The Appraisal

How much is this worth?

The fantasy: the oil paintings I inherited would be worth thousands paying for multiple trips abroad, a new house, new cars for all, etc. These fantasies are fueled by watching Antique Roadshow, a program Steve has surprising interest in. I guess he hopes some of this stuff I have lying around is actually worth something and he'll recognize it.

The reality: Not much. Maybe one to two hundred tops and that's just for the 80 year old frames. They had an appraisal clinic out in Dexter yesterday as a fundraiser for their museum. They had appraisers from a 'reputable' art auctioneer. There seemed to be 4 apprentices overseen by one expert, who inconveniently was taking a break when I was there but the apprentice was probably right. The last name, Carelli, is fairly common. Due to inconsistencies in style, he thought the whole family had an assembly line set up cranking these out during the Depression. Artistic merit? Close to zero.

What I should have brought was my Audobon prints but I probably could figure that out on my own.

We drove back along the river on a beautiful fall sunny day. Alas the colors are fading here. When I was driving through Ontario back from Shanna's, I drove through golden wheatfields at sunset. The light was so beautiful. I should have pulled over. The farmers' fields outlined in red sumac and yellow poplars was similarly beautiful Friday night in the fading light backlit by the western sun. My friend was snapping pics through my windows..maybe she'll share.

81 degrees today. I got up early to run. Later, a family dinner at Josh's.

Last group of wedding photos

 The photographer sent a CD containing the rest of the wedding photos today. You all are probably photo'ed out but ...

In no order whatsoever.

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Maya enjoying the ride

The couple with the photographer

We need to lose the pacifier

Dress on the church door

Lacing her up

Aunt Julia

I wish I had time to get my hair done

Doesn't she look like a model?

The Altar

Dad walking Naomi down the aisle

Some of the Moms chillaxin'

Naomi with all the Moms

Daniel looking cute as usual

Lots of glasses

Entering the reception. I wish she was wearing the wedding dress

I like this one

More ArtPrize

This picture was made of different layers of duct tape

Giant dead crows made from used tires

Lego man

Woman covered in jewelry

Second place winner "Rain" from Ann Arbor

Big chair with bedraggled ArtPrize watcher

Rusty the dog made from found objects

I liked his face

Sunflowers from recycled water bottles

Car sculpture

Grand Rapids in the fall, not part of ArtPrize

Trilliums made from fabric. It does evoke Michigan woods in the spring

Geyser

Swimmer

There were about 100 of these glass hands

These grizzlies fishing for salmon were a big hit

The over all winner made up of thousands of glass mosaic tiles. We found this in the convention center where Naomi's volleyball team won state championships

Portable nightclub. This was not open for business when we got there

Eyes on the ArtPrize

Yesterday was spent walking for miles in beautiful Indian summer the streets of Grand Rapids for their annual three week long ArtPrize. Art installations are installed throughout  the city, outside, inside businesses, inside museums. People get to vote (voting was over as we were there in the last 3 days) and the first prize artist gets $250,000. As  the people's taste is not always fair, there is a juried voting too, which had very different results. Some locations are on the outskirts so those art pieces do not get the same exposure as those located more centrally. We tried to cover as much as possible (my poor feet!) but we probably saw less than half. We took a break midday at my friend's sister's restaurant, which had tasty food and was very cute plus I got to meet the sister and husband for the first time. They also provided some useful tips for seeing some of the otherwise overlooked art. Art was very mixed and the term applied loosely in some cases. One artist's contribution was that she walked 2000 miles to get there. Hard to capture on film. One of our favorite's was a short film focusing on the Grand River throughout the seasons. The same scene in winter would be superimposed over what it looks like in summer. Hard to describe but it was very cool.

Lots of Mona Lisa themes: one artist filled a whole room with portraits of people sitting in the pose but each had a different treatment

Huge praying mantis and butterfly: this got top ten votes. The bigger, the more likely to win

This mural shows breast cancer survivors living their post cancer lives

This was performance art: The gold painted guy stood still for hours. We saw him breathe once.

An ice sculpture in a refrigerated van

This was made entirely of postage stamps

One of my favorites: Glitter Girl. This was made of thousands of shiny sequins hung on strings. Each sequin gave the color

Chair made from melted records

Toothpick sculpture

Belt made from belts

A tip jar in a bar: you toss coins into the mouth

The planters in Grand Rapids were very pretty

This fish mobile was made up of fishing lures. Unfortunately my camera didn't know what to focus on

Table made up of cool glass blocks that difracted light interestingly

Looking out of the Grand Rapids Art Museum

The artists drew these with two hands at one: Right arm duplicating what the left arm was doing

This painting had strings of magnifying glasses dangling in front of it. I tried to get a shot through one of the dangling lenses

Outside the Children's museum

My friend as a child

Metaphorest: One of the winners. Huge and interesting. Hard to capture with a photo

The door handle leading in to my friend's sister's restaurant

A tasty lunch

Inside: lots of cool details

Outside: One of the oldest buildings in GR

Made of matches

Under the clouds: I really liked this one and since it was off the beaten path up Heritage Hill, probably not seen by many

Crochetted phones

Made from wood blocks

One of our stranger moments: the artist wanted to showcase his jumping ability while holding a laptop showing him jumping in front of his artwork. We are to send this to him. Anyway his artwork consisted of paper made from dollars discarded and shredded by the mint (provided for free) that amounted to the price of his art school education..around $49,0000 

I loved the art deco stylized peacocks in the building's molding. They should lose the orange peacock though

Inside the resaurant

My friend's sister owns two restaurants and bars adjacent to each other

Some art is hard to capture. This was in the basement of a very large building consisting of strings of lights. A cool effect but without a tripod...

A scene made up of used lottery tickets. You can see me in the mirror

Lottery ticket detail

These glass tubes had native plant samples in each

Detail of a column in a tapas place I would not mind trying

Along the riverbanks

The UM mascot: this was in a museum: not part of ArtPrize. Probably more endangered  that the hunter got the mom, the kit and the kits left behind

More later..need to run (literally)