What Is It?

Well, it's my birthday gift from my husband...

Bet you can't guess what it is!  I don't have any nifty prizes or anything but if you guess it correctly you have the satisfaction of knowing more than I did.  I had to ask after I had opened it.  "I know it's a chicken but "what" is it?"

My nine year-old thinks it's a Barbie "Chicken-Horse".  What do you all think?

Art Prize 2013

'Tis the season!  Grand Rapids annual art competition has arrived once more.  Since our daughter had a doctor's appt. downtown we took a field trip day and saw just a very small portion of what was entered in the contest.

 

 Pastels on wood- a rendition of the Last Supper

 

Even the River gets art in it.

 

...And the bridges...

 

Using recycled or found objects is always popular .

Sculpture and bells made from old oxygen tanks. My kids enjoyed those.

 

The Artist and an attendee play Amazing Grace on the bells.

 

Who doesn't love a family of giant yellow ducks?

 

Nemo was there.  This was made with tack nails and sequins.

 

Giant "recycled" dragon... old metal and tires, tube lights and a big propane tank to make it breathe fire in time to music.

Owls

 

Pandas

Bronze sculpture...

 

Or is it performance art?

Living plant wall art

 

We enjoyed ourselves and there was plenty of eye candy.  But after we got home my husband and I discussed that there was nothing we saw that really blew us away.  I guess I'm a traditionalist and am looking for art that I can't replicate, that takes real talent and skill not just a clever mind.  I'm sure that those pieces exist in the competition but we didn't come across them.  Again, we saw only a very tiny bit of what was on display. I will try to post and link to the winners when they are announced.  I'm sure those will be more traditional "fine" art.

To The GRAM!

The Grand Rapids Art Museum has just started free Tuesday admission!  So guess where John and I, the kids and Grandma and Grandpa Schuh went yesterday!  I can't pass up free admission to a museum! 

I was quite excited to go because one of the visiting exhibits featured the quilts of Susana Allen Hunter.  I was surprised to find out that Ms. Hunter wasn't an art quilter or hobbyist in pursuit of the perfect look.  She was a poor farm wife who made quilts out of necessity to keep her family warm.  She recycled bed sheets, clothing, and flour, seed and feed sacks.  Some quilts had no batting, some had homespun cotton batting and one even had batting made from lint.  She wasn't concerned with perfect lines and rarely used any common patterns but merely put pieces of cloth together to be functional.  I bet you she never thought that any of her quilts would be museum pieces yet here they are.

My husband was not impressed, but I was.  Here was a woman doing what she needed to do to provide for her family and she worked with what she had.  She didn't have an unlimited budget and a cute little quilt shop to purchase fabric from.  She didn't worry about perfection but time and love went into those quilts.  She probably didn't even have a sewing machine.  I can only hope that I serve my family with such dedication.  There was no photography allowed so I didn't get any pictures but I will remember those quilts for a long time.  Those quilts represent freedom to me.  Freedom from vanity, freedom from expectations and just a true humbleness.  We woman need more of that!

A Little Local Chalk Art

Byron Center Chalk Art Festival!

 

 

Homeschool Photography

Last year my older girls did a study on photography.  This was not a class they took outside the home.  I do not like having to drive ten thousand places for every child so this was from a book checked out from the library.  They read it, studied and took notes on it and then I made assignments for them for each chapter.  They enjoyed it very much.  My oldest is even considering further study in the field.

One of my joys in homeschooling is seeing not only learning taking place but a love of it as well.  Now, you won't find my kids doing math for fun but just the other day the girls went outside and took these wonderful pictures all on their own.

I love it when learning becomes doing and time gets spent productively!

Homeschool Art Appreciation

We are very lucky to live in the Grand Rapids area.  Every Sept. there is a huge art competition called Art Prize.  Artists from around the world enter and their art is displayed all over the city.  Thousands of entries!  It is so fun to go downtown and stroll the venues.  The kids get exposed to lots of art for the price of parking and the synthetic rubber on the bottom of their shoes.  (Oh, and the obligatory ice cream treat after spending the day walking all over.)  There are art pieces we marvel at, art pieces we "don't get" and of course the few "why do they think it is art?" pieces.  But the large expanse of creativity is amazing.  We do enjoy being "city people" for the day.

Ocean sculpture made from driftwood.  This sculpture rotated and everywhere you looked there were sea creatures carved into the wood.  We caught the whale on film.

 Gotta love a large toy truck!

"A Conversation With Myself"

This was one of those "I don't get it" pieces.

Tree fish

Iron horse sculpture

Collage

Bowling pin penguins

This sculpture is not bronze but wooden.

Field of flowers made from recycled plastic water bottles.

Carving/sculpture from limestone

Chainsaw wooden bears put all over the fountain at the Gerald Ford Museum.

Electric lightning interactive picture.  It changes colors!

Paper art

Who doesn't love a giant mousetrap?  We didn't test it out though.

You might be a redneck if.... you love fry pan art.  (I do!)

A huge children's sack lunch made entirely out of juice boxes.

I think this was my favorite.  It is a picture of the skyline of downtown Grand Rapids but it is made out of....

 thousands of post it notes!  I wanted to run my hand over it very badly.