Made of quarter-inch-thick plate steel with an iridescent sheen, this whopper weighs nearly four tons and gave credibility to Onaway’s claim to be the Sturgeon Capital of Michigan. It was sculpted by Tom Moran of Moran Iron Works, with help from the students of Onaway’s Industrial Arts Institute. It debuted in Onaway’s July 4th parade in 2017. Tom then bought an abandoned downtown gas station, bulldozed the buildings, and set the fish in the vacant lot.
Onaway is known for its annual mid-winter sturgeon hunt, where the big fish are speared through the ice on Black Lake. Tom did not make a monster-size spear to accompany his giant sturgeon, but told us that he’s always open to new ideas for future projects.
Rick shared this pic in our Michigan in Pictures group on Facebook. Head over to the group to see more of his photos!
The Detroit Lions kicked off their highly anticipated 2024 season with a 26-20 overtime victory over former QB Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams! In honor of this, I decided to share one of my own photos, a picture of the Dodge Fountain on Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit lit up in Honolulu Blue.
I knew that the Dodge Fountain had been designed by artist Isamu Noguchi, but I just learned that he designed Philip A. Hart Plaza as well:
Noguchi’s most ambitious effort at the time, the Philip A. Hart Plaza project, began with a commission for a fountain and spanned almost a decade as the artist expanded his scope to create the surrounding plaza along with facilities below surface level. Envisioned as a place for the community to gather, the plaza layout emphasized flexibility to accommodate large groups. Dotting the eight-acre site are various stepped areas for both seating and play; an outdoor amphitheater built into a hollow below-surface grade; and a 120-foot-tall stainless steel, torqued pylon marking one entrance. Its central feature is the Horace E. Dodge Fountain, a horizontal ring of stainless steel suspended by legs above a massive granite pool and animated by the results of Noguchi’s ongoing experiments with programmed spray patterns (as well complex lighting schemes for nighttime).
Mack-A-Tron is a 30 foot tall robot sculpture that was assembled right here in Michigan & now resides in Mackinaw City at the Mackinaw Crossings shopping center. The mLive article on Mack-a-tron features Aaron’s photo and says in part:
“We were looking for something that said Mackinaw City and Michigan,” Mackinaw Crossing owner Joe Lieghio said of the piece designed by Kalifano. “This particular piece of art is made with auto parts – and Michigan is all about the auto industry and tourism. There is even some Mackinac Bridge steel in it,” he said, adding the bridge pieces are from the old steel grating that the Michigan Department of Transportation sells when it replaces the bridge road sections.
Aaron has some great shots of this Transformers on his Facebook page – check them out!!
Hiawatha & Minnehaha Sculptures by Edmonia Lewis from the Detroit Institute of Arts
WARNING: Novella incoming ;)
The Northern Express shares that the Interlochen Center for the Arts is getting ready for the May 3-4 world premier of Edmonia, the story of 19th-century Black and Ojibwe sculptor Edmonia Lewis who carved out an artistic identity against all odds (click for tickets!). Here are a few highlights but read the whole because WOW this is a huge deal for Interlochen and the whole state of Michigan:
The two-act opera was originally commissioned in 2000 by prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and composed by acclaimed musician and education Dr. Bill Banfield. The tale follows Lewis’ life, travel, and career at Oberlin College, Boston, Florence, Italy, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia at a time when travel, a career, and life itself was difficult for many women.
The driving force behind the Edmonia opera is Dr. Bill Banfield, a native Detroiter, whose wide-ranging resume includes musician, composer, guitarist, professor, educator, author, and record company owner.
…Banfield has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American Music (2010 and 2016). He’s an award-winning composer whose symphonies, operas, and chamber works have been performed and recorded by major symphonies across the nation. Dr. Cornel West has called him “one of the last grand Renaissance men in our time, a towering artist, exemplary educator, rigorous scholar, courageous freedom fighter.”
With all those impressive credentials, what was it like working with the young people at the academy? “Young people jump into the music and they make the music jump,” he says with a smile. “They bring the soul, the imagination, and energy.”
…Patrice Rushen, Broadway actor Sydney James Harcourt of Hamilton fame, and emerging opera performer Amber Merritt star alongside Arts Academy students in the production.
Auditions began in December under co-directors Laura Osgood Brown and Justin Lee Miller. In a nutshell, Brown deems the cast “an explosion of talent. There are 65 in the cast, the largest cast ever on campus,” says Brown. “The first few days were overwhelming. And we were practicing from 4:00 to 6:30 [pm], four or five days a week, in three different locations.”
…One of the highlights of Edmonia is a high-tech rotating stage that carries a $70,000 price tag.
“We received a generous donation which allowed us to purchase a motor-controlled scenery system,” explains Wrobel. “This system moves scenery ‘magically’ on the stage. For the production of Edmonia, we are using the system in two ways. We will have a 20-foot diameter turntable that is in the middle of the stage. This allows us to move other pieces of scenery or performers magically during the show.”
…So why should a northern Michigan audience come to see Edmonia? Wrobel is quick to offer three reasons.
“First, the story is important,” he says. “Edmonia Lewis was an African American and Native American marble sculptor in the late 1800s. The story spans Lewis’ courageous life from her birth in upstate New York through her turbulent days at Oberlin College and formative studio days in Boston, to her astonishing move to Rome, Italy. In 1876, at the age of 32, Lewis captivated the world with her larger-than-life marble statue The Death of Cleopatra that now stands in the Smithsonian.
The photographer of this pair of marble busts is me (Andy McFarlane). I went looking at the Detroit Institute of Arts that is an actual city block from my apartment & F-R-E-E for all Wayne, Oakland & Macomb county residents. It wasn’t in the African American section as it says on the DIA website, but in the much more appropriate American Art before 1950 section. There I found a bonus – Hiawatha! Both sculptures are about a foot tall and STUNNING.
The credit for Minnehaha is: Mary Edmonia Lewis, Minnehaha, 1868, marble. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of the Centennial Planning Committee for Sharing Traditions and Romare Bearden Exhibitions with a major contribution from Founders Junior Council, 1986.33.
I have emailed the DIA asking them for information about Hiawatha. They may think it’s still at the MET because the MET does!! And while the website is out of date, the card indicates Hiawatha is on loan from the Detroit-based Manoogian Collection which must have loaned it the the MET.
Here’s a bonus pic of Hiawatha & Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis on display at the DIA by yours truly.
The annual Grand Rapids Art Prize is once again underway, running through this Sunday, October 3rd. The event was started back in 2009 & has become one of the nation’s leading public art competitions. This year nearly 900 entries are available to view & vote on. Here’s hoping you get a chance to visit!!
Daniel took this photo the other day – see more on his Flickr!
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. -Thomas Jefferson
Happy 274th birthday to the principle author of our Constitution, Thomas Jefferson.
As we head into a recess where we all have a chance to speak with our elected officials, my personal hope is that many voices will be raised in support of this Jeffersonian ideal of good government that seeks to uplift and preserve our health and well-being, particularly in regards to our preserving & expanding access to health care, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and ensuring that efforts to protect the Great Lakes aren’t defunded. You may want something different, so you probably should show up and share your thoughts as well! ;)
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King
The sculpture is “Martin Luther King” by Lisa Reinertson and her site includes an article about the sculpture:
A bronze portrait figure of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. strides forward confidently in a small park in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The statue, created by sculptor Lisa Reinertson, is only slightly larger than real life, but its presence is monumental.
Seen from a distance, the clerical robe worn by Reverend King strengthens the tall, pyramidal composition, while the robe’s flowing contours both animate the design and echo the character of this restless minister who was constantly on the march for freedom and justice.
Upon approaching the sculpture, which the viewer is drawn to do by its placement on a simple low pedestal, one sees that the robe is embellished with scenes from the civil rights struggle rendered in low relief. A black slave labors in a field near the hem of the robe, while a dark fold of the garment reveals the lynching of a man by the Ku Klux Klan. A Montgomery city bus and a portrait of Rosa Parks adorn the lower left side. The Selma to Montgomery march and King’s I Have a Dream speech are depicted elsewhere. One also finds images of voter registration, school desegregation, the Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter sit in, and the use of firehoses to break up the peaceful 1963 Birmingham demonstrations. Down King’s broad back the vertical folds of the cloth evolve into the bars of the Birmingham Jail with a pensive King seated behind them. Above him is the image of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired King’s use of non-violent civil disobedience.
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been. -Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy 2017 to everyone. While there’s certainly a lot of alarming winds swirling, I hope that some of Rilke’s things that have never been make us all better, stronger, and safer.
Far, far below Belle Isle, in a domed-ceiling building few know exist, Robert Carpenter keeps watch, switching levers, hitting buttons and adjusting valves like a modern-day Wizard of Oz.
But his motions aren’t designed to produce an apparition.
They’re focused on producing a plume of water that jets 20, 30, 40, 50 feet or higher into the air, along with countless other smaller bursts of water.
Carpenter is the unofficial caretaker of Belle Isle’s massive, antique James Scott Memorial Fountain.
It’s not a paying gig for him, but, truly, a labor of love.
Carpenter and his team did, restoring the pearly sheen to its marble basin, sculpted faces, animals and all five tiers.
Being the engineer he is, Carpenter couldn’t stop there.
He began scrutinizing the antique valves, pipes and drains, practically living in the domed structure under the fountain as he prepared it for operation through maintenance that included gingerly flushing its corroded, cast iron pipes and rushing to clean the resulting red water from the fountain’s marble bowl.
Read on for more at Crain’s and definitely check out the video – very cool to see what’s below this beautiful Michigan landmark!
Derek is one of my favorite Detroit photographers, and if you like his photos you can head over to his Flickr page for information about how to get them. In addition to taking great pictures, he often includes a brief story of the subject as is the case with this photo:
A Cheat, A Liar, a Cad, But A Damn Fine Fountain
Not exactly loved by all during his time on this planet, James Scott inherited a fortune from his real-estate-baron Father. He attempted to spend the majority of it during his lifetime, Building a large house ( it wasn’t large enough, he wanted his neighbors house as well. The neighbor declined so James built a huge addition to the front and top of his house, blocking out the sun for 3/4 of the day to get back at him ) , throwing large Gambling Parties oblivious to the amount he may have lost, suing any business partners ( or competitors ) that attempted to move in on what James thought should be his. He was described even by his friends as vindictive.
When he died in 1910 he left his sizeable fortune to the city under the specification that a memorial be created to honor him. It took 10 years for the city to agree to use the money for this purpose, and another 5 to complete this fountain – located on Belle Isle in Detroit. It was designed by Cass Gilbert and completed in 1925.
Michigan in Pictures 