Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Creativity Unleashed!!

photo mosaic


i have lots to say about my recent trip to michigan….  and i’m going to start here.  my purpose was 3-fold:  i wanted to reconnect with family and friends, spend some quality time at lake michigan and get a good dose of the amazing experience that is artprize.  of the 3, i think artprize got a little shortchanged, but then it’s tough to fit everything in in just 5 short days!  with 1,582 entries (from 41 countries) in 164 different venues, i really felt i only touched on the very tip of the iceberg.

4 seasons

fooling around with my brother

 i did see enough to get a flavor for things, though, and to be thoroughly impressed with what i saw.  i wrote about artprize last year (2nd annual) here and it is growing.  over 400,000 visitors last year (including lots of kids and students!) …  it is a complete, massive whole-city adventure that is completely unique and is putting the city of grand rapids (where i grew up) on the map.  

giant praying mantis

whimsical paper mache piece

 as you walk around the city and into some of the venues, you cannot help but be impressed by the level of diversity and creativity.  (where do these people get their ideas???) some of the entries are gi-normous, even building-sized.

building mosaic

wall-sized "power of women" drip painting

 or took ridiculous amounts of time to produce…..

gorgeous, gigantic piece produced entirely with ballpoint pen

giant belt made of belts

 or are made of incredibly interesting materials.

like bb's

or toothpicks

or postage stamps 

or leaves


 .


some of the pieces were interactive.....




and many of the artists were on hand to discuss their pieces


 all i can say is that i love artprize and hope that it will be around for a long, long time!!

grand rapids

8 comments:

  1. the building mosaic knocked me out!

    sweet!

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  2. That dog paper mache (huh, how do you spell that) looks so real! Are you sure it's not!

    I really want to visit this someday. For sure.

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  3. Good Grief, Charlie Brown! Incredible stuff. Imagine the hours spent. The ball point pen piece is pretty awesome. It would be so much more challenging to work with pen than with graphite to get shading. Just amazing .. the entire thing. Glad you were able to attend and have a lovely journey 'home' at the same time. hugs, Donna

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  4. Thanks so much for sharing these pictures of ArtPrize. They are reminders of just what a great event it is. We hope it will bring you to Michigan every year. Your pictures may be all we get to see of ArtPrize this year, so THANKS!
    Sherrie

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  5. OMG!!! thanks so much for posting all of these pictures..this looks just wonderful + inspiring + amazing!! I am so glad you had a great time Patty...my 2 absolute faves...the power of women...I just adore that. and then the Indian Chief right after that. Ballpoint pen????YIKES! I wonder how long that took???? The draftsmanship is incredible and I can feel his power and spirit. LOVE! I can't believe that your trip is over already.we have to get together and chat soon? Uh...I have not been getting much sleep Patty...still trying to catch up on ...well, everything! xxx

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  6. P.S. i love your new profile pic too:)

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  7. It would have been wonderful to visit that art prize and see all amazing art. But I'm very glad that you were there and could share some of it.

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  8. wow...how awesome is that!! the whole city saturated with art!! I love it! and that ball point pen drawing is very nicely done!!

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