out and about

This past weekend Andy and I spent at home working--on business (weekends are meaningless when you don't work for The Man), and trying to get further along in our home renovation work, which is moving at a snail's pace. But last week we did manage to get out and about a little bit.

We headed downtown to check out some more ArtPrize offerings before it ended. This outdoor sculpture, a giant redwood stump you could climb up into, was pretty cool.

The inside walls were papered with photos of a forest. Images of owls were projected on the walls of the building the piece was placed at, but since we were there in the daytime, they weren't really visible.

Andy and I both loved these insane Eames loungers, overstuffed with bloated human torsos, at the UICA.

And I loved this piece, by an artist named Lora Fosberg from Bloomington, Indiana. Here are just a few small tastes of it.

I don't think I've ever posted pics of this place in the blog before, but it's one of my favorite Grand Rapids buildings.

See the gargoyles on top? Their eyes glow red at night!

Aside from ArtPrize, we were lucky to get a very brief visit from our pal Dave, who was in town from Las Vegas to speak to art students at his Alma Mater, Kendall. (Dave is an *amazing* artist! You can see his work here.) To celebrate Dave's visit, our friend Mark (with assistance from Andy) took us all out for a spins in his pedicabs. I love this shot of Mark spinning his Green Machine next to a Hummer!

Andy was once a pedi-cabbie. I was a little nervous riding in his cab (I had to hold on to Lucy, who was ready to bolt from the cab at the several tasty squrirrels she saw, and I was additionally having flashbacks to a terrible Andy-powered jet ski experience several years ago), but it was fine once I relaxed. Look how beautiful that autumnal foliage is behind Andy.

xo

K

hoy hoy hoy!

Saturday brought two of my favorite autumnal events: Oktoberfest and the beginning of ArtPrize. Luckily I had this cool piece of vintage German gear to wear to Oktoberfest--an eggplant purple wool trachten jacket with green felt oak leaf appliques and antler buttons.

Lucy wore her cool new chipmunk t-shirt from WrenWillow on Etsy.

After sharing some sausage and delicious German beers, we headed across the river to check out the ArtPrize offerings. I like the giant SteamPig!

However, I wasn't too impressed by the "art" that was the giant Hallmark card.

And the flipside of the card was, frankly, a little creepy.

The tree man, made out of rusty metal.

This last photo may not look like much (try clicking to enlarge it), but it's a really cool piece: a parabola of purple-blue balloons that floats over the Grand River, and is illuminated at night by what look like tiny LED lights. So pretty when viewed from the blue (pedestrian) bridge!

xo

K