Yesterday my boyfriend and I were eating at Shawarma King enjoying delicious Lentil Soup, Chicken Shawarma with Hummus, and of course a side of Falafel, when it occurred to me that it was the first Friday of April: this meant ART HOP was tonight. The first Friday each month is twelve times during the year which I can particularly look forward to. It is when Kalamazoo celebrates its artists. I suspected that since ART HOP is one of Kalamazoo’s own my boyfriend would have heard of it. Much to my surprise, he had not heard of ART HOP and definitely had never been. Luckily, after a quick description of my perception of ART HOP he was more than willing to go. And off we went downtown to the HOP, even despite the unfortunately freezing wind of a Michigan April. It was finally something different to consume an otherwise predictable Friday night at WMU.
Although I have many qualms about WMU and Kalamazoo, I do thoroughly enjoy the creative energy that Western students bring to the downtown culture.
Here are a few highlights of my experience, April 3, at Kalamazoo’s Art hop.
KALAMAZOO’S “ART HOP” THROUGH MY 
We parked in Harvey’s parking lot even though there are much closer parking options. Looking at the fraternity houses, low income student apartments, and the broken beer bottles sprinkled around the WMU area gets old and I wanted to enjoy the scenery and the history of downtown Kalamazoo Avenue. On the way to the main site of Art Hop we made a pit stop at a small but familiar art gallery. Walking into the small gallery out of the freezing cold, I was slightly stunned by the large crowds of people gathered around the famous electronically altered photographs by Norman F. Carver Jr. A group of preteens were rushing in behind us from out of the cold passing all of the beautiful pictures, hurdling over the crowd of people to get their hands on the complimentary snacks (Oreos, jumbo pretzels, and giant block of cheddar cheese, and endless amounts of Ritz crackers). Still full from my Shawarma I surpassed the goodies and dove straight into the crowd. After inspecting each photograph we decided to get moving, it was already 6:45. On our way out the door we were offered a free calendar displaying 14 of the beautiful Norman Carver photographs. The calendar was from 1987, outdated but still worth displaying.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
When we reach our main destination, the Park Trades Center, it is about 7:00 o’clock and we had two hours to meander through 4 stories of art studios. The Park Trades Center is an old warehouse of some sort. The Art students of WMU, along with teachers and students of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, transformed this once grungy warehouse to a peaceful eccentric environment for Kalamazoo artists to create. But yesterday this peaceful artist haven was fill top to bottom with kids, parents, grandparents, students, and even traveling glass blowing competitors. Oh and I ran into my mom there too.
We had already heard about the editable book art exhibit that was going on tonight in The Park Trades Center. And there it was, first thing you see when you walk into the old Warehouse, four long tables displaying numerous edible books. Most of the artists were students from Wester
n whose cakes were inspired my famous novels such as “Naked Lunch”, “A Clockwork Orange”, and “Frankenstein”. It was quite the site; the cakes were fun to look at. I wanted to take a picture of the bakery art but my camera malfunctioned when I tried to take a picture of “The Color Purple” editable book display, and it refused to cooperate the rest of the evening. Luckily, somebody else was also fascinated by the edible art and already put pictures on the internet for my to steal and show you. I later heard that the cake artists were serving their edible art to the art hoppers after the exhibit. It seems that I missed out on some fantastical cake tasting extravaganza.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Downstairs, there was an intense glass blowing competition going on. A traveling team of glass blowers were gracing the Art Hop this month. I had heard about the competition up stairs but I didn’t realize the magnitude of the event. Walking down into the dungeon of a basement to check out the badass glass art was of the highlight of my evening. I did not realize the ostentatious show that was in progress.
While I went searching for a gallery serving wine to refill my new ceramic cup, my boyfriend was becoming captivated by a glass blowing spectacle along with the 60 other people who were watching. Returning with my refill I decided I could too patiently watch the competition. As I tried to step up closer to the glass blowing action to catch up with what was going on a woman tells me to move away from the room, because the room was meant only for people “involved in the competition.”
Outside the room where I was redirected, there was a large screen displaying the progress of the competitors. A woman sporting the bright yellow shirt with a dragon logo that signified her part in the glass blowing gang stood outside the room. She was dramatically narrating the process through her headset microphone that was unnecessarily loud:
“Ok so, each person is given 25 minutes to complete their goblet”…
……“They will be judge based on the three requirements: a cup, a stem, and a base”…
……“Ok, what you see here is Matt flattening out the glass to form the base, it must be angled down so water doesn’t pool up in the bottom!”….
…..“OH NO MATT’S THE STEM BROKE”….
…….”A skilled glass artists would be able to fix this if they act quick enough, lets see how he does”….
The intensity of the commentary, the large projection screen, the continuous expanding audience, and the three serious judges, made the experience fascinating. Not to mention that both competitors made outstanding goblets.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
We wandered in and out of many art galleries in the Park Trades Center, some memorable some not so memorable. Each artist provided snacks in there studios, the better the snacks the more the people were in that studio. Food is a good marketing bribe for the food loving Michiganders. The most popular art studios however were the ones that provided free wine. The more studios you visit, the more toasty you got, and the more you’re apt to frivolously spend your money on their art. With the wine, the snacks, the diversity of people, and the artistic atmosphere, Art Hop is enough to give Kalamazoo a little more appeal.
We Continued our Art Hop experience up the street at the Smart Shop, a metal art gallery. Feeling a bit of a sensory overload from the thousands of artworks I just saw, along with the oddly intense glass blowing competition, I was feeling that I had met my creative quota for the day. Therefore, I quickly browsed the metal art and then headed straight to the back of the metal shop where the live band and keg was. The rest of my Art Hop evening was spent, doodling with sidewalk chalk on the floors of the metal shop, drinking countless cups of free honey brown lager, and dancing to funky live music. The creative minds that I encountered during this evening were inspiring. So inspiring that I owed them a blog.
By the end of the night I felt slightly drunk and completely satisfied.
Leave a comment
Comments feed for this article