appreciate art in a different way. I used to look at splatterings of paint on canvas and think "bloody hell, my boy could have done that before he mastered the art of holding a pencil."

But in older age, like some other things, I have come to be more sympthatic to what I see before me. The vision, imagination, ambition, patience, skill and hard work, often for not much reward, that can go into a piece of artwork is sometimes incredible and I admire people who can create something that I can only lie in bed and dream about.

I live in an area of Chicago called River North, which has the highest concentration of galleries to be found in the USA outside of New York. A former manufacturing area that converted to an art district in the early 1980's, the 60 or so loft-style galleries and related businesses makes walking around the neighbouring streets very inspiring.

This morning I joined a Chicago Art Dealers Association (CADA) organised tour around four galleries starting with a free coffee at the local Starbucks. Every Saturday morning of the year at 11am a guide takes you to different galleries each week and it's free, interesting and educational with each gallery owner on hand to give you an insight into their own history and their shown work. If you are in Chicago, try to include this 90 minutes in your weekend.  ¶ 20:19