Grand Rapids Art Prize

Mammoth

Lego portrait

We settled ourselves in at General this morning for repairs..but we weren't going to spend it all day in the waiting room. My sister had told us about the Grand Rapids Art Prize show in downtown Grand Rapids. I love interactive indoor/outdoor art shows and this one was fantastic! It's a contest that started Sept. 22 and ends October 10th. The entire city becomes an art gallery during this time period. People vote on all the artworks and there are sizeable monetary prizes for the artists, who come from all over the world. There were some amazing artworks there all over the city. Turn a corner and there was another venue, or two, or three or more! some of the artwork encouraged bystander interaction, push something, draw something, touch it, or you became part of the artwork through mirrors and other pieces of the artwork. Some of the artwork made statements that made you think...the mammoth, for example. The artist, in a printed statement beside his work, says that the world is changing, death is imminent (witness the extinct mammoth). The mirrored leg shows the bystander, saying that the death of the world is not imminent, we can save the planet by human resourcefulness. He had a lot more to say about re-envisioning the future. Each artist and an explanation of their works can be seen online at the website for Art Prize, Grand Rapids, MI.

Some of my favorites were a human portrait made from little pieces of cork using the shades of natural and artist enhanced dyed wine corks, another portrait of a mother made out of decoupaged beer bottlecaps...she took over 2,000 photos of her children and decoupaged them onto 738 bottle caps! When you stand close, you see her children, when you move back, you see her own portrait---amazing!  Check out the photo of the coffin--the piece is entitled "Coughin'"--talk about a statement! It's made entirely of cigarette butts! The handles of the coffin are cigars..........

The weather was absolutely beautiful today--"Indian Summer", they call it...sunny weather in the 70's...one day down of repairs, at least two more to go...we'll see what we can find to do tomorrow....

Lion made from over 2000 pounds of cut nails

"Coughin' "