Midwest Guest

Midwest Travel Links October 2016

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

Nostalgia: Detroit - Terri loves Detroit and shares some of her favorite memories from growing up near the city (I grew up near Detroit and still live in the area). The city faced many challenges recently, but post lists many of the city's high spots and valued memories that continue to give Detroit it's cool and resilient character. Check the story out at the Off the Beaten Path blog. 

Farnsworth Metropark - This park is one of three riverside parks in Toledo Ohio's fabulous Metropark system. We're fortunate to live near enough to Toledo make the parks a day-trip destination. Farnsworth's location along the Maumee River and the towpath of the former Miami and Erie Canal makes it great place to hike, learn about Ohio's history and enjoy other park activities like fishing. Check out Deb's story at TrekOhio.com  

Skyline Chili: More than Coneys and Three Ways - I'm a big fan of eating Skyline Chili as a 3-way dish (spaghetti topped by Skyline and shredded cheese).  Anyone who follows me on Instagram knows that I could hardly contain my excitement when I found a few cans of Skyline in one of my local Detroit-area grocery stores! I always stop a Toledo grocery store before I cross the Ohio state line and head back home to Michigan. The only thing that might be better would be if we had a Skyline Chile restaurant here! Meanwhile, I'll enjoy reading this story at the Family Friendly Cincinnati blog.

Van Gogh at the Cincinnati Art Museum - I've seen Van Gogh exhibitions in the past (most notably a show of Van Gogh portraits that appeared at the Detroit Institute of Arts about 15 years ago), so I particularly enjoyed getting a glimpse of an exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum that took art lovers Into the Undergrowth with forest-themed works by Van Gogh and some of his fellow contemporary artists. Check it out at the Family Friendly Cincinnati blog.

The Paul A, Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum - This place at Ohio's Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center has been on my Midwest bucket list ever since I heard about it several years ago. The museum sounds like the sort of quirky roadside attraction seek out! Ronny recently visited the pint-sized attraction and gives us the bigger picture! Check it out at the Queen City Discovery blog.

Celebrate Christmas every day of the Year in Frankenmuth - It's been several years since we've visited Frankenmuth, but the coming holiday season puts me in the mood to check out Michigan's headquarters of Christmas cheer. Tonya tells readers about a small chapel commemorating the writing of "Silent Night" near Bronner's big Christmas and reminds me that there are still things we have yet to see there the next time we visit! Check it out at The Traveling Praters blog.  

Uncovering Fall Fun in Hell (Michigan) - I've always told folks that Michigan is one of the only places I know where you can visit both Paradise and Hell without leaving the state! Check out Aaron's dispatch from Hell, which actually looks like a pretty cool place to visit for a little hiking and fall color at this time of the year! Read his story at The Awesome Mitten blog. You can also read more about Aaron's travels at his own Adventures of elATLboy blog.

North Dakota Road Trip Day 3: Devil's Lake to Bottineau - Take a trip with Connie to the Geographical Center of North America. I've always wanted to check out the International Peace Garden in North Dakota on the U.S./Canadian border, so it was fun seeing this report. I liked the circa 1930s monument built with help from the Boy Scouts because I've seen similar monuments at other Midwest locations (although I'm not so sure about the creepy doll featured in this story) at the Midwest Wanderer blog!

Touring the Sechler's Pickles Factory - Connie also writes about the Sechler's Pickle Factory near St. Joe, Indiana. We accidentally discovered the Sechler's outlet store a while back and visited the "pickle bar" there (I like the pickled cauliflower and the bread-and-butter pickles, while Tim is more of a sweet pickle fan). Like Connie, we bought enough pickles and relishes to last us a year, but we've yet to be there at the right time to tour the factory. Read about the factory tour at the Midwest Wanderer blog.   

Colors of Crisp Point - I'm still working on a story about our visit to Michigan's Crisp Point Lighthouse for next week, but I thought it might be nice to share a post with a great aerial image of the remote light on the Lake Superior shore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The image with this list is one of mine that took First Place Color Digital Projection in the Motor City Camera Club 2015/2016 competition. Check out Farlane's aerial at the Michigan in Pictures blog.

 

Meanwhile, I always like to hear about any other favorite Midwest stories or blogs you think I might like to check out!

Want more Midwest news and links? Subscribe to my bi-monthly Midwest Guest newsletter!

© Dominique King 2016 All rights reserved

Seward Johnson statues come to Royal Oak, Michigan

The realistic street-art statues of Seward Johnson first caught my eye about five years ago in Carmel, Indiana.

I spotted a figure perched on a bench in front of a downtown store, and it took a second look for me to determine that it was a statue rather than a real person!

It became a game for us to see how many of the figures we could spot around town, and we spent much of our time in Carmel enjoying Johnson's work and creating images of them.

I saw a few photos of an exhibition of Johnson's work a couple of months ago when travel writer Connie Reed shared her own story and images of Johnson's recent exhibition in Crown Point, Indiana.

The Crown Point display includes a dozen Johnson life-size statues in everyday scenes, as well as a 30-foot-tall sculpture from Johnson's Monumental Scale collection of President Abraham Lincoln in conversation with a "common man".  

Imagine my surprise when I learned that one of Johnson's monumental works was appearing within two miles of my own home this month!

We cruised by the northeast corner of 13 Mile and Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak on the day scheduled for the statue's arrival to see Johnson's Embracing Peace in place on a truck as traffic slowly streamed past the recumbent World War II era couple locked in a an embrace and seemingly oblivious to the traffic obstruction they caused.

The 25-foot-tall piece depicts a scene with the couple celebrating the end of World War II in New York's Times Square.

When we drove back by the corner later that evening, the statue stood tall near a Royal Oak fire station and baseball field and by the future home of the city's Michigan WWII Legacy Memorial.   

The display of Seward's statue is collaboration between the city, the WWII Legacy Memorial committee and the Seward Johnson Atelier in New Jersey, with some local funding from the owners of a local business (Jack and Annette Aronson, Garden Fresh Salsa).

Embracing Peace remains on display at the Royal Oak corner until late this year.

Sites of displays of Johnson's statues elsewhere in the Midwest this year include over 20 pieces in Saginaw, Michigan (continuing until September 6) and in Warsaw, Indiana (continuing through September 30).

Seward Johnson began his early career in art as a painter, eventually switching to sculpture and gaining fame for creating the life-like statues that often depict everyday scenes or iconic figures out of cast bronze.

More than 450 of his life-like cast bronze figures are in private, public and museum collections in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia or in public places like Rockefeller Center in New York City or as part of the street scene in places like Carmel in Indiana.

Carmel reportedly spent more than $1.4 million in taxpayer money to purchase public art that includes 15 statues from Johnson for permanent display over the past 10 years. The City began purchasing that statues in 2005, and it is the largest collection of Johnson statues in one place

The collection at Carmel includes a life-size version of the Embracing Peace couple installed in 2008 and reportedly costing $122,000.

Seward's work is not without controversy, however, and that includes the Embracing Peace statue.

 Critics point to the statue's resemblance to the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photo created on August 14, 1945 at Times Square in New York City and whether or not that image is in the public domain or differs enough from the original image to not be unduly derivative.

Visit http://sewardjohnsonatelier.org/ to learn more about Seward and his New Jersey studio.

Want to learn more about Seward Johnson and his work? Check out Celebrating the Familiar: The Sculpture of J. Seward Johnson by J. Seward Johnson or The Collection: The Sculptures of J. Seward Johnson by Paula A. Stoeke. Also see Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt: A Self-Portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt to learn about the photographer and his original image.

© Dominique King 2016 All rights reserved

Midwest travel links for April 2016

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

Sixth Street Bridge in Grand Rapids-This post by Farlane at Michigan in Pictures spotlights the 544-foot-long wrought iron bridge built in 1886 by the Massillon Bridge Company of Massillon Ohio and reminds me of bridges with similar histories in Michigan (wrought-iron spans built by Ohio bridge builders during the 19th century) and not to be confused with Grand Rapids' landmark Blue Bridge. Check out the excellent article at the Historicbridges.org site cited by this post for a more complete history of the Sixth Street span. You can also check out Historic Highway Bridges of Michigan by Charles K. Hyde (who taught several classes I had at Wayne State University in Detroit).

 

 

Flying Hot Dog at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-We've seen this flying hot dog multiple times at the R&RHOF+Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, but we've yet to be able to make an image of it to share with Midwest Guest readers, so here's a nice shot of it by Karyn at Sand and Snow...and everywhere in between! We first got a membership here when the museum opened in 1995, but we haven't been able to visit in recent years since the museum lifted its prohibition on visitors being able to document their trips with their own images. Returning and making my own images there is definitely on my Midwest Bucket list!

Celebrate Indiana's Special Sites during National Parks Week-Kayleen gives readers of the Indiana Insider blog a nice round-up of the three National Park Service sites in the Hoosier State. This year sounds like the perfect time to visit as the NPS celebrates its 100th anniversary and Indiana also celebrates its 200th year as a state! Check out Indiana at 200: A Celebration of the Hoosier State to learn more about Indiana's Bicentennial.

6 Reasons You Need to Go the Detroit This Year-Jessica writes about how Detroit's story of doom and gloom is slowly changing to a story of "comeback" in recent years. While those of us who live in the area are well aware of its problems and its new-found charms among hipsters who pride themselves on discovering places before their widespread popularity among mainstream travelers, here's a list of Motor City highlights. Check it out at the Viator Travel Blog.  

101 Things to See and Do for $10 & Under in the Kenosha, WI Area (Part 1 of 4)-I bookmarked this site as we were planning a visit to Kenosha this summer, and some of Tony's suggestions like taking in a Kenosha Kingfish baseball game and climbing the Southport Lighthouse were high on our to-do list! While it doesn't look like this trip will happen for us this year, I'm still keeping this list for future reference. Check it out at The Walking Traveler blog.

 

 

Family Focused, Center City Activities Abound with the Return of Baseball Season-There is much to do in Cincinnati, Ohio, whether or not the Reds make a playoff run according to Randy at the UrbanCincy blog. Check out this video focusing on family fun in the Queen City, which reminded me a bit of some of the things we saw during our own trip to Cincy and a Reds game (you can link to the video here if it doesn't automatically pop up at the blog). Also be sure to check out a recent guest post from Jessie here about Cincy's Findlay Market.

What Happened to the Minneapolis Music Scene?-Aaron Renn (a.k.a. The Urbanophile) posts his ponderings about the Minneapolis music scene in the wake of Prince's untimely death this past month. Aaron muses about the importance of the city's music scene and wonders about the fading of its wider impact over the years since Prince's 1980s heyday--as opposed to the music scene in a place like Detroit, which seems to continually reinvent its musical culture in a variety of ways while remaining relevant to a wider audience today. Check it out at Aaron's self-named blog (that I first discovered as The Urbanophile blog a handful of years ago.

Wright in Racine-The grandson of the global manufacturer SC Johnson hired an architect during the 1930s to design the company headquarters in southeast Wisconsin with the instructions "don't make it too unconventional". The architect? Frank Lloyd Wright. And the building? Well, Wright certainly seemed to allow his imagination to fly with a structure featuring concrete flying saucer forms and a roof of glass tubing that still attracts many tourists today to tour the futuristic building as part of a cross-state tour of various buildings designed by Wright. Yup, this place is definitely on my Midwest Bucket List. Check out Beth's post at the Midwest Weekends blog.

 

 

Seward Johnson Sculptures in Crown Point Portray Real Life-Connie did a double take when she realized that a pair of men she saw on a city street in Crown Point, Indiana were actually sculptures and part of a public art project in the northern Indiana city. This summer saw a new public art installation of the realistic sculptures by artist Seward Johnson at Crown Point, and Connie files this report about it at the Midwest Wanderer blog, which includes a couple of familiar looking figures like the ones I saw four summers ago at a similar display in Carmel near Indianapolis, Indiana! Also be sure to check out Connie's recent guest post at Midwest Guest about Cantigny Park in Wheaton, Illinois.

That's it for this month's Midwest travel links list. Do you have any favorite Midwest stories or blogs to share?

Want more Midwest news and links? Subscribe to my bi-monthly Midwest Guest newsletter!

© Dominique King 2016 All rights reserved

Visit Todd and Brad Reed Photography in Ludington, Michigan

The deep purple hue of the sky and the vivid image of a lightning bolt seemingly splitting the sky and striking the North Breakwater Lighthouse in Ludington stopped us in our tracks at a silent auction for charity.

The image, called "God's Light", won third place in a Nikon International Photography Contest after Ludington photographer Todd Reed took it in 1998.

We had to have it and a few years later, it still hangs on our living room wall today.

The image definitely spoke to us then, and it was a special pleasure when we spoke to Todd Reed, who made that image, recently at his photo gallery in Ludington, Michigan.

 

 

Someone put a camera in Todd's hand as then sent him out on assignment as a beat writer at the Ludington Daily News 35 years ago.

Thirty-five years later, Todd and his son Brad continue to create images that speak to their souls as they share the beauty of northwestern Michigan through their photographs, books, videos and photographic workshops.

Todd's entry into the field of photography through his assignments may have been somewhat serendipitous, but taking time to create striking images like "God's Light" and grow a career that he shares with his son is certainly no accident.

Brad started helping his father by helping to carry his photographic gear on shoots throughout the Ludington and western Michigan region as a young boy. He graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and began work on a graduate degree in Social Work, but found himself drawn more and more to photography as he and his dad continued to work together.

Todd released his first book "Ludington Point to Point" in 2000, but subsequently released a number of other photo books, calendars, DVDs and other video products in concert with his son Brad.

Reed-published photographic compilations also include "Ludington State Park: Queen of the North" (book and DVD), "365: A Year in the Photographic Lives of Todd and Brad Reed" (book, which we received when we purchased that lighthouse image at the charity auction to benefit Forgotten Harvest, and DVD), "Tuesdays with Todd and Brad Reed: A Michigan Tribute" (book and DVD) and their most recent image collection "Michigan: Wednesdays in the Mitten" (book and DVD).

The books are big coffee table tomes and extremely popular. The "365" book sold out the day it was released in 2010 and the pair subsequently released as a softcover book (the one we have) in 2013.

The image collections in each book also require a lot of time and dedication to produce. "Tuesdays with Todd and Brad Reed" involved 52 days of creating images in the field and 30,000 miles of travel all over Michigan to create the 1014 selected images compiled in the 400-page book. The book became one of twenty books recognized in 2014 as a Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.

The two men often work together, but they each developed their own unique vision, often seeing and creating very unique images of the same scenes.

Brad and Todd are both winners in Nikon International Photo Contests, and we've seen their work when they've exhibited at one of our favorite art competitions/exhibitions ArtPrize in Grand Rapids during recent years.

Want to learn some of the pair's photographic secrets? You can sign up at their Web site for their "Picture Perfect" workshops offered throughout the year. The sessions aimed at novices help aspiring photographers learn some of the technical and mechanical points so that they can better use their equipment and make better choices that hopefully result in creating better images.

Limiting the workshop sessions to 10 to 15 participants and staying in one of Ludington's bed and breakfast inns gives participants the chance for plenty of personal attention and inspiration before heading out to express their own personal inspiration in images taken in the Ludington area.

Workshops currently cost $370 per participant and include food and refreshment. Lodging is on your own, with many workshop participants staying at the Cartier Mansion (right across the street from the Ludington House where we stayed one recent weekend).

Photographers taking the beginning Picture Perfect sessions may consider taking the advanced version of the workshop, which the Reeds also offer at least once each year at the same price and location.

 

 

Meanwhile, we had a great time visiting the Reed's photography gallery in downtown Ludington, talking with the photographers and seeing so many of their inspirational images.

Todd even gave me a signed print of a pair of bald eagles he called "Lovebirds" when he discovered that our visit coincided with my birthday!

Find books, DVDs, calendars, greeting cards and a gallery full of prints and framed photos at Todd and Brad Reed Photography on W. Ludington Ave. in downtown Ludington or browse through the gallery's Web site (type in the words "gods light" in the search box on the front page if you want to see a small photo of the image we have on our living room wall-ours is a poster-size print on wood).

The Reeds self-publish their newer books, but you can search for older out-of-print books like Lake Michigan: Point to Point or Ludington State Park: Queen of the North on Amazon.

© Dominique King 2016 All rights reserved

Visiting the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis

I had long looked forward to visiting the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western American Art when we visited Indianapolis last summer, but imagine my horror when our guides informed us that we had just 15 minutes to explore the two story facility on our own after we'd spent over an hour on a guided tour of one of the museum's temporary exhibitions!

It's times like that make us really appreciate the advantages of traveling independently or having, in this case, tour guides willing to let us deviate from the script a bit to tour the museum on our own and re-join the rest of our group a little later in the day.

 

 

Businessman, philanthropist and art collector Harrison Eiteljorg (1903-1997) founded this unique museum situated in the heart of Indianapolis and its White River State Park in 1989. He wanted to share his extensive collection of Western American and Native contemporary and historic art and artifacts in order to foster an appreciation and understanding of the art, history and cultures of the indigenous peoples of North American and the expansion of Western American culture.

 

 

The museum has one of the most extensive collections of paintings, sculptures and other Native and Western American artifacts, and it is one of only two museums east of the Mississippi to showcase a collection of this type.

The museum's permanent collection includes a good collection of Western art like paintings and bronzes by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell and lots of art by New Mexico-based artists like the two paintings by Georgia O'Keefe up on the second floor that were on the list of not-to-be-missed items we wanted to see.

 

 

We spent a good bit of time in the Mihtohseenionki (The People's Place) Gallery with artifacts, photos and interactive displays of work by, and spotlighting the culture of, the indigenous peoples of the United States, plus more galleries showcasing Native American artifacts like pottery, basketry, woodcarvings, beadwork and clothing.

 

 

We discovered the Art-o-Mat machine (an art vending machine created from a vintage repurposed cigarette machine) on the museum's second floor. The first time I saw one of these was at the Chicago Cultural Center, and I found myself equally intrigued by the Art-o-Mat as a local art dispensary at the Eiteljorg.

The museum hosts a number of special exhibitions every year, like the show about the various Gold Rushes in the American West and their impact on the Native American populations that was running when we visited earlier this summer. The Museum has also hosted shows about the history of pistols and one about motorcycles (Tim is sorry we missed that one!), Jewish life in the West, intersecting experiences of African- and Native-Americans, as well as shows spotlighting iconic Western artists and photographers like Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams.

The museum hosts special events like an Indian Market and Festival in June that features the work of more than 150 artists from more than 60 tribes, a Quest for the West that is the museum's big fundraising event in September and Jingle Rails, a holiday wonderland with nearly 1,200 feet of track running G-Scale model trains through more than 30 recreated sites depicting Indianapolis and elsewhere in the country that runs annually from mid-November through mid-January.

 

 

The museum's scenic and convenient location at White River State Park near downtown Indianapolis with plenty of galleries, meeting areas and public spaces makes it a popular venue for weddings, parties and other special meetings. It is just a short walk from other Indianapolis attractions like the Indiana State Museum, the Indianapolis Zoo, White River Gardens, the NCAA Hall of Champions, Wishard Slow Food Garden, Victory Field (where the Indianapolis Indians play baseball) and Military Park

We also saw parts of a more recent $400,000 facility upgrade designed to attract more foot traffic on the museum's north (canal) side. Four new triangular 60 by 30 foot sails hang from structure beams to provide a bit of shade during the hot summer months and make summertime activities on the patio more pleasant.

 

 

The Museum recently announced receiving a gift from Bud Adams, the late founder of the American Football League and owner of the Tennessee Titans. The gift greatly expanded their collection of Western and Native American art and is worth an estimated tens of millions of dollars, adding nearly 100 paintings by famous Western painters and more than 300 Native American artifacts to the collection.

The Eiteljorg displayed some of the items in the past, but plans a more extensive showing of the collection for November 2016 through January 2017.

You can connect with the Eiteljorg Museum on its Web site, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

Be sure to check out Visiting Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. Writer Nicole Wiltrout wrote this story for us several years ago when she lived in Indiana, and this story was one of the reasons I knew about the museum and was so anxious to see it this past summer! Check out Nicole's Arrows Sent Forth blog to see what she and her family are doing now as they currently live as expats while her husband is on assignment in England for a few years.

Want to learn a bit more about the Eiteljorg and its art? Check out Paintings of the American West from the Eiteljorg Museum: 24 full-color cards by the Museum's staff and The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art as a Keepsake by Suzanne F. Fox.

Thanks to the White River State Park that, along with Visit Indy and Downtown Indy, sponsored our visit to Indianapolis, Indiana by providing lodging, meals and help arranging visits to area attractions for our review, with no further compensation .We were free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are our own.

© Text by Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

© Images by Dominique King and Tim Marks 2015 All rights reserved

Art-o-mat (again) at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis

The first time I saw an Art-o-mat machine in Chicago's Cultural Center more than five years ago, I did a double take. I really didn't expect to see a cigarette machine in a public building, but I became pretty excited when I realized that the Art-o-mat I was seeing was a creative and fun way to recycle the aging cigarette machines to enjoy their cool graphics and help local artists at the same time.

I loved telling the story of the Art-o-mat and how it started as the inspiration of an artist who first used an old cigarette machine to dispense his own artful miniatures during a gallery show in North Carolina.

The next time I saw an Art-o-mat machine was just this past summer at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, and I couldn't wait to check it out and purchase another miniature piece of art.

The sign by the Art-o-mat machine on the second floor of the Eiteljorg Museum gave a quick history of the use of old cigarette machines as Art-o-mat machines and their purpose to encourage the consumption of art in an easy, ecologically responsible and affordable way. The Eiteljorg signage also noted how it somehow seemed appropriate encourage consumption of art in an increasingly consumer-based society in this way.  

So I dutifully put five dollars into the machine and selected my own private piece of art!

I selected a box containing "Wearable Americana!" which was a pin created with a paint chip from the famous Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo Texas.

Santa Fe (New Mexico) artist Victoria Brown gathers paint chips that peel off of the Cadillac Ranch sculpture, a popular public art installation and Route 66 icon. Cadillac Ranch is a grouping of ten 1949 to 1963 vintage vehicles half-buried into the ground in a cow pasture along I-40. Visitors sometimes spray paint and tag the cars, and Brown creates her own public art from the spray-paint chips that fall to the ground, marketing her work in the repurposed Art-o-mat machine. This strikes me as the ultimate in repurposing discarded material and utilizing the repurposed cigarette machines to market her art.

Brown's piece particularly appealed to me because of its past as public art and repurposed material. Plus I'm a bit of a vintage vehicle enthusiast who has always wanted to see Cadillac Ranch!

Brown coats her paint-chip jewelry (pins, pendants, earrings) with a clear coat of acrylic and includes the story of her art piece's background in the box along with the jewelry.  

I reported that there were 82 active Art-o-mat machines in 2009, but today there seem to be a good number more of these refurbished cigarette machines dispensing art in locations mostly around the United States. (Sadly, I didn't find the Art-o-mat machine I first saw in Chicago on the list of active machines).

Want to learn more about Cadillac Ranch and other sites along the historic Route 66 highway? Check out Route 66 Adventure Handbook by Drew Knowles or check this classic music from Bruce Springsteen taking inspiration from the site.

Check out this group photo pool at Flickr to see some great images of the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.

Check out a guest post travel writer Nicole Wiltrout wrote about the Eiteljorg Museum for Midwest Guest several years ago, and be sure to check back here later this fall for our own story and images from our recent visit to the Eiteljorg Museum!

Thanks to the White River State Park that, along with Visit Indy and Downtown Indy, sponsored our visit to Indianapolis, Indiana by  providing lodging, meals and help arranging visits to area attractions for our review, with no further compensation .We were free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are our own.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: A quick look at ArtPrize 2015

We just returned from our annual visit to explore ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

ArtPrize, now in its seventh year, is a uniquely interactive event designed to engage viewers and artists by creating a community centered on interaction between the two groups.

This was our sixth ArtPrize visit, and as usual, we saw plenty of beautiful art, some cute pieces in a more crafty mode, pieces from artists we've seen exhibit in the past, pieces that raise a bit of controversy or allow you to see something in a way you might not have considered in the past...and left us wishing we had more time to appreciate the artists' work and see more of it.

 

Michigan Shores by Colleen Wegener (detail of recycled shoes used to create work)

 

This year, there are more than 1,550 works of art displayed at more than 160 venues across three square miles of this western Michigan city. Venues range from small corners of offices, restaurants or retail buildings to larger venues like Grand Rapids' major museums, concert halls or churches.

There are two $200,000 grand prizes and eight smaller awards in individual categories...more than $500,000 in prizes in all, with half of the prizes determined by public vote and a jury of art experts determining the remainder of the prize awards.

We like to ask locals what venue are the must-see display places each year, and this year we ended up heading over to the DeVos Place Convention Center to check it out at the recommendation of a woman seated next to us in a restaurant the first night we arrived in town. Our informant told us that Devos Place had two floors worth of artwork displayed, and that the artwork also filled the skywalk between the convention center and a downtown hotel.

 

 

DeVos Place turned out to be a great place to see a lot of artwork with a minimum of walking outdoors between venues on what turned out to be a rainy day.

 

Open Windows by Jason Watts

We saw one of our favorite, and most thought-provoking, pieces at Devos, a mural painted by Shawn Michael Warren called "In A Promised Land?" that depicted the deadly aftermath of the Tulsa race riot of 1921. The riot, considered by many to be the deadliest incident of racial violence in American history, is one that many of us never heard about in our history classes. There is an interesting film clip of interviews with folks who were young children at the time of the riot on the ArtPrize site.   

 

 In A Promised Land? by Shawn Michael Warren

We like voting for our favorite pieces during the initial stages of public voting during the two-and-a-half-week ArtPrize and seeing if any of our initial choices end up on the short list where a second round of public voting determines some of the ultimate prize winners.

Going to one of the larger venues displaying the work of multiple artists usually insures that you'll see at least one of the pieces that end up in the second-round voting, so we usually try to at least make it to a couple of the larger venues like DeVos Place or the Gerald R. Ford Museum, where several artists always set up their displays in the museum's large fountain out front.

 

Balancing Act by Calvin Babich

Last year, 41,956 members of the public registered to vote during ArtPrize with a total of 398,714 votes counted to determine the prizes. This year, the ArtPrize site already had more than 260,000 recorded votes from visitors as of last night, with voting continuing yet another week.  

We're anxiously awaiting the announcement of this year's Public Vote Final 20 ArtPrize finalists and our opportunity to vote during the competition's second round of public voting!

Check out my ArtPrize 2014 recap or enter "artprize" in the search box near the upper left-hand corner of this page to find other recaps of more previous ArtPrize years.

Text © Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Photos © Tim Marks and Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Back in the Saddle: Two Churches, A Grotto, Two Museums & a Lake

When one lives in an urban area, it is often hard to find nice afternoon rides within a reasonable distance from home. That is one of purposes of my posts here on the Midwest Guest Blog. Today I present a nice 22-mile ride that begins just six miles from my home. Because it courses through some of the richest communities in Michigan, I call it my “Ride to Wealth.”

 

 

The ride includes a number of sites to explore along the way.

Begin the Ride at the corner of West Maple Rd and Cranbrook in Bloomfield Township. Follow Cranbrook Rd. North through the neighborhood to Quarton Rd. (16 Mile Rd). Beautiful suburban homes line a well-paved slightly curvy road. At Quarton turn Left and proceed about a quarter mile to Dunston Rd. Follow the winding Dunston Rd. about ¾ of a mile until you reach Church Rd. A left turn on Church Rd. brings you to our first stop of the ride.

Christ Church Cranbrook: established in 1925, the Goodhue and Associates designed Episcopal Church was dedicated in 1928. Stop and wander around the grounds. Statues of famous personages adorn the outer walls of the church. Statues depict Protestant theologians such as John Wycliffe and William Tyndale, explorers such as Jacques Marquette SJ, American founders such as George Washington and William Penn, and a host of others. If the church is open step inside to see this architectural gem.

To continue on your ride, turn left from the church lot onto Lone Pine Rd. and head west. On your right is the Cranbrook Educational Community that I will discuss later in the article.

 Continue west on Lone Pine as trees that line the road hide the large luxury homes from view. At Franklin Rd., the route begins to have some nice easy curves that make this section a pleasant ride. At Inkster Rd. turn right and then follow the sharp left curve to remain on Lone Pine. When you come to Orchard Lake Rd. make a right turn and continue about ½ mile to Pontiac Trail. Turn left and follow Pontiac Trail about ½ mile to Old Orchard Trail.

Turn Right on Old Orchard Trail. Old Orchard Trail follows the south shoreline around Orchard Lake for about two miles with nice views of the lake and Orchard Lake Country Club. The road is in decent shape and incorporates a number of nice curve including a very sharp curve after you pass the golf club. At the sharp curve Old Orchard Trail becomes Hiller Rd. Continue on Hiller to Commerce Rd.

Turn Right on Commerce and ride along the North Shore of Orchard Lake about two miles to Indian Trail Rd. Turn Right on Indian Trail and we come to our next stop.

On your left will be the Orchard Lake Schools Campus. The Catholic Educational campus includes a high school, Seminary, and liberal arts college. Slightly back from the road at the campus, entrance is a small grotto. This is a nice spot to stop rest and reflect.

Follow Indian Trail to Orchard Lake Rd. and turn right, continue to Long Lake Rd. and turn Left.

Long Lake is a six-mile stretch of mostly straight, newly paved, smooth riding. It is not particularly exciting but the speed limit is 50 mph, which allows you to get some wind in your face. About half way along Long Lake, we come to our next stop.

Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church is a phenomenal beauty. Built to emulate the 13^th century Melrose Abby in Scotland, the church is set on Island Lake. The magnificent facility opened in 1958 and the congregation competed an educational annex in 1965. Walk around the church and admire the beauty of the setting and the building. Behind the church building, you find a number of sculptures by Marshall Fredricks, sculptor of the “Spirit of Detroit.” I have never had any issues taking photographs of the outside of the church but it is my understanding that the church prohibits photographs inside the sanctuary.

Return to Long Lake Rd. and continue east until you arrive at Woodward Ave. Turn Right at Woodward and follow it until you reach the entrance to the Cranbrook Educational Campus.

The Cranbrook campus includes a wonderful garden and two museums. The Cranbrook Art Museum is one of Michigan’s pre-eminent museums of modern art and the Cranbrook Institute of Science has wonderful programs for all ages. A number of serious academic scientists developed their love of science at the center.

Return to Woodward Ave and continue south for about 200 feet to Cranbrook Rd. Turn right go about ¼ mile and you find yourself back at Christ Church Cranbrook.

This ride can be a fun hour ride or a nice excursion touring some interesting and educational sites.

© Tim Marks and Dominique King 2015 all rights reserved

Merry-Go-Round Museum celebrates silver anniversary this year in Sandusky, Ohio

The Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in July by celebrating the rich history of carousels dating from their beginning as training devices for knights perfecting their jousting techniques with moving targets during medieval times.

The merry-go-round became a fast-paced and romantic ride for carnival goers by the dawn of the Victorian era at the end of the 1800s before becoming a favorite children's ride with the arrival of the twentieth century.

The United States once had 6,000 wooden merry-go-rounds, but today the museum's classic carousel is one of less than 200 such rides still in operation in this country.

The idea for museum came after 1988 when US Postal Service issued four stamps celebrating the art of carving carousel animals.

The block of stamps included images of a carved deer created by Gustav Dentzel in 1895 and an armored horse created by carousel animal carver Daniel Muller in 1925, which graced the Kiddieland carousel at Ohio's Cedar Point.

Cedar Point held a first day of issue ceremony at the amusement park's campus in Sandusky, Ohio.

Sandusky citizens later borrowed the city's then-vacant vintage Post Office building to stage a display of the Muller horse, the Dentzel deer and a few other figures.

Organizers of the display expected a draw a few hundred visitors. Surprisingly, more than 2,000 visitors from around the country showed up to view the show.

The successful showing spurred the establishment of a non-profit corporation that purchased the old post office building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and established the Merry-Go-Round Museum.

The Museum officially opened on July 14, 1990.

The Museum still retains traces of its former identity as a Post Office, and many visitors, employees and paranormal investigators report seeing and hearing evidence of ghostly entities that hang around the museum, attracted by a connection with one of the carved carousel animals or, in at least one case, because they formerly worked at the building when it was a Post Office.

The museum purchased the framework of a 1939 Herschell Carousel on which to showcase some of the carved animals in its collection in 1991.

The carousel frame from the Allen Herschell company arrived without the original animals. Museum staff and volunteers cleaned, refurbished and repainted the scenery panels and rebuilt the platform before placing a menagerie of carved carousel animals from the museum's collection and loans from private owners atop the platform to create a unique merry-go-round as the museum's centerpiece.

You can also see a display of vintage Dentzel carving tools at the museum, and there are often master carvers on hand in the workshop on the ground floor to display and explain carving art and techniques.

Museum workshop artisans use historically accurate techniques to create new carousel animals or to help restore them with proceeds earned from such work used to reinvest in the museum and its collection.

Each year, carvers create a new carousel horse as an auction prize with the proceeds from the auction also going to support the museum. You can check out the progress of the 2015 raffle horse created by master carver Kate Adam at the museum's Web site.

Some of the museum's carousel animals became part of the annual holiday display at the White House in Washington, D.C. in December of 2014, where an estimated 65,000 visitors viewed them before the carved animals returned home to Sandusky.

Summer hours are 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon until 5 p.m. Sunday beginning on Memorial Day and running through Labor Day. Check the Web site for information about the museum's operating hours during the rest of the year.

You can also connect with the museum on Facebook.

Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, $4 for children 4-14 and free for children under age 4.

For me, the highlight of my visit to the museum was a ride aboard the carousel, included as part of the museum admission cost.

Want to see more Midwest merry-go-rounds?  Check out Ohio's Carrousel Park  in Mansfield (yes, that's the correct spelling in this case) and a Photo Friday feature about the Carrousel Park in Ohio, or Big -kid fun on the carousel at Grand Rapids Public Museum and a Photo Friday feature  about that western Michigan carousel.

Learn more about the art of carousel animal carving by checking out Flying Horses: The Golden Age of American Carousel Art, 1870-1930 by Peter J. Malia or Carousel Animal Carving: Patterns and Techniques by Bud Ellis, Rhonda Hoeckley and Bonnie Greenwood.

Thanks to the Lake Erie Shores & Islands Visitors Bureau for sponsoring my visit to Sandusky, providing lodging, meals and admission to attractions for my review, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Toledo in Bloom

The Toledo Botanical Garden (TBG) springs into full bloom this season, offering plenty of opportunities for gardeners, photographers and visitors just seeking a little serenity among the gardens, paths and public art at the garden that is part of this northern Ohio city's amazing and diverse metropark system.

We visited the garden late last summer, cameras in hand, as its dahlia show garden put on an amazing display of colorful blooms, and can't wait to visit again this summer to explore more of the TBG's sixty-plus acres of display gardens and plant collections.

George P. Crosby donated 20 acres of land to the City of Toledo with the idea of creating a public park in 1964.

By 1967, the site opened to the public and park planners developed it with the idea of creating the site a center for gardeners and arts within the community.

Empathy by Emanuel Enriquez

In 2006, TBG became a public/private partnership with Toledo's Metropark system, the non-profit Toledo Botanical Garden Board, Inc. and the City of Toledo.

Today, the TBG bills itself as a living museum for horticulture and the arts, drawing more than 120,000 visitors annually to enjoy a full schedule of gardening- and arts-related events as well as self-guided tours of the grounds.

The historic Navarre Cabin, home to Toledo-area pioneer and War of 1812-era Indian scout Peter Navarre is also at TBG.

Peter Navarre was a French Canadian fur trapper who settled at the mouth of the Maumee in 1807 with his family. He spoke French Canadian and little or no English, but he was fluent in several Native American languages, so he served as an Indian Scout during the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

Local historians believe Peter's son (also named Peter) built the cabin for his father as a home during the 1860s on Consaul Street near Toledo's Port District. The cabin moved to Navarre Park and became a gift to the City of Toledo in 1922. It remained at Navarre Park until 1957, when the city moved it to a site near the Toledo Zoo's amphitheater. It fell into disrepair until the city moved it again in 1975 to "Crosby Gardens", which eventually became TBG.

Today a 1937 Pioneer Garden surrounds the cabin with heirloom plants.

The TBG hosts outdoor festivals, performing and visual arts classes and concerts, environmental education classes and workshops, an annual wildflower rescue, native plant programs and many other family-oriented weekend programs.

Many art and cultural organizations like the Black Swamp Hosta and Daylily Society, Maumee Valley Herb Society, the Photo Arts Club, the Toledo Gem and Rockhound Society, the Toledo Glass Guild, the Toledo Potter's Guild and Toledo Rosa Society maintain their  headquarter buildings near the gift store at TBG.

Even as we visited on a weekday afternoon, there were a number of visitors walking the garden paths, relaxing among the public art pieces on the grounds and, like us, capturing images with their cameras.

The TBG opens daily, year round, during daylight hours. The gift store and Visitor Center opens every day from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m

Admission is free, although there is sometimes a small charge for special events and classes.

You can connect with TBG at its Web site, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube.

To learn more about Peter Navarre, check out Peter Navarre: War of 1812 scout, the man behind the legend by Larry Michaels.

Be sure to check out my stories about some of the other Toledo Metropark facilities: Pearson Metropark, Oak Openings, Secor Metropark and the National Center for Nature Photography.

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved