I Finally Have To Admit It... Grand Rapids is a Very, Very Cool Place to Live!...

However, when I moved here 20 years ago, it wasn't so much. Downtown was pretty much of a disaster and an absolute ghost town after 6 o'clock on any given evening. And especially on the weekends when you particularly didn't want to travel down there, unless of course you had to take your children to ballet class...

But things have most definitely changed. Over the past few years Grand Rapids has become, really, the most amazing city/town!

Just look what they did on Monroe Avenue last weekend!!!



And seriously, this was only a single entry in the ArtPrize competition taking place in downtown Grand Rapids from September 23rd thru October 10th.

Here's the jist of it...

The Basics
At ArtPrize, any artist—from established to emerging—has the chance to show work. Any visitor can vote. The vote will determine who wins the largest art prize in the world. We also took the unusual step to allow people in the city to open a venue and choose the artists to show in their space. There is not one official curator or jury for the competition.

The number of venues is fluid, so the number of competing artists is fluid. The possibilities are wide open.

We can't predict what will happen, but it should be a lot of fun finding out.

There is artwork all over the city! In every nook and cranny. So exciting! There is even a LochNess Monster sculpture in the Grand River!

Rob Bliss, the artist/creator of the "100,000 Paper Airplanes and Melodies Over Monroe" is a 20 year old, Sophmore music student at Grand Rapids Community College (My School...Yay!) and is currently in the top 25 standings!... amongst (I don't even know how many entries exactly but) literally hundreds I think!

~ He was ridiculed by many beforehand as to the potential litter problem this would cause to the city... so he'd hired a clean-up crew out of his own pocket to clean up the "mess" afterwards. As it turned out they weren't really needed. Pretty much every single person on the street took home at least one of every color as a souvenier....

The voting will continue thru October 1, 2009 when the top ten works with the most votes will be announced and become the only works eligible to win the ArtPrize. Those ten works will continue to receive votes until October 8, when the work with the most votes will be announced and win the $250,000 ArtPrize.

How in the heck did a 20 year old come to coordinate something like this!

The Promo...


The Backer...
Rick Devos Unveils $500,000

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Art Prize, Grand Rapids, Rob Bliss