After my day of rest yesterday, Earle and I headed out a little after noon today. Earle's host, Meegan, heads up M.Live.com - an online Michigan publication. She wrote a feature article on Earle today. So after the photo shoot we braved the blustery wind and headed north. Here are some of the best images of the day. Let's start with the festive fish that also hangs in San Chez and is made entirely from recycled materials from the restaurant.
This mixed media cut-paper piece hangs in the San Chez Cafe across the hall from the Bistro.
We're now leaving the restaurant and heading North. This piece reminds me a bit of Deborah Butterfield's work.
This huge and impressive piece sits in a park on the East side of the Grand River:
Please click on this piece mounted on the outside of a building near the BrassWorks building. There is wonderful work at the BrassWorks, but the door was locked both times we tried and we were hugely disappointed. This work made it worth the bitter walk - uphill both ways!
Here's a print by a French artist. When I entered the space I exclaimed, "Oh, looks, it's a print!" "No, it's a painting," the receptionist briskly admonished. "Naw, this is a print," I sweetly corrected. "No! This is ArtPrize, we don't have any prints!" she foolishly responded, implying that prints were, what? Xerox copies?? "Read her sign!" she commanded. Well, I didn't have to, but I did. The artist described putting ink on a plastic plate and transferring it to paper. I DESPERATELY wanted to suggest SHE read the sign. Oh well, I'm a printmaking snob and I admit it.
I really love this one, too. Note the ArtPrize sign by the door. Every venue has one of these signs outside their door so you can easily find them. Plus every lightpole has ArtPrize banners, the buses are decorated with ArtPrize logos, it's endless the amount of work that went into putting this event together. By the way the circus was in town last week and when they unloaded the elephants, they put ArtPrize Red paintbrushes in their trunks and had them paint on some city buses. I'm not kidding.
I love, love, love this piece! I guess you can tell that I'm drawn to the 3D work with all the sculptural pieces. I also think they photograph better than the 2D work, so sorry to shortchange all the 2D artists that are checking the blog.
I'll add just one more here for now. I met this artist in another great old warehouse turned studio tonight. She told me she loves puns, love sock monkeys and had so much fun making this. There are bananas in the drawer on the right and the title is "The Father of Man."
Oh, one more bit of news! We threw together an idea the other day as a way to get a few more people into San Chez. We're going to make a community ArtTree. So, tomorrow night from 5 to 8, the public is invited to stop by to cut a leaf into an 8' treepanel. (I brought some paper along in case I had to redo something) We'll have some tapas, a cash bar and several tables lined up in a row. I'll throw down a roll or two of the single face corrugated I use to store and ship the panels, roll out the paper and provide an exacto with a fresh #11 blade. The San Chez logo is a fork that morphs into a tree with branches and no leaves. I'll cut the trunk and some branches and we'll let the guests cut out leaves. San Chez can decide if they want to display it once it's finished, but they love the idea!
I have a lot more photos, but I'll save them for another time.
Later,
