Michigan Focuses Economic Policy Around "Placemaking"

Rust Wire writes about the new broad consensus, developing in Michigan towards what urban planners now call, placemaking.

After reading a number of stories and blog posts about this, it's still not exactly certain what the term means-beyond respect for place and quality of life. Looking at Michigan's previous policies makes the change clear.

The earlier attitude, could be summed up as, anything for jobs. In 1981, The city of Detroit, evicted thousands of residents, destroyed the bulk of a neighborhood and handed the land over to GM for construction of a new car plant.

"At first glance the project seemed brilliant. In 1979, the old Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck had closed and that city lost $1.7 million in tax revenue. Hamtramck was happy to join in the deal. But there were obstacles in Detroit -- 1,300 homes, 140 businesses, six churches and one hospital lay in the path of the proposed plant.

The neighborhood adjacent to Hamtramck's southern border was, like Hamtramck, home to Poles as well as Albanians, Yugoslavs, Blacks, Yemenis and Filipinos. But some families had been there for generations, since the influx of Polish workers to the auto plants in the 1920s and '30s, and even before. Some of the first Polish settlements in the city in the 1870s had been in this area. It was the home of the original St. Mary's College and Polish Seminary at the corner of St. Aubin and Forest. It was the original location for the International Institute. St John the Evangelist Catholic Parish had been founded there in the 1890s, Immaculate Conception Parish in 1918."

The same attitude went for highway construction, where few power players cried when eggs needed to be cracked in the name of progress. People moving and endless new construction always was sold as growth, even though the state's population was in a long steady decline. The people who found where they lived, unpleasant would stay cause they had jobs-and the fancy pants, over educated, complainers could just leave.

The huge car companies these policies were built around proved less stable than expected and the new dynamic firms needed the over educated, creative types who found Michigan so gross. A depleted tax base, also meant that growth at any cost was no longer a financial option.

From Model D

The state of Michigan, for example, is focusing on placemaking initiatives as part of its economic development strategy. "Economic development and community development are two sides of the same coin," said Gov. Rick Snyder in a special message to the Michigan Legislature last winter. "A community without place amenities will have a difficult time attracting and retaining talented workers and entrepreneurs, or being attractive to business."

Kent’s son, PPS Vice President Ethan Kent, said placemaking is striking a chord in the current economy because it’s resourceful and builds on a city’s existing assets. And the placemaking philosophy requires extensive public buy-in upfront, so officials can stand on safer ground politically. "Building convention centers and using tax incentives to attract big corporations or new business isn’t working," Ethan said.

Instead, placemaking emphasizes smaller, inexpensive improvements: Adirondack chairs to watch the sunset on the Buffalo waterfront, or temporary incubator retailers with lower overhead costs. At Gabriel’s Wharf in London, for example, a set design company created colorful facades on concrete garages, and then worked with artists to convert them into studios where they could sell their work. The fast-working set designers finished the job in three months. Rather than developers spending money on a costly master design, the tenants themselves provided the vibrancy to make the area compelling for visitors. The scheme was designed to pay for itself in four years.

Strangely, the new embrace of the small, incremental improvements and livable, walkable neighborhoods has attracted strong support from across the political spectrum, columnists, The Department of Transportation, Michigan State University and Michigan's Governor.

This widespread attitude is new, and pretty rare across the country. It will be interesting to see if it lasts and how things start to play out.

Article on The Project For Public Spaces Website

Art Fag City Looks @ Michigan's ArtPrize

Art Fag City is pretty great, but very NYC oriented art blog. It's main writer, Paddy Johnson took a road trip to experience ArtPrize.

"Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it. People who normally would never have any interest in art are now flocking to buildings to catch a glimpse of the work. Almost all of it is for sale, though nothing can be bought until after the competition closes (ArtPrize takes ownership the winning work). It’s exactly what I have always wanted for art, but of course, for one thing: People have bad taste. Of the ten finalists I will see today, I expect to like only one or two pieces. Amidst this year’s top crop, are the father-son living sculpture, a sci-fi eco-system sculpture, and a chainsawed log into a grizzly bear. Also, a giant preying mantis with a butterfly and a metal dog."

Interesting on a whole bunch of levels. First, off it's used mostly unknown artists to create an event with a huge financial and tourist impact in a severely depressed state. For the same reason, it's now heavily supported by a local business community and other non traditional arts funders.

The downside, as Paddy says, is realising just how bad, your neighbors taste is. But as she also points out, this may change as a wider public becomes more exposed and interested in art.

Michigan's ArtPrize Competition Continues To Grow and Evolve

ArtPrize 2011: September 21 - October 9
Grand Rapids, Michigan

I've posted a few times in the past when ArtPrize first started-in perhaps what was percieved as the least likely place-Michigan.

It's continued success comes as no surprise to me--raising the very real question--why is this type of open ended invitation for creative interaction between communities and the wider world still so rare?

A good recent article from The Washington Post--which is covering some of the D.C. area artists participating.

Started in 2009 by Rick DeVos, with funding from his family foundation, the showcase now attracts 1, 582 artists from 36 countries and 42 states. The competition is spread over 164 venues around Grand Rapids, an approach which won an “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in July. “We want to reboot the conversation with the public around the arts,” said Catherine Creamer, the executive director of ArtPrize.

The unusual exhibition style is combined with a departure from the expert juried panels. From the opening on September 21 until September 28 the public votes on all the art. Then the Top 10 works are announced on September 29 and the public can cast one vote for its favorite until October 5. The festival closes October 9.

In spite of lots of buzz, I can't help feeling the "professional, institutional arts infrastructure is just trying to ignore all the implied potential here. Thankfully, many artist's are not.

"ArtPrize appealed to her because “it’s a very different concept. The public is voting, and you are getting unbelievable exposure,” Hester said .

In Grand Rapids the work is displayed for 19 days. The venues range from a coffee shop to a mechanics workshop to a theater. “We wanted to bring artists together and let the public curate,” said Creamer, the program’s executive director. The boundary of the displays are 3 -square miles from downtown Grand Rapids."

Anyone from the wider, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Ohio Region participating or attending? What are your thoughts?

Grand Rapids: ArtPrize 2010 Artist Deadline Now June 17th

For every reason so many hated last years "crass", "commercial", open ended American Idol of art, I loved it. Partly, because it showed an openness to outsiders so rare in the former "Rust Belt".

Warning! Don't enter unless you want feedback not just from curators and the approved arts community; but the great unwashed general public.


$449,000 prize ($250,000 to 1st place)

Top 10 entries receive a prize

Artists can submit one entry

Property in downtown Grand Rapids can be a venue
Venues choose the artists they exhibit
Anyone attending the event can vote
Winner is determined by public vote

They gots the cash we know you want. About ArtPrize

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – May 18, 2010 – While more than 1,000 artists have already begun their registration process to enroll in ArtPrize 2010, several of the more than 220 venues have reported that increased competition for artists has already begun for the 2010 event, and asked ArtPrize organizers to extend the artist registration deadline. ArtPrize officially announced that the artist registration date will be extended from May 27 to the new deadline of June 17, 2010. The matching period between the artist and venue will remain the same as published between June 1 and July 1, 2010.

“There is a huge demand for art this year,” said Bill Holsinger-Robinson, ArtPrize, Executive Director. “We’ve heard that many artists have informal agreements with venues already in place.” ArtPrize has gone from 159 to more than 220 venues. Many of the venues from 2009 have plans to increase the artists they’ll show.

“We showed maybe six or seven artists last year,” says Linda Lafontsee of Lafontsee Galleries, “We plan to fill the gallery with up to 40 artists this year.”

In addition, ArtPrize is seeing a number of curators who have been engaged by venues, such as the Blue Bridge and the Monroe Promenade. These curators bring their own network of artists that they would like more time communicating with.

The new deadline for artist registration is June 17, 2010

Artists have three weeks left to register

The matching period will still begin on artprize.org June 1

The matching period will still end Thursday, July 1

Between June 17 (end of registration) and July 1 (end of matching) is two weeks for artists and venues to wrap up their agreements and secure each other on artprize.org

Details Here

Rick DeVos Talks About Artprize

I found two long but very interesting videos which delve deeper into the event and the broad range of responses to it.

What's clear is that big questions have been raised on all kinds of levels (not just about art) and more importantly they are being asked by almost everyone in the community.

The first video is a kind of three person panel, centered around the project's founder and original funder, Rick DeVos but most of it involves questions from a very engaged audience. (can't seem to embed video,follow link)

All kinds of topics are touched on in this video but generally most are art related.

Few "formally trained "arts professionals" like university faculty, arts administrators, curators and the like had ever dealt with the energy level and passion this thing brought out.

It's also very clear that Rick pushed this snowball in a downhill direction without almost no idea how big it might get or what it's final results might be. He knows it--and that's what's so great about it.

Museums, local venues of all kinds, Businesses and the city government were forced to actively collaborate with each other(and more than a thousand artists) in a short time frame with scarce resources or risk a spectacular public failure.

PLEASE WATCH, I really think it's worth it.

Carol Coletta Talks About ArtPrize Grand Rapids

Carol Coletta, the head of CEO's for cities has a great take on the ArtPrize contest.

Of course she has to take a gratuitous backhanded shot at it's founder Rick DeVos, the wealthy son of one of Amway's co-founders, described as "famously conservative". In fact, Amway's founders would be far more accurately described as Libertarian and pro free market.

It should be obvious, that I love the Art Prize idea for the same reason I love Jane Jacobs in that both DeVos and Jacobs placed faith in the abilities, energy and creativity of individuals over self appointed experts and bureaucracies.

"ArtPrize also proves the value of rapid (in this case, lightning-fast) prototyping. This initiative went from zero to 1,200 artists in five months. Although DeVos always intended that the competition would be decentralized, the timeline forced him to pursue radical decentralization. And that led to rapid prototyping. As DeVos put it, “We had so little time that we were forced to admit when stuff was not working. We just tried something else.”

Another lesson demonstrated by ArtPrize is the value of giving people permission to be entrepreneurial. Artists, by nature, are risk-takers. They make things that are unfamiliar and new to the rest of us, then send their creations out into the world to be judged by the rest of us. But ArtPrize was a platform for entrepreneurship at a massive scale—for artists promoting their work with their own networks, for venue owners, for bloggers, for those promoting Grand Rapids, and for ArtPrize voters.

Finally, ArtPrize organized as a platform rather than as an institution. It completely defied the convention of nonprofits."

That's right folks-- they offered a tidy cash prize and then actually allowed creative people to be creative-- something very rare, these days.

I'm not at all sure the lessons learned here will be copied by many but something very powerful might have been unleashed.

Holy Crap: Art Prize Draws Thousands To Grand Rapids Part Three

Finally, I'm getting to the real meat of the post-- actual information, video's and images of Grand Rapid's Artprize contest.



I want to apologize somewhat about my previous "hell hole comments". Grand Rapids doesn't looks so bad.Without the art,I would describe it from the images as pretty bland. My point, was that this was not the place one would expect to draw huge crowds from all over to look at art.

The other reason, I tried to give all this backround on Michigan's dire economic situation is that we are all in some way headed that way. Economic development, by way of billion dollar show off projects and trillions in carpet cash bombing is comming to an end, one way or the other.

The new winners will be those who can do more with less and use very limited resources in innovative productive uses.







Whatever you think about any particular work, one has to say the concept was a huge hit. Plans are already in the works for another go at it next year!

Exiting and honestly very moving. Be back with more thoughts.