Art Prize

I spent a wonderful afternoon with my mom yesterday walking around downtown Grand Rapids. There is a huge art contest going on for the next two weeks - over 1200 artists are displaying their work and vying for a $250,000 top prize awarded by popular vote. It's spread out within a 3-mile radius with almost 160 venues hosting artwork (some inside and others outside). Anyone can register to vote for their favorite works, but I just wanted to see the artwork. The weather was perfect and the downtown area was crowded with people walking, talking, eating, and looking at all the artwork.

The artwork is quite varied: from paintings to sculptures, photographs, balloon creations; and a wide range of media is used. Some take very little space while other works take an entire wall. One is even on a scaffold 72 feet in the air. I have never been a strong follower of art, probably because I'm not very artistic (just ask my students - I can't draw anything!). I tend to be quite conservative in my taste for art; it needs to look like something as opposed to abstract or modern art. So I wasn't sure what to expect when I went downtown. But it was a really neat experience seeing all the different perspectives from the artists and sharing the whole ArtPrize experience with the West Michigan community.

Some of the pieces we saw really moved me. There was a series of paintings done by a woman as she recovered from an addiction showing the different stages in her recovery process and the stages of her self-discovery. I was fascinated by a piece taking up two walls inside the UICA building that looks 3-D from a distance but looks quite different up close. A life-size moose made entirely of nails was intriguing (this really looks more impressive than it sounds); I'm still curious how it was put together. And a sculpture made of plastic army men glued together in the form of a woman and painted orange (the international color of peace) with the title PEACEISNOWHERE made a statement on the futility of war. Look at the title carefully: it can be read two ways. An artist also painted a block-long fence with a beautiful garden and meadow scene complete with a little door and pathway. I hope it remains when the contest is over.

On the other hand, some of the displays didn't seem like art to me. The artist spending several days on top of his scaffolding seemed more of a publicity stunt to me, although he had painted some things on his easel. And the balloon sculptures, although colorful and elaborate, seemed on a different level than some of the other things I saw. A local event planner's entry consisted of a series of 100,000 different colored paper airplanes tossed off the roofs of several buildings in a rainbow of color. It's a great event and thousands of people came to see it, but is it really art? There was also performance art and interactive art.

As we walked and talked about the artwork, the question came up: What is art? After talking with several people I'm realizing there are different interpretations as to what comprises art. Is it something involving effort, following a specific form, something that viewers can understand or interpret, or something else? I looked up several definitions and came up with these concepts: Art is "the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions" (Wikipedia), "the products of human creativity" (Princeton), and "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form" (Oxford American Dictionary).

All of these definitions deal with the concept of creativity. Although I don't understand each piece of artwork I saw, I can see that it was born from the artist's need to create. To make something that conveys some emotions or shows something in a new way. I think art involves the investing of one's self. And we have the best example of that in God. When I look at God's creation I see a master artist. Through the waves rolling up to shore, to the beautiful budding flowers, and the colorful fall leaves. I see colors, shapes, and textures throughout nature and am reminded of the artistry of God. How remarkable that He has given people the innate desire to create as well. Hopefully the artwork that doesn't speak to me will speak to someone else. I know it spoke to the artist as he/she created it. I'm glad that ArtPrize is taking place. I think it's great for the city of Grand Rapids and West Michigan, it's a great opportunity for the artists to showcase their work (even if they don't win a cash prize), and it's a great opportunity for everyone to look at, study, and discuss the various entries as well as the concept of art.

How would you define art?