Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters Craft Fair

There was a craft fair today held at the Byron Center high school. I heard about it from a friend, whose wife had a display booth for her artwork.

A herd of wooden reindeer, one of many craft items available. Managed to snap this in a rare moment when no child was trying to climb on them.

I showed up expecting a few dozen exhibitors, probably set up in the gym, and hoping I could do a bit of Christmas shopping. This was a gross underestimate. The first sign was the completely full high school parking lot - I had to park on a nearby road and walk in. There were not a few dozen booths in a gym - there were over two hundred booths set up in two gyms and lots of hallways and other areas. Hundreds of people crowded through the halls and around every booth. Clearly this is a major event!

All the cars. They had a shuttle to a nearby middle school for even more parking.

All kinds of craft art was on display. Paintings, wood carvings, clothing of various kinds, pillows, and so on. Several booths had collections of rock pieces. There was a group selling "yard yahtzee" with giant wooden dice, and several with various versions of the cornhole beanbag-toss yard game. And food, of course, from kettle corn to bake sale tables. It was not hard to fill a few spots on my Christmas list!

One of two gyms full of people. Not to mention all the hallways.

The fair benefits the Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters, which is a volunteer organization that raises money for fine arts programs like theater, band, and choir. I'm always happy to help out those kinds of causes, though it does sadden me a bit that it's necessary. Personally, I'd be happy to pay a bit more in taxes so all schools could have this level of support for these kinds of programs, not just the districts that are wealthy enough to support organizations like the Fine Arts Boosters.

I did not purchase the Batman pillow-and-blanket combination. But it was tempting.

My visit to the craft fair was a fun couple of hours, and useful in the annual holiday shopping quest. I'll be keeping it in mind for next year, too.

ArtPrize 2016 Visit 2

I made a second trip to check out ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids recently. Between this and my first trip, I've seen most of the pieces in that area, probably around 2/3 of the entire competition. There are more scattered around the rest of the city, and a good number of live events as well. I doubt I'll go out to attend those, but I see a bit of them on the news or the ArtPrize website.

 

These metal dragon sculptures were a good way from downtown, up in Heritage Hill near the apartment I had when I first moved to Grand Rapids. Too bad, since a lot of folks might not make it out that far and miss seeing them. The one on the bottom actually breathed fire, with a little fuel tank built into its belly. (Under the careful watch of the artist, of course - that's him in the lower right.)

Nice autumn road-through-the-woods landscape photograph.

This Last Supper wall hanging was huge, covering most of an entire wall in the sanctuary of a church also in Heritage Hill. It was made entirely with colored pencils according to the info sign.

Outside that same church was this piece named "His Love Remains" with what I thought was a unique take on the crucifixion of Christ. It has many of the associated items - crown of thorns, spear, etc - on an empty cross.

Wall hanging of eagles in flight.

These ceramic sculptures are vaguely cactus-like, though apparently not meant to represent actual plants. Pretty, though.

Cute painting, reminded me of anime style visuals.

These two are part of a larger group of images, featuring old barns and train locomotives.

When you looked at this circular DNA helix sculpture closely, it's very spiky - all those strands are made out of screws. The artist's wife has cystic fibrosis and this was his way to express the combination of life and pain from such genetic diseases.

Interesting piece on the interaction of nature and civilization - that's an endangered species of tiger, with various man-made structures built into its body.

A display of wooden carvings of a whole range of cycles, from tricycles to those old-time big-wheeled bicycles.

The picture doesn't do this justice since a lot of the appeal is the movement. All those little sparkly pieces that make up the bodies of the animals are hanging from strings and are free to shift a bit as the air moves.

I think this was the single most popular piece that I saw, with people lined up to get a chance to walk around the circular display of carved wooden service dogs. Each represented a different era in the military, from the world wars through Vietnam into the modern war on terrorism. The wooden canine sculptures each have an injury representative of what they and their human companions suffered during their service.

Stained-glass piece showing a tropical scene. Nice placement on the display, right at the Amway Grand Hotel's front windows so that the headlights of cars pulling around the hotel entrance shone through.

This is only a small number of the hundreds of bronze butterflies in this display, which took up an entire large room.

This display of masks is a collective effort by people recovering from brain injury. Each patient made their own mask and wrote a small description of themselves underneath.

Nice pattern piece, part of a sequence that started fairly simply and increased in complexity.

One of three very complex drawings (sadly my pictures of the other two were poor) with an interesting techno-fantasy theme.

Two of four paintings representing the seasons. Each of the trees is made up of animals as well as branches - you can see a deer at the bottom of the trunk on the left, and a shark at the base on the right.

A very long, beautiful landscape painting, moving through all four seasons as you follow it along the wall.

A large painting of swirling smoke, with images of people formed within. That's a foam cigarette in the corner representing the source.

There's no consistent pattern in this worked-iron piece, but I enjoyed looking at the various complex components.

Wooden sculpture of salmon swimming upstream.

Still-life sculpture of a hawk descending on smaller birds.

Nice landscape piece, although it's hard to tell in this image since it's a bit too dark.

These wooden planks are nicely worked with twisting patterns. Each of the colors is a different type of wood, not stains or other finishing.

There were quite a few of these little bucket sculptures, with all sorts of strange things in each. I particularly liked the geese in the middle.

This isn't a camera zoom on my part - the photograph is a tight close-up of an eagle's eye.

Another nice landscape. I thought it was a painting at first, but it's a photograph that captures the scene perfectly.

A pattern piece made up of tiny dots.

These are part of a series of images representing change in the manufacturing economy and culture. There were several pieces along this theme, not a surprise here in the Rust Belt.

An incredible-machine-style piece with a bunch of balls moving through a complex series of ramps and loops. It's placed such that you can see it from ground level as shown here, or walk up to the second floor and see it from above.

ArtPrize 2016

Fall in Grand Rapids is ArtPrize season. The annual art competition is in its eighth year, and I've found time to see at least some of the pieces in all eight. I plan to spend a few hours roaming around the event this year, probably on a few different occasions. Expect a lot of pictures each time I go out. (Apologies for the quality...cheap camera phone.) Larger versions in my ArtPrize 2016 photo album.

 I generally like pattern-based pieces and this one is no exception.

Robots are always interesting subject matter, in this case out "watering" mechanical flowers with a gas can. That's the artist on the floor, putting on some finishing touches. Most pieces are finished before being installed, but you see work still being done on occassion.

I'm a sucker for space and stars, too. Hard to see in the picture, but this one has some figures hidden in the image...like the whale in the lower right.

Another pattern-based piece. You can kind of see land and sky, but mainly it's abstract.

I thought this was an interesting series of paintings, meant to signify struggle against life's circumstances.

This piece was done entirely by using different colors of duct tape to form the image. 

A metallic eagle, posed as if in flight.

This entry had a whole table full of metal wire figures.

Large painting of lions on the savanna. Hard to see scale, but it took up an entire wall.

Each of the small Christmas-ornament-style balls in this entry was painted with the face of a Native American. You can only see one side here - there's an entire circle of displays.

Another wall-sized painting, this one of a forest on fire. Meant to draw attention to the dwindling rain forests, according to the author's note nearby.

This may look like a child's drawing, but it required some complex construction since it's entirely made of plastic lids.

"Grand Rabbits" - enough said.

Not sure entirely what this thing is, but it looked interesting out on the lawn beside the GR Public Museum.

About a dozen little metal cages with metal animal models made up this installation.

The other side of that same entry, showing different animals.

Another picture done in duct tape. Apparently duct tape art is a thing. Who knew?

As I first caught sight of this one from a distance, I thought "huh, wonder what that thing that looks like a tin-foil giraffe is." Thought maybe it would be part of another robot or something. Turns out, it actually was a tin-foil giraffe, along with various other animals.

You can't see this in the picture, but there are a bunch of small desks in front of the paintings in this installation. Kids were encouraged to sit down and write out a goal or dream, and put it up on the wall with many others.

Nice landscape that covered probably a good 15-20 feet along the wall.

Map of the United States made of colored glass, with lots of images representing the various states/regions.

This fish is a long, flat piece in the GR Ford Museum. Didn't look like much from ground level, but when you went up the stairs (where I took this picture) you could see the whole thing as intended.

A large, inflatable, rainbow-colored...something. Kind of looks like an elephant from a distance, but when you get closer it's clear that there's just a bunch of legs. Whatever it was, plenty of kids were very happy running around underneath it.

A very long model of a railroad bridge - it stretched down a hallway for about 30 feet. There's a train that's a bit hard to see behind the bridge supports.

This was an interesting series of paintings that each showed a circular grouping of different items - kitchen utensils, fruit, guns, medicines, toys.

A sculpture named Hand of God. There was a nice little booklet left by the author for people to write prayers in.

A complicated-looking device, complete with gears and circuits. I don't think it actually moved (and wasn't about to touch it to find out) but it looked like it might go into motion at any moment.

Nice painting of a hummingbird in mid-hover.

That's a whole lot of legos. And who doesn't love a little programming on their art?

Yep, those are painted toilets. The idea is to draw attention to colorectal cancer. Pretty sure that's working.

Metal stylized soldier surrounded by stones with names of various weapons, vehicles, etc used in Vietnam.

Dancing figure made of metal wires.

There was an entire series of these large wooden figures, representing some kind of fantastic story featuring the triumph of good over evil.

This large mural shows a battle scene from the history of Grenada.

An entire wall covered with a representation of a crowded poor neighborhood. In many of the windows were small screens, like you'd see on a cell phone, playing short videos of scenes you might expect to see in such an area.