A walk through Artprize. {Personal}.

Welcome to Artprize 2011. This year is the first year that I’ve ever been to Artprize (for those of you who don’t know, Artprize is an annual occurance in downtown Grand Rapids) and it was AMAZING.  There were so many people and so much to see!

My “tour guide” if you will, was Dylan. Who lives in the Grand Rapids area and knows how the whole “Art Prize scene” works. We had a great time adventuring throughout the city. We stopped in the museum to see what kind of Artprize entries they had, in one of the furniture store set-ups they had, we took pictures via a mirror. Even though it came out blurry, I was quite happy with the result.

We saw soo many cool things, and I made a goal that someday I am going to enter Artprize for myself. I don’t know how or when, but I will.

The first installation I saw was in the Fountain Street church, pictured above. It was all the little figures bowing to the gun. It was very meaningful to me. It really spoke to me, because it shows the direction in which the world is heading. The meaning was deepened by the fact that it was installed in a church, where people are ususally worshipping god instead of guns.
The church was absolutely beautiful. Dylan and I explored around it and that is what the picture of the seats is from. It had numerous, enormous stained glass windows that shone brilliant colors into the church. It was also eqipped with a giant choir loft and an organ that went all throughout the chapel. It really was one of the more beautiful churches that I have ever seen.

 

One of the installations was a multitude of shiny metal squares hung from the ceiling. It was a rather large installation and took up at least a 10 foot by 10 foot square. It was beautiful and captivating to look at. I even snapped a picture of Dylan through the hanging squares and was quite happy with how the results turned out.

My attention span is not the greatest..and I made Dylan stop in the middle of the street while we were crossing  a crosswalk so that i could take this picture. Luckily, no one was hurt in this act. But LOOK HOW COOL the picture turned out. 🙂 Totally worth it.

Artists were everywhere. Some explaining their art to others, and some finishing up final details of their art. This painter told us that as long as the painting is in his possession, he is never done with it, because there are always more details to add. I loved his shoes. I wish that I had spurs to put on my boots! But he was a really cool and down to earth guy, and I wish him all the best in the competition.

And last, but DEFINETELY not least, was my absolute FAVORITE installation in artprize. It was an automated set that included lightning and old fashioned video along with AWESOME sound effects…all incorperating the theme of “mad science.” The finer details on the piece were steampunk as well! I must have stood and watched it loop through it’s program for over 45 minutes….I was just so enthralled with how awesome it was!

That’s my recap of my ArtPrize adventures for this year. There are still a few days left, so be sure to go down there and check it out for yourself! Good luck to all the contestants!