The day John Hughes died my entire childhood flashed before my eyes. It sounds dramatic, I know, but movies are dramatic. And maybe I’m a little dramatic. And maybe I know just too many lines from John Hughes movies by heart, and I couldn’t get them out of my head.

Growing up in the 1980s, a childhood filled with Hughes’s genius, I was shocked and confused when there weren’t movie marathons after he passed away. I expected to turn on some cable network and see nothing but Molly Ringwald and John Candy and Anthony Michael Hall. I’m still a bit pissed about it.

As a little girl, his movies made me want to be a teenager - so I could go to prom and take driver’s ed and get skip school and get detention and meet a boy like Ferris Bueller. I still want to meet a boy like Ferris Bueller.

Hughes made me laugh, and he also made me cry (I don’t care how many times I see Planes, Trains & Automobiles – cue “Every Time You Go Away” and I’m already in tears). He just made movies better. And I know I’m not the only one who thought so.

Fifty artists, working in paint, print, pencil and plush, “honor a filmmaker who defined a generation” at Gallery 1988’s The Road to Shermer: A Tribute to John Hughes.  The show ran February 27 – March 4 in Santa Monica, CA, and, well, it pretty much made up for the movie marathons that never happened (though Sixteen Candles made it back on the big screen for Valentine’s Day – good job, AMC).

There was so much love in the work hanging on the gallery walls, and a bunch of pieces I wanted to take home – specifically “Shower Curtain Ring Division” by Scott Belcastro,a white canvas with a black silhouette of Steve Martin and John Candy lugging Candy’s trunk from Planes,

and Max Dalton’s “The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Board Game” which is also available as a limited edition print minus the game pieces  – featuring @charliesheen

(I first learned of Dalton’s work just a few months ago with his 111 Archer piece in the Wes Anderson tribute show by Spoke Art. Totally reminds me of the M. Sasek books when I was a kid - ah, more nostalgia.)

While The Road to Shermer has ended (in more ways than one), you can still buy original pieces, as well as some wonderful prints (and a Great Outdoors stuffed bear) at Gallery 1988’s site. Now all I need is someone to release a John Hughes film soundtrack compilation and I’ll be happy.

Anyone, anyone?
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Post by writer/photographer Alex Asher Sears (check out her work here) - Thanks so much Alex!

The Word.