Textiles, Artprize, and the GRAM

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the city of Grand Rapids and a visit to the Grand Rapids Art Museum is a must when you are in this area of Michigan. The museum itself has a collection that focuses on 19th century, Modern and Contemporary Art, but it is an institution that has also been integral to fostering a art-minded community. Outside of its building is a public space designed by Maya Lin which reflects the importance of water to the city. This space is just the tip of the iceberg when discussing art in Grand Rapids, MI. The most noticeable impact of art on this community is a three-week long event called Artprize. For those of you who have not heard of it, it is a international art competition juried by the public that features all ranges of people, ages, styles, media, and subject matter. Each year hundreds of works/artists are chosen to participate and a winner chosen at the end of the three weeks. Every year new favorites are picked and the community becomes enlivened by the art that is displayed on its street corners, in its banks and restaurants, and upon its walls. During my trip to the GRAM I saw entries by participants of the past year and the winner of 2013 (image above, details below) I was excited to see the piece that won for 2013, for it combines all the major components needed for a skillful and engaging work of art. An intriguing design, delicate handling of materials, and a wealth of inspiration.

The winner, Ann Loveless, created the work above "Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore" out of vibrant, carefully chosen fabrics. The work skillfully displays an art form that many of us may interact with on a daily basis in a very mundane sort of way, for this work is made up of 4 panels 5 ft. tall by 20 ft. wide that were machine quilted.  The colors utilized are bold and vibrant, serene and calm, working together to produce a breathtaking landscape out of fabric. When approaching the piece, the complexity of it comes to the fore. It is obvious that hours of planning and executing went into the production of this piece. The eye reads these colors as if they each a piece of a puzzle, but at the same time it seems like a layering of fabrics had to have taken place to achieve such perfection, much like artists layer and build up oil paint on a canvas.

The artist works from photographs, this particular view is of Sleeping Bear Dunes from the shores of Lake Michigan. Loveless is a quilter of landscapes, bringing them to life with her blending of rich hues and the movement that is an inherent quality to the technique of quilting. From what I have found out about her, she is more of a non-traditional artist, having obtained her degree in Clothing and Textile Design from Michigan State University. In a world that seems dominated by the MFA, exhibitions, and galleries, it is encouraging to see an artist with an amazing eye for color and light to be working in such a normal material, one that we physically come into contact with daily. Her work is a true intersection of life and art.

It is a breath of fresh air to walk through a museum, seeing excellent examples of modern and contemporary painting and sculpture, and then to come upon this piece of what may be referred to as craft. It challenges the stereotypical notion of what art is, or rather what it should be. In fact, in some ways this piece provides visitors to the museum an introduction to contemporary art of the 21st century, for it represents in some small way the multifaceted nature of today's art world. Art can be a million and one things, beautiful, thought-provoking, extreme, skillful, life-like, ugly, meaningless, or appropriated. It is up to the viewer to consider it and see it for what it is and what it can be, life. 

~Caitlin