ArtPrizeTag:

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
Leave a comment

Night and Day: Flowing City Panorama Printed on Satin Cloth

Great Lakes Editions' entry in this year's ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Mich., printed on 24 vertical sections of LexJet Water-Resistant Satin Cloth.

A few days ago we posted the story about Dan Johnson Photography’s entry in Grand Rapid’s extraordinary ArtPrize competition in which thousands of artists competed using every possible artistic medium and hundreds of thousands judged.

Another photographer who entered, Steven Huyser-Honig, owner of Great Lakes Editions in Grand Rapids, created an amazing three-dimensional photographic panorama of the Grand Rapids skyline going from dawn to noon to dusk.

“It was composed from almost 600 photographs of the Grand Rapids skyline taken over the course of a single day. The panorama was captured in vertical sections at regular intervals. Each vertical section included as many as 25 photographs blended together to form the final image,” says Huyser-Honig. “The 24 vertical sections in the final panorama were printed on 16-in. wide strips of LexJet Water Resistant Satin Cloth, and then hung in parallel and overlapping arcs.”

Huyser-Honig says his original concept was a two-dimensional, flat panorama, tiled together on either canvas or photo paper. Thankfully, inspiration struck and he came up with something far more interesting.

“I found that each vertical shot had its own integrity and character, so I started looking for the best material to create the concept,” says Huyser-Honig. “Ultimately, LexJet had the material that would work best. It draped perfectly and there was very little curling, plus I like the fact that it’s so light and moves around in the gentle breezes at the venue. It increased the reality of the piece.”

The panoramic display would make the perfect backdrop at the receptionist’s desk at any Grand Rapids corporation and Huyser-Honig plans to shop around after he enters it again in a springtime competition in Grand Rapids.

He’s skipping this year’s ArtPrize competition so that he can create a similar yet more ambitious piece for the 2012 competition that shows Grand Rapids as it changes from winter to spring to fall and back to winter over the next year.

Posted on by Regan Dickinson Posted in Case Studies & Profiles
Leave a comment

ArtPrize in Grand Rapids Draws Millions, Awards $449,000 in Prizes

Dan Johnson's photographic series for the Caregiver Resource Network entered in this year's ArtPrize contest printed on Sunset Select Matte Canvas and coated with Sunset Satin Coating.

In only its second year, ArtPrize, held in Grand Rapids, Mich., may hold the prize as the most democratic art show and contest in the U.S. Entries are open to all media – whether photography, sculpture, oil, watercolor or any other medium you can use and arrange so that it’s subjective enough to call art.

This year, local photographer Dan Johnson of Dan Johnson Photography entered a series of canvas wraps printed on LexJet Sunset Select Matte Canvas coated with LexJet Sunset Satin Coating. Though the Grand Prize was an amazing $250,000, Johnson didn’t expect to win or even place, nor was that his motivation.

“We created an awareness piece for Caregiver Resource Network, a group of businesses that provide resources to caregivers. Our intent was to provide an artistic piece that would be a visual picture of this organization and would get the attention of people who could use their help or could help support the organization,” says Johnson.

Beautiful pieces of photographic art in their own right, the series of photos on canvas did their job and did it well, exposing the thousands who thronged Grand Rapids for ArtPrize to the services provided by the Caregiver Resource Network. Johnson says that almost 500,000 votes were cast during the event, which ran from Sept. 22 through Oct. 10 this year.

“The event is very unique and is gathering tons of attention and momentum. In the art world, it’s unusual to have the general public judge, especially for such a large prize,” says Johnson. “It has taken on another life as a model for urban renewal, especially here in Grand Rapids since hundreds of thousands of people have come through the city to see it.”

This year’s winner was an 18-foot wide pencil sketch called Cavalry. It took the artist around 800 hours to sketch the WWI-era portrait. To find out more, and see all the winners, go to artprize.org.