You may have heard of ArtPrize, a downtown event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that invites everyone to make art, look at art, talk about art and vote for art.
The event really does include everyone. Any person, from any place, can enter their art; any downtown location can display entered art; anyone over 18 can vote for their favorites—no entry fee, no juried selection, no prohibited categories. Though it may sound like a recipe for disaster, it is instead the recipe for a vital, pulsating community event that seems to bring joy to everyone who gets involved.
I can attest that ArtPrize changes the city for two solid weeks. Everywhere I go during ArtPrize, all conversations center on what has been viewed, reactions to it, plans for seeing things other people have mentioned. Sidewalks are crowded, people are connecting and the mood is expansive.
What makes the experience so special to me is the wonderful, stunning eccentricities pouring out of each artist into the art they create. In a world that so often pushes us toward conformity, ArtPrize is a rollicking expression of individuality.
It is almost impossible to explain the diversity of art on display. Traditional and modern paintings, drawings and sculptures mingle with flying pigs and tableaus made of dryer lint. There are portraits assembled from pushpins, Rubik’s cubes or crayons in dazzling pointillism. There are sculptures formed from iron, stainless steel, bronze, nails, pennies, plastic or found objects.
I saw a huge installation made of hand-felted wool that lined a long, tall passageway; I saw a collection of petite graphics illustrating the varieties of joy mentioned in the book of Philippians. I saw constructions made from thread, canvas, molded ceramic hands, salt, glass and sand, from doors, driftwood and detritus. I saw tents, wagons, whole houses on wheeled conveyances, pianos on sidewalks begging to be played, metal elephants with moving parts, and landscapes on multilayered clear vinyl with perspectives that shifted as I passed.
The people are as engaging as the art. They come from all over, each with a different focus. A Scot wearing a kilt explained his ceramic panels to me; a soccer mom described the personalities of the Haitians in her photos; another photographer recalled his near despair in the fourth hour of the eighteen hour panoramic effort to capture the city he loved. An artist/mother, with her baby on her hip, told me what had inspired her.
I am an art enjoyer who is also a teacher, so my thoughts went to students. I realized that inside each one of them are worlds and world views as divergent as the art I was passing. I was reminded over and over of this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.
My post-ArtPrize resolution: Encourage more such miracles.
