GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — “You’re so close to it that you can’t tell what’s going on.”
It can be hard to get the big picture up close, so sometimes it takes a step back and a much wider look to get the true feel of a piece of artwork.
Artist Maddison Chaffer says her “Scribble Grid,” the side of a building off Monroe Center, is a work in progress.
Not only will the piece be showcased during ArtPrize 2022, but also it will live on for much longer.
“Even if I like move to Zimbabwe or whatever, like I will leave this and this is the neighborhood’s now,” Chaffer told FOX 17.
If you take another step back, you can start to see how murals like Chaffer’s have taken up permanent residence in downtown Grand Rapids.
FOX 17 took a walk around the area with Candice Smith, who runs Tours Around Michigan.
“History, art, ghost tours, tasting tours, beer, wine, distillery, riverfront tours, historic home tours,” Smith explained. She says Grand Rapids always had creative juices and artistic spirit, but ArtPrize makes a mark that’s hard to miss. Now, when you walk around a corner in downtown Grand Rapids, it’s an experience beyond just getting from one place to another. Many of the murals have stories behind them.
This includes an artist who had given up on his craft, but was inspired by the art already in Grand Rapids when he moved there. “Given that it just used to be a plain wall, it’s a very recognizable wall now in Grand Rapids because of ArtPrize,” Smith explained.
“Sometimes the thought behind those pieces have really moved me in a way that I was not expecting,” added Janet Korn with Experience GR. Korn says she continues to see the long-lasting impacts ArtPrize has on the area.
“There’s all these great social zones and all these great new restaurants and all these other things to do that are here all the time. And this just brings the sidewalk pedestrians by so that they can come back and make plans for the future,” Korn said. When you look beyond the murals, you start to see how the art bleeds into even more unconventional places including streetlights, electrical boxes and drains.
“In the past maybe we wouldn’t be painting barriers for outside seating,” Smith added. “And so I think we’re just really looking at our spaces differently, so even if they aren’t ArtPrize, we’re doing a lot of permanent art here that’s making a big difference.”
