Pure Michigan

This past weekend I traveled to Kalamazoo for an art fair "garage sale". It was your standard art fair with many things that I really liked and others that are one step above this.

Before the day was done, I managed to find a collection of prints that I really liked and definitely got a deal. My friend Paula's friend Paula (very easy to learn her name) indicated that at towards the end of the day, artists usually slashed their prices. Our strategy then became check stuff out in the early part of the day, lunch somewhere and then return to the discounts. Paula also instructed us all to bring small bills, because at the end of the day, people give stuff away like strippers. I found that understandably amusing.

The following four prints were purchased for $35 in total. They came matted so I only needed to frame them. Target helped with that. So for less than $100 I have new art for my bedroom.

When I moved away from Grand Rapids to Louisiana I made a pact with myself that wherever I lived in the future, I'd always try to buy something that I could display to remind me of the places and communities I had been a part of. I started that collection with a coffeetable book of Grand Rapids prints by photographer Brian Kelly called Grand Rapids: Night After Night. In Louisiana, I bought two black and white framed prints - one of a New Orleans trolley and another of Alligator Bayou Cafe - a back woods restaurant very representative of the places there. These Michigan prints contain an image of Grand Haven pier in the winter (near where I live now) and the other three - Tahquamenon Falls, Miners Castle at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Lake Superior beach rocks - all resonate with me because of camping trips and childhood.




Lake Superior Stones






Miners Castle at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore














Tahquamenon Falls












Grand Haven Pier (the smallest of the four, but the picture is misleading)