Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Art File for Kroissant, an writer and artist working in Portland, @PureMichigan. And What About Rush Hour Studios? Gallery Brewing




Art File for Kroissant, an writer and artist living and working in Portland, @PureMichigan

All of these comments have to be adjusted to reflect news of Rush Hours Studios, and what looks like its closure. However, the space now progresses to becoming the Gallery Brewery, scheduled to open Summer 2014, which will host monthly shows and showcase great music. I have admired the ownership of Gallery Brewery for being respectful of the contributions made by Rush Hour Studios and mindful of the legacy present in the space at 143 Kent Street.

This is a version of the #ArtWalkerFiles where given a person and her town, the Captain seeks those art places and opportunities within a short walk or drive. Here's an art file for Kroissant, a nomme de plume.

Dear Kroissant:

Remembering my walk is better if specifics are noted. The art center on Kent Street is Rush Hour Studios, and Rush Clement paints commissions there. He teaches guitar, and has drawing, April 1, and oil painting classes, March 21st, beginning in the spring. He strikes me as an eclectic person, and he has a mishmash of offerings, from gardening to painting like Monet to painting like the Japanese to painting acrylic canvas bags for the farmer's market. He pretty much leaves the door open to Kendall College students who want to teach there.
http://rushhourstudios.com/learn-have-fun/
Rush Hour Studios, 143 Kent Street, Portland, MI 48875

Mark Lewanski has a shop in a building close to Rush Hour Studios,and looking at the website, I see children have entered the picture. The two, Mary and Mark, had that new couple with plans for kids vibe when I talked to them in the Spring of 2009. I took a number of pictures of the two filling flower boxes and then raising them by rope and pullies to the second story windows. It's not just mosaic; it's mirrors too. And Portland makes a good place to fufill orders from the web site, making it an electronic cottage industry. Art stores stock the art, and the two drive out to the finer shows, including my favorite, the Royal Oak Clay, Glass & Metal show. When I lived in Royal Oak, I attended every year as it filled all downtown streets.

http://www.glassboxguy.com/

Glass Box Guy, 170 Kent Street, Portland, Michigan 48875 (517) 647-5270

Looks as if the town has a fully functioning arts council, so Portland has an annual art show, juried so the work is better than those craft shows run in the lunch rooms of Catholic schools. Love the arts by plunging into the Grand River March 1, and get lucky if the groundhogs predict and early spring. Can't make this stuff up. It's a fundraiser, and they'll be cutting a hole in the ice, if there's any, at the Grand Dam Arts Center. Cool name because it's right by a dam.

Grand Dam Arts Center
7360 Lyons Road, Portland, MI 48875
http://portlandcommunityarts.com/

I love that kind of information. The Plymouth, Michigan arts council were trying to put an art center in a water powered mill on the Middle Rouge River south of town, and they wound up in an abandoned church on the west side of town. These old industrial buildings just make great art centers. Toronto has an art centre in a repurposed power plant on the Lake Ontario waterfront, and people skate on the rink next door to it. I was stuck in Toronto, right, for two winter weeks, and I just loved all that art ever. Even met Joyce Carol Oates at a book exposition while I was there.

http://www.thepowerplant.org/

Portland peeps get two art shows a year from the council. The one that passed in November makes me happy because my friend Jenn Schaub served as one of the jurors, Rush Clement the second. I notice that Heather Duffy coordinated the event, and I that's cool because I wrote about her graduate exhibition at Kendall College in May 2012. She's a great watercolorist, painting human sized watercolors. I was expecting this to be scheduled as an in-the-street summer show, but it turns out this happens in the late part of November, followed by the Small-Works Sale & Show. It's a two-for-one.

A Winter Ball has been advertised, and no details have been posted? Then look to last year's, and we see the ball was celebrated February 23rd at the Willow Wood Golf Club. The council selected an artist and a musician of the year, and has since 2005.
Eleven musicians and eleven musicians are enough to call the group the Portland Community Orchestra. The group practices at the Portland United Methodist Church, 310 East Bridge Street

Going to look for information about the Portland Thursday summer concert series, stumble upon the Cool Portland website. I was looking for the location of the bandshell, better if it has a permanent nature. Almost all the information is going to Facebook, and on Facebook I see that happens at Two Rivers Park, music starting at 6:30 PM, the series going dark for the year after the last weekend in August. And yes, there is a band shell. (By the way, in the time since these facts were looked up, the website has an expired domain name!)
http://coolportland.com/

Looking for the permanent band shell, discover that there's a Red Mill, and the mill has a society of friends. As of December 24, 2013, the friends are planning to build a pavilion next to the red mill. The Red Mill stands off of Water Street, and the pavilion will stand between the mill and the Bogue Flats. Sounds as if that will be a permanent band shell too, maybe meaning another summer concert series.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20131229/PORTLAND01/312290005/Pavilion-planned-Red-Mill-site

Remember when all the towns built hockey rinks? Then they all built playscapes? The wave as of late is preserving downtown theaters from the early and middle twentieth century. Muskegon has films in the Harbor Theater on Muskegon Lake again. After two million in renovations, Manistee has just opened the Vogue Theater, up north feel; first class reel the theater brags. Portland has reclaimed the Sun Theater, called the space Portland Playhouse and sells tickets to shows for as little as ten dollars. The players staged a radio theater version of "A Christmas Carol" last December, and that's great because Charles Dickens wrote everything to be read aloud to people sitting around in drawing rooms.

231 Maple Street, Portland, MI 48875
http://portlandcivicplayers.com/






Image Borrowed from Realtor and Blogging Mover of Homes, Robert Dowding


http://www.robertdowding.com/Blog/Portland-Michigan-City-of-Two-Rivers





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