This was a one-day trip on the first Saturday of October. The goal of the trip was to observe the color changing of the leaves along the entire Blue Star Hwy and then divert to Grand Rapids for the 2014 ArtPrize competition.
A little background of the 2014 ArtPrize:
Artprize is an annual international art competition held in Grand Rapids, Michigan starting from 2009. This year, the competition took place September 24 – October 12.
The special things about ArtPrize:
- Contestants are juried by the public. Which means, during the event, installations are voted upon by the public using modern networking technology.
- Categories for juried work includes two-dimensional, three-dimensional, use of urban space, time/performance and sustainability.
- In 2014, the event featured 1,536 entries displayed in 173 venues across downtown Grand Rapids plus the Fredirik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.
(Some of the information above is extracted from Wikipedia.)
My route was as follows:
Tinley Park – I80 – I94 – St Joseph – South Haven – Saugatuck – Holland (All on Blue Star Hwy) – Grand Rapids – Tinley Park
Blue Star Hwy is not necessarily a highway. The average speed limit is 55MPH. The best time to enjoy a scenic view on the highway will be the third weekend of October.
Light house on the edge of Lake Michigan.
Holland is always a nice place to be. The downtown area of this city is well decorated. You will have a sense of Europe when you are around here.
You can expect for any food in Holland. The first picture is from a Japanese restaurant and the second one is freshly made caramel apples with nuts/chocolate.
Artists use stainless still to build a cow.
You can see Detroit from a pair of glasses.
This street artist used sprays to create wonderful drawings.
For all the places where there are artworks being displayed, this kind of stickers will be on the window.
Some of the restaurants will create artworks themselves.
Isn’t this a crisp visual impact?
Jieping Wang 