On the River

I just wanted to give a quick update of what has been happening during our studio times.

Last Thursday (October 1st) we began to discuss a reading, “Dialogues in Public Art”, by Tom Finkelpearl.  The reading is quite interesting but our discussion and summaries did not get us far that day.  We will be continuing to discuss the article in our next studio at the PODS I believe.

This past Tuesday (October 6th) the weather was a bit on the cold, windy, and rainy side.  Our class met at the Grand Rapids Public library instead of at the bridge.  We met upstairs on the fourth floor in a “conference room” that had some really great wallpaper! The room had long tables set up in a square and many maps, articles, books, and other reference materials about Grand Rapids.  We met with two librarians (their names escape my mind at this moment– my apologies) who were very knowledgeable and helpful to us! It was a spur of the moment decision and they were able to pull so much information together for us.  Some focused on different topics of Grand Rapids such as Transportation, house boats, a scrapbook from the River Raft Races.  Some others found the home they grew up in within Sanborn maps and found people who use to live in their homes.  Large maps showed us the grand land scape and some without bridges even built! After talking with many classmates we have decided we would love to return back to research and explore even more about the area that we have suddenly inhabited with PODS, wireless internet, and electricity as if we were always there.