art prize

 we spent a lovely afternoon in downtown grand rapids last week. it was the final day of judging for artprize. we knew that millie might not be enthusiastic about missing her nap, so we only had a couple of hours to try and take it all in. armed with a map of the top ten pieces, we set out to see as many as we could. it really was a beautiful way to spend an afternoon together...

our first stop was the giant penny made out of pennies. you can see that millie wasn't at all interested in the copper monstrosity. she was much more curious about all of the kids running around it.

we ran into these little gnomes next. all made out of bird seed. most of them had already had their little faces eaten away by birds, but their pointy caps were standing tall!

 

i took piano lessons for many years... jason too. unfortunately, i didn't like to practice and i wasn't any good. hoping that milllie will be more musically inclined than her parents are!

 

 

 

checking out the map (actually, crumpling it up and chewing on it) to see where we should go next...

 

i really liked this one. i know that it looks like a wall of junk, but it was really interesting stuff. i like how it's symmetrical and non-symmetrical at the same time. orderly chaos. it was hard to keep millie's little hands from grabbing at all of the fun stuff popping out...

all of millie's eating is catching up with her... she's heavy. jason will often

 put her up on his shoulders when his arms get tired and his back starts

 aching. she's clearly happy up there. 

 (again, she wasn't very interested in the art. shame... cause this was the best piece that we saw. it ended up winning first place. my picture of it doesn't do it any justice. really cool.)

this was the textile version of the terminal at o'hare where the rainbow lights follow you across the people mover. it's hard to see all of the colors in the pictures... it was beautiful.  

this wasn't part of art prize, but it was millie's favorite by far. i thought for sure that a security guard would come by and scold us for messing up the exhibit, but how can you refuse this little face?

a fun time was had by all. we can't wait till next year.

p.s.... a man from rapid river made this crane out of trash. pretty great.