Day 6 - October 21

Grand Rapids, Michigan, is known as one of the "Cool Cities"--mainly because of ArtPrize, an annual art contest that involves thousands of artists whose works of art are scattered over the whole downtown area for several weeks in the fall.  People flock to each site and mark down their favorites.  Each year there are heated discussions as to which amazing piece will win the top award of $200,000.

I was in Europe for most of ArtPrize this year and was too busy upon return home to see any entries.  But I made up for it on a walk today.  Phil and I drove to Gaslight Village late this afternoon and walked about five miles through the ritzy neighborhood by Reed's Lake. We like to comment on how unhappy most of the rich people who live there are, and also speculate on how much time or money it must take to clean the expansive homes and manicure the sweeping lawns.

Toward the end of our walk we came upon a work of art that I felt should have won first place in ArtPrize, had it been entered in the contest.  It was vibrant, quivering, alive.  There was no artist name or entry tag, but most people in Grand Rapids knew who made it.  He's pretty well known.  His sense of color and form is amazing, and this work is representative of a lot of other stuff he's done.

Here it is:

It's a temporary piece, but I think we'll see it again next fall, come ArtPrize time.  Maybe I can get people to vote for it.