Geographic extremities

The rather unwieldy and fanciful motto of the State of Michigan is "Si quæris peninsulam amœnam circumspice" which means, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." One of the reasons I like Michigan is that is has lots of geographical extremities. The land is always wandering off aimlessly into one of the big lakes. Roads end in Michigan. They terminate in a shifting sand dune or in a tangle of blueberry bushes clinging to the exposed rock. There's often to be found the sensation of reaching as far as you can go. The azure water arrives abruptly and announces -- like God to the primordial seas -- "Thus far shall you come and no further."

A few weeks ago, I happened to be traveling with my family in the Keweenaw Peninsula, a stunningly beautiful region in Upper Michigan. I had never been. It was always too far from wherever we happened to be. It's too far from Marquette. It's too far from the camp. It's just too far. But, the further a place is, the more mysterious and fantastic it becomes. I drank in the mystique of this little hidden kingdom at the top of the state. We drove several wooded roads to their end, where entrancing localities awaited further on foot. We climbed the bald, granite head of Bare Bluff to watch sheets of light rain shimmer across the unperturbed cerulean surface of Lake Superior. At Horseshoe Harbor, past the end of US-41 (which ends its 2,000 mile journey from Miami as a gravel cul-de-sac), the winds blew with ferocity out of the west, sending surges of whitecapped water crashing into the ancient lava formations. The inscrutable pine forest stood erect, sighing softly.

The end of the Keweenaw Peninsula and Bete de Gris Bay from the summit of Bare Bluff

Michigan is a bypassed state. It's peninsular, after all. It doesn't go anywhere. One has to make an effort to go there. The Keweenaw and all of the other sub-peninsulas await exploration all the same. One is schooled in enjoying the journey, because there's usually nothing at the end of it all. The Leelenau Peninsula comprises unparalleled wine country, but it terminates without ceremony at a lighthouse and a stony, cramped beach. The Old Mission Peninsula is perhaps marginally more exciting, as its terminus lies at the 45th Parallel. Why drive to Whitefish Point? It ends in shipwrecks and wind and blown sand. Truth be told, you can't even get to the end of the Keweenaw. The roads get too disorderly, overgrown and rutted. The Garden Peninsula, which separates Lake Michigan from the amusingly-named Big Bay De Noc, is inhabited by ghosts, who have their capital at Fayette, an abandoned town. But each is worth the drive, as I and any other Michigander will tell you. We're the experts in seeking pleasant peninsulas, after all.

Home for Holy Week

I am at home for a few days for Easter. This is the first time I've been home for Easter with my family for many, many years. At Ball State, we had no time off for Easter (indeed, many of our studio deadlines seemed to fall on Good Friday) so my family would come down to Muncie for the weekend.

Yesterday, I arrived home and spent much of the afternoon napping. Last night after dinner, I went with my parents for a drive out to the lake. It was the first time in a few years that I'd been to Grand Haven. We parked and walked along the riverfront out to the pier. It was sunny and mild, but as we reached the lake, it got windier and colder. There was still a lot of ice on the pier and on the beach side of the pier. The wind blowing across the ice made it pretty chilly. Still, it was nice to walk around and enjoy the sunlight and the beautiful sunset. We met an old man on the pier who appeared to be a local photographer. He was eager to tell us how much ice has melted in the past week (and how it compares to last year at this time, and sundry other factoids). Later, we joked that that would be my dad in retirement because he likes to strike up random conversations with strangers. We drove back to Grand Rapids and got ice cream with my little sister from the ice cream stand where I used to work. It was in the 60s even that late in the evening.

Grand Haven beach

Along the pier

"crazy people"

The snow fences are still up

Sunset

Pier

Today the rain was torrential. I went to the bank and paid off a loan I had taken to go to Paris. It was a nice feeling to have that taken care of. The teller was surprised when I asked for my balance to pay in its entirety. She said, "Like, the whole thing? We don't get too many people wanting to pay off the whole thing! Good for you!" I don't like the idea of being in debt. I read Independent People by Halldór Laxness last fall, and the plot centers on a character who has worked for eighteen years to be free of debt and has been overtaken with an extreme aversion to being indebted to anyone - even to the point of refusing charity. His quest for "independence" is exaggerated to point out its faults. But that was in rural Iceland in the early 20th Century. One was in debt to one's neighbors, not to vast banking conglomerates.

Christmas Greetings

If there is anyone out there who still reads this blog, I extend you joyful Christmas greetings and my best wishes for the new year! It's true, I've been rather neglectful of these pages the past weeks, or, as I now look at things, months. I must say, it's been weighing on me a bit lately. Whenever I get a moment or two of down time, I hear a little voice in the back of my mind pestering ever so quietly "write on your blog". I do love writing and sharing bits of my life through this medium, but it's the life, not the medium, that's been the tiring thing of late.

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I returned to God's own land of Michigan late on the evening of December 12th, before much of the wicked winter weather had descended upon the Upper Midwest with much ferocity. I must say, though, that I had begun to miss winter in Washington - a feeling which was exacerbated by the pitiable way in which the region dealt with a mere two inches of snowfall the week before I left. In any event, I am home safe with one semester at the Catholic University of America behind me.

I don't wish to really delve into academics too much (at the risk of boring you, kind reader), but, suffice to say it was a successful semester on both important fronts: the lesser being the grades and the greater being the personal intellectual growth sustained. I must say that I am pleased with my choice to move to Washington and to attend CUA. It has afforded me much in the way of new perspectives and experiences, and I feel as though I am making good connections personally and professionally. But, that's all rather detached-sounding, as if I am writing for a CUA prospectus or something. I'll have thaw my writing fingers a bit more before talking more in depth about people and ideas that have made impressions on me this semester.

*     *     *

The weekend before Thanksgiving I made my first visit to New York City. I went with a friend who I know from Ball State who currently lives in Washington. We took the Megabus and stayed with a mutual friend who was in the city for the semester on a co-op internship program. We scurried about like good little tourists, attempting and mostly succeeding in seeing the major sites. I was sad that St. Patrick's was almost entirely coated in scaffolding both inside and out, but I was rewarded somewhat by happening upon a mass for the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. It was the first time I had ever seen the Knights in any formal occasion, and it left quite an impression. I think such groups are good for the Church and for civilization in general. I may be accused for being motivated by nostalgia or mere conservatism, but I think such groups can truly raise the mind to the chivalric virtues they strive toward. Modern culture is wimpy. The knights of anything are inherently vigorous.

New York is entirely unlivable. Washington is the upper limit of urbanity that I could possibly ever deal with on a day-to-day basis. There are too many people in New York. There's no breathing room. There's the incessant monotonous march of regular blocks. Urbanistically, Washington wins, hands down. However, as far as the arts are concerned, New York beats everyone else, hands down. But, that doesn't make the city more livable in my eyes, it just makes me happy that I live only a short four hours away at this point.

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I've missed Grand Rapids. I try not to cloud my mind unnecessarily with future plans, but one that I do fixate upon is that I would like to move back to Grand Rapids when the time comes. A professor whom I admire at Ball State would always admonish us, "Never give up on your hometown and never be ashamed of where you're from." This admonition, I think, stings the Hoosiers a bit more than it stung me, because it's very difficult for me to ever feel ashamed of West Michigan. I'm not going to gush on and on about how it's a "special place", but I will say there's a lot of raw material, so to speak, that makes it an interesting place to live.

People I meet in DC are utterly fascinated and bewildered by the Midwest. A classmate from New Jersey has never been further west than Penn State, and she was baffled when we had a lecture on Chicago, declaring "I never knew Lake Michigan was that big!" It's interesting being a stereotype. For many people I meet, Michigan is indistinguishable from anything else between Ohio and Colorado. This confronts my thinking in a harsh way, because there's a strong current of what you might call Michigander Exceptionalism in the Midwest. Michigan is different from everything around it. You can compare Indiana with Ohio and Illinois and be ok. Minnesota and Wisconsin are similar. But, Michigan is different.

*     *     *

I've made a lot of progress on my genealogical research in the past few weeks. For a long time, I had no information on my paternal grandfather's ancestors. I just new my great-grandparents' names and that they were from eastern Austria. I have since been able to trace back from my great-grandparents back to the beginning of the 19th Century. They were all ethnic Germans who lived in what was then the western edge of the Kingdom of Hungary. Nowadays, the territory they hailed from is a part of Austria. 

An interesting thing I've discovered throughout my research is how heterogenous my family is. There are unexpected little blips of different ethnicities that just pop up sometimes, much to my surprise. For instance, I was researching my grandma's grandfather, whose name was Frank Ryan. I had always been told he was Irish. His father was in fact a half Irish, half English Canadian, but his mother was French Canadian, descended from a family who were among the first settlers of Detroit. I guess the point is that the further you go back, the murkier things become. I started out my research thinking I was Austrian, Slovak, Polish, French Canadian, and Irish. I'm actually Austrian, Hungarian, Slovak, Ruthenian, Polish, French Canadian, Belgian, Swiss, Irish, German, and English.

*     *     *

Christmas was really nice this year. We had a lot of snow (about 14 inches) on the ground, and there were flurries throughout the day. We went to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral, which was beautiful as always. The chanting of Tollite Hostias and O Magnum Mysterium left a deep impression this year. This was the first time I have seen our new bishop of Grand Rapids. Not that it matters, but I like him. 

I got a hiking backpack, a winter coat, a little DVD player, and a nice messenger bag from my parents. It seemed a lot to me, but I won't complain about it. They will all be put to good use. I'm looking forward to doing more serious hiking in the future. Friends have a February camping trip in Virginia planned, so it will probably come in handy then. 

Friday we head up to the cottage for our extended New Years gathering. Many of the cousins will be up this year. Grandpa reported that the ice on the lake is about ten inches thick - unusually thick for this time of year. It will be good for hockey.

A few old things

As far as Middle Western cities go, Grand Rapids and its historic building stock fared decently during the destructive period of "urban renewal" during the 1960s, when the historic centers of small towns and large cities alike were gutted in the name of progress. Notable losses include the old city hall and courthouse, in addition to several commercial blocks dating from the 1870s and 1880s. Yet, many buildings were spared, leaving downtown with at least a handful of intact historic street-scapes.

This past weekend, I had the good pleasure of having to town several architecture colleagues from Ball State. We had an enjoyable time wandering about town, looking at buildings, and taking photos. Here are a few that showcase the architectural heritage of which I speak, alongside other landmarks.

Ottawa Street, looking south

Monroe Center Avenue, looking southeast

Corner of Ionia and Weston, looking northwest

Yesterdog, the city's quintessential foodstop

Meyer May House by Frank Lloyd Wright

The Basilica of St. Adalbert, with its recently installed illumination

Death on the West Side

The city of Grand Rapids sits astride a straight north-south stretch of the Grand River as it makes its way from the centre of Michigan's Lower Peninsula to its terminus at Grand Haven on Lake Michigan. Over the course of the ages, the river has gently sculpted a valley, which the city has long overgrown. On the east side of the river, there is not much flat land, and the valley rises to the hills rather quickly. This is the oldest part of the city, and the early men of wealth and importance built their fine mansions on the crest of this hill, overlooking the city. Many of them still exist, now inhabited by doctors and lawyers. On the west side of the river, there is a wide flat plain, and then a steep rise. An almost uniform ridge from north to south, paralleling the river, divides the low river plain from a rather modest plateau of flat uplands.

Along the west side of the river, factories sprang up. The neighborhood attracted immigrants and working class people. In the early 20th Century, the area was teeming with Poles and Lithuanians, eager to work in the furniture mills that first brought national attention to Grand Rapids. As the years went on, the descendants of these immigrants became wealthier, and they moved up the hill. A sort of animosity was born between those who lived up the hill and those who lived down the hill. Nowadays, the lower west side is home to many Latino immigrants, and the animosity still exists.

A point, then, that is most interesting, is that the hill that divides the upper west side from the lower west side is home to no less than four cemeteries. At one portion of Leonard Street, a main east-west thoroughfare through the city, one passes between two cemeteries, one on each side of the road. The street cuts through the hill at a grade lower than the crest of the ridge, so the cemeteries are held back from the road by concrete embankments. As one drives through this little canyon of death, one is literally eye-level with the dead.

I consider that fact every time I drive that way, going down toward the river. Death is of course the great equalizer. The Poles and Lithuanians who worked in the factories are buried in those cemeteries. Their white-collar, suburban descendants are buried there. And, the Latinos will be buried there. One's station in life is utterly irrelevant in death on the west side, as commingling with every sort of neighbor is inevitable. The hills draw everyone together. It is especially interesting that one of the cemeteries is named Mt. Calvary, after another hill that brought humanity together.

And, I, perhaps with sensationalistic intent sometimes, make it a point to alert people of their proximity to the dead every time I pass by that way. They invariably "ooh" and "ugh", but I find it instructive. We think too little of death in our sanitary age. I would like to commend the city planner who decided to blast a road between two cemeteries, providing such a moment of reflection on an otherwise mundane urban commute. Time flies, much like the car down the hill, but death is always to be considered and prepared for - not as a morbid subject to dwell and sulk upon, but as an antidote to physical and spiritual lethargy and irresponsibility.

Lake House

I've been enjoying developing a design for a lake house that I worked on intermittently during February and March. Previously, everything was done in my sketchbooks, but over the past two days, I've been translating my hand drawings into a SketchUp model. Here's the first design sketch I began with:

Design influences include the work of Brian Mackay Lyons in Nova Scotia, the firm of Olson Kundig in Seattle, and even the work of Richard Meier in his more poetic houses. I think some of the more laudable goals of the modernist movement in architecture can be achieved more readily in a more naturalistic setting. The ability to truly take advantage of a site's topographical proclivities, for instance, is much more easily accommodated in a rural setting.

This is the model in SketchUp so far. Naturally, some things had to give a little bit in order to be accommodated. Things tend to shift as soon as real-life dimensions are applied. In a sketch, one can "draw around" difficult moments in a plan, and simply make things proportional. It is difficult to do the same in a 3 dimensional computer-measured model. This dialog between digital and analog design greatly enhances the architectural process, in my opinion.

I imagined my future self as my client. The site is a vacant sloping lot on Lake Ogemaw, in northern Michigan, where my parents have built a cottage. The lifestyle of such a house is naturally informal, and almost playful. I have attempted to have the architecture reflect such a laid-back way of living.

First Floor Plan

Second Floor Plan

The plan includes four bedrooms and three bathrooms split between two main living levels (above an unfinished basement). The main living space includes a kitchen and dining area that open up into a two-story sitting area. A covered deck is off the dining area. The second floor includes a master suite that boasts a deck that views the lake. Two smaller bedrooms and a bathroom round out the floor.

This section through the main living room shows the high ceilings and the prominent fireplace. Stairs lead to the basement mud room, which is on the main route outside to the lake.

These perspectives show views through the main living spaces of the house. In the first, the kitchen, living room, and main stair to the sleeping quarters are shown. The second shows the panoramic views over the lake from the window-lined main floor.

The house is not completely modeled yet, but it's at a good phase at the moment. It's been fun to think through how the house would be used as I've enjoyed time at my parent's cottage the past few weekends. There are interesting programmatic requirements to consider in such a place: where will the wet bathing suits be hung out to dry? where will the euchre tournaments be played? where does the grill go?

Four views of the Basilica

My favorite building in Grand Rapids is the Basilica of St Adalbert, a church I have written on previously. The sturdy building was constructed one hundred years ago by Polish immigrants. It remains a solid presence in the neighborhood and the city. I biked to the church from my house today. It was an eight mile round trip.

Champion Grandparents

The eighteen children of Francis Xavier and Delphine Pilon as photographed at their home in Bay City, Michigan in 1905. Mr. and Mrs. F.X. Pilon are my great-great-great-grandparents on my mother's side. Mr. Pilon's forbears hailed from Bayeux, Normandy, via a two-century stay in the Province of Quebec. Mrs. Pilon (nee Waters) was of mixed Belgian, French, Irish, and English ancestry, though she was born in Montreal. The couple moved to Michigan around the turn-of-the-century and lived in Bay City before eventually settling in River Rouge, a downriver suburb of Detroit.

An article in a Detroit paper in August 1936 lauded the pair as "Champion Grandparents". At press time, Mr. and Mrs. Pilon had 17 living children, 71 living grandchildren, and 54 living great-grandchildren. A mass in honor of their 60th wedding anniversary was attended by over 100 of their living descendants at the now-demolished but formerly grand church of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Delphine Pilon the younger, the third child of Francis Xavier and the elder Delphine, is my great-great-grandmother (pictured second row, second from left). She met and fell in love with Henry Hebert, scion of one of French Canada's most ancient families, whose roots go to the very foundations of the colony. She was widowed at a fairly young age, and she lived with her parents for the remainder of their lives.

Old Detroit Times Building

My current studio project has brought me to Detroit, once one of the greatest cities of the nation, now the poster child for Rust Belt economic and social free fall. Detroit's economic zenith could probably be dated sometime in the 1920s, an era that gave us many of the city's great architectural landmarks. Some of these gems survive - most notably the Guardian Building - but, sadly, many have since met the wrecking ball. One such loss - the Detroit Times Building, particularly piqued my interest.

The Detroit Times was an evening newspaper that was at one point owned by the newspaperman par excellence, William Randolph Hearst (whose California palace at San Simeon is the closest we Americans have come architecturally to the ecstatic revelry of Neuschwanstein). The splendid Art Deco building that hosted the Times was designed by Albert Kahn, a Prussian-born architect who is responsible for much of Detroit's built heritage. Though, we must regret that given Detroit's precipitous decline, knowledge of his work is overshadowed by Louis Kahn, whose work is vastly different (but poetic in its own modernist way).

The Detroit Times building was constructed in 1929 and was finally demolished in 1978, eighteen years after the Times printed its last paper. More information and photos can be found here.

Fountain Street Church

This past weekend, while back in Grand Rapids for ArtPrize viewing, I was able to have a look inside one of my favorite downtown buildings - Fountain Street Church. Founded as a liberal Baptist church in the 19th Century, Fountain Street has remained committed to a loose doctrinal understanding of Christianity and is now someplace deep in the realm of the New Age/Unitarian Universalist/radical liberal/feminist/nonsense Department. However, that is for another day. My point in this post is to draw your attention to their fantastic worship space. The Romanesque/Byzantine hybrid happening in this church is first-rate, and is a model that we would do well to imitate in new construction.

Lake House Dreaming

 This is a little sketch idea for a lake house for a site in northern Michigan. The vacation home incorporates natural materials, a plan that is very open to the outdoors, and an aesthetic borrowed equally from the Prairie style, the Great Camps of the Adirondacks, and cruise liners. I think the blend of these influences, plus the desire to encompass a no-frills 'up north' experience, lends the house a dignified elegance that makes it feel timeless and at home in its natural surroundings.

The house is situated on a sloping site that leads down to a lake (to the left of the sketch). This topographic change manifests itself in the spatial organization of the house: the 'anchoring' three story portion of the house steps down to the airy great room that juts out into the site with the help of a sweeping wraparound porch protected from the elements by an elegantly cantilevered roof. The inside-outside fireplace at the terminus of the great room provides a secondary 'anchor' to the composition.

The great room and its porch is conceived as the focal point of the life of the house. The two-story room is rather luxurious in size and boasts a continuous linkages to the outside through many French doors and ribbon windows. A narrow band of clerestory windows light the space from above. The porch cantilevers out from the great room toward the lake, providing ample space for outdoor entertainment, even in rainy weather. Personally, I rather like sitting out on the porch at our cottage when it is raining.

The three-story (including the partially-exposed basement) volume 'up the hill' includes the kitchen, dining room, and a bedroom with an en suite on the main floor. The upper floor includes three more bedrooms and two baths. The basement is mainly storage.

*   *   *

I personally love looking at and designing cottages and vacation homes. They are meant to be flexible, recreational places, so they are often less fussy than a traditional home. I particularly enjoy the Adirondack camps of the late 19th Century and the Shingle style East Coast 'cottages' of that same era. Michigan, since it is a bit of a cross-breed between the planar Great Plains and the woodsy Northeast, is in a unique position when it comes to architectural heritage and influence. Hence, with this design, I felt comfortable borrowing elements from Frank Lloyd Wrights' Prairie Houses as well as from more Eastern elements such as the styles mentioned above.

Two Views of Blandford

These are two photos I took yesterday in the woods of the Blandford Nature Center, which is right behind my house. The area is a nice natural respite from the urban and suburban landscapes of Grand Rapids. It's very lovely in the evening.

Prepare for Mitten War, Wisconsin!

We even have a children's book about it for God's sake!

Wisconsin does not often raise our ire, for it is generally an agreeable place with a charming dialect. However, recent shenanigans have made it abundantly clear that Wisconsin can no longer be trusted as a neighbor to the one and only Great Lakes State. The reason for this interdiction is the recent use of the mitten as a symbol of Wisconsin on the state's tourism website. Is nothing sacred?! Michigan has had exclusive claims on the mitten-shape since time immemorial! We Michiganders point out our hometowns on our built-in maps - our hands! Does Wisconsin possess this venerable geographical and anatomical heritage? I think not! I have just attempted to persuade my hand to form a shape similar to the state of Wisconsin, and was met with much resistance.

Now, I know a few people from Wisconsin, and have even lived with one. They are very nice people (please pronounce "nice" with as many long i sounds as possible). But, none of them has ever uttered the regrettable heresy that their state looks like a mitten. It's unthinkable. Very few things can rouse me this level of indignation, but - along with a call to deport the cast of Jersey Shore - I say we boycott Wisconsin, and anything of it, including cheese, if necessary, until this tragedy is brought to a happy conclusion!

If you wish to view the unholy image in question, do so at your own choosing. I will not be posting a link here, for these are respectable pages that shant by profaned by such undignified URLs. 

Thanksgiving Diary

Of all of our peculiarities as Americans, the celebration of Thanksgiving is by far my favorite. Though we must forgive its Puritanical origins, the holiday always forms such a nice kickoff to the commercial pre-Christmas mania, and is perhaps the only thing that keeps us from being inundated with Christmas ads immediately after Halloween (though, of course, Hobby Lobby always seems to be about three holidays ahead in what they display on their floor). The irony, I suppose, is that the Puritans wouldn't have celebrated Christmas, and would, I gather, cast a characteristically dour gaze toward our overblown Black Friday hullaballoo - or any hullaballoo, for that matter.

In any event, your humble and obedient scribe was home for the holiday in Grand Rapids. Time was well spent with family, friends, and food, though not necessarily in that order of importance. A grave number of calories was ingested on several different occasions over the Thanksgiving reprieve. And, a similarly obscene number of hours were spent lying in bed - a delightful occupation for those of us who are so often deprived of our sleep due to the demands of architectural instruction. So, what have we got - gluttony and sloth? Our cardinal sinning was decidedly confined to these two vices, which seems permissible, since Dante's punishments for the gluttonous and slothful are not terribly vile.

Also accomplished was the annual Schmalzelian dispersal of Christmas knick-knacks throughout the house. I say dispersal because once the giant rubbermaid tubs are hauled up out of the crawlspace, the various Christmas accouterments seem to automatically find their respective ways to their traditional posts throughout our home - much as we wish that the confounded garland that goes over the mantle would somehow disappear quietly in the night. In due course, the house was Christmasified, which was followed  with a celebratory ingestion of even more turkey, reinvigorated in the form of turkey Manhattans - the most agreeable way to deal with Thanksgiving leftovers.

The chief event of Saturday was the implementation of the new translation of the mass, which I have detailed extensively in the previous post. After our sacred language adjustment, dinner at Salvatore's commenced. Salvatore's is one of those staple West Side eateries that always sounds good, no matter what one's disposition happens to be at the time. Though, we must report regret in not making a pilgrimage to the laudable Red Jet Cafe on the Northeast end of town.

Sunday was chiefly a day of trial, in the form of driving back to Muncie. It rained abominably the whole drive, which apparently aggravated certain drivers from Illinois enough to encourage them into the ditches off the interstate - which caused quite a spectacle (read: traffic jam). We seldom mention persons from Illinois, for our mother taught us that if one does not have anything good to say, one should not say it. This also goes for Ohio, though mention must be made of the University of Michigan finally triumphing over the barbaric oafs of Ohio State. Deo Gratias! All's well that ends well, as they say, and we finally returned to Muncie in good health, well-rested, and prepared to handle the final three weeks of this semester.

Big Sky

I think there are some interesting peculiarities that set Michigan apart from the rest of the Midwest. We Michiganders seem (in general) to possess a peninsular mentality. Due to the enigmatic workings of geography, the state is decidedly cut off from the rest of the country. We are not on the main east-west trucking routes that characterize the rest of the states in our nations midsection. We are bordered mostly by the Great Lakes. To me, at least, this geography makes me feel protected in Michigan. There are hundreds of spots along the coast where you can have your back to a forest and look out over the water - it feels safe and serene and primordial.

Indiana, and the rest of the Midwest, is thus a bit exhilarating. It's wide. You can see forever. It's disconcerting how far you can see in some places. There's no sense of protection from the rest of the world. The wind that blows across Indiana could have started in Colorado and just kept truckin'. There was no Great Lake to buffer it before reaching its destination. In the rest of the Midwest, borders seem arbitrary. You can drive in pretty much any direction and see the same thing. Places are not defined. Counties just bleed into other counties. One might say that everything between the Rockies and the Ohio River is just a bunch of counties. There might be one decent sized city every three or four counties. The rest is mainly agriculture. And, for the most part, there's not much that distinguishes the counties of Nebraska from the counties of Indiana.

It's just interesting. Michigan is defined, encircled, enclosed. The rest of our region is ephemeral, infinite, and open. It is big.

The photo above was taken on a hill on the outskirts of Bismarck, North Dakota in June 2008.

I love the dunes. The western coast of Michigan is blessed with many stretches of these sandy heaps, not least of which is the shore of Big Sable Point near Ludington. Today, me and my parents took a little trip up to Ludington State Park (not more than an hour and a half drive) to enjoy the lake and the nice - though horrifically windy - weather. We parked and then walked about a mile and a half to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse, which we were able to climb for some nice 360 degree views over the lake and the dunes. Michigan in the fall, though often cold and windy, is my favorite time of year: there are no summer crowds, the leaves are colorful, and the light just seems brighter.

Thoughts on ArtPrize, Three Years On

This past weekend I was home (yet again) and paid another visit to downtown Grand Rapids. It was the final weekend of the annual two-and-a-half week spectacle known as ArtPrize. Founded in 2009 by Amway heir and entrepreneur, Rick DeVos, ArtPrize is a radical and profound community event. Open to any artist that can find a venue (in the defined downtown district), the competition is voted on by the general public and comes with a $250,000 grand prize - the largest art prize in the world. The event has energized Grand Rapids intensely - estimates say that it has a $7 million dollar economic impact each year, and that this year 400,000 people visited.

All that said, however, ArtPrize has its detractors. Many claim that because of its democratic voting process and open-to-all mentality, good art is not necessarily rewarded. There was considerable outcry from the so-called art snobs when the top ten were announced this year. They were, in my opinion, not the best entries. Others claim that ArtPrize is nothing but a huge publicity stunt for Grand Rapids.

However, my opinion is that the democratization of art is a good thing - especially in our current economic times when the arts are the first to see the axe in federal, state and local budgets. Since ArtPrize is essentially free for artists (aside from material costs), there is no downside to creating good art, even if it does not win in the end. Even if a certain piece of art is only seen by a fraction of the ArtPrize crowds, it can still have an impact on a viewer's thinking. I have had this experience many times.

Of course, it's the large, showy, cool pieces of art in prime locations that will always win the competition. I hate to burst that bubble for all of you, but simple math seems to support me here. If you have a good location, you increase views of your art, leading to an increase in votes for your art. Perhaps this where a possible improvement can come in - having venues be more discerning in what pieces of art they allow to be displayed on their premises.

In any event, the competition was never meant to be an end-all decision on the merits of any particular art - Rick DeVos said as much when he ignited the competition three years ago. It's purpose was to create a huge public forum for discussing art. In that respect, any ArtPrize event will be a success. It has generated a huge public response every year from a variety of media outlets, and, given the ever-changing nature of art, this will likely continue.

Yet another lens through which to view ArtPrize is its effect on Grand Rapids' image as a city. Young people are attracted to cities with vibrant urban life. In order to stop the Michigan brain drain, cities like Grand Rapids need to get serious about their urban strategies. Young people, having by and large lived most of their lives in soulless suburbs, want someplace to live that has vibrance and excitement. Now, of course, economic development of a city cannot happen overnight, and cannot happen simply on the back of a two-week event each year. However, events like ArtPrize can get people interested in downtown. People have to love a place before they will want to change it for the better. ArtPrize is a way to help people fall in love with all that Grand Rapids has to offer.

The Camp

Over the long holiday weekend my extended family gathered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula at a cabin that has been in the family for 38 years. It is a simple cabin with three rooms and a front and back porch. There is no electricity or indoor plumbing; water is gotten by means of an old red, iron hand pump that channels the water into the sink. The experience is rustic and uncluttered.

The cabin is situated in the midst of a vast forested swath of the central UP. The nearest town of any decent population is more than an hour's drive from our eighty acres. When you're at the Camp (as we call it), you're at home in the wild. Four wooden walls separate you from the raw power of nature. It is one of my favorite places in the world. It is to me what Walden Pond was to Thoreau. I am extremely blessed to have access to such a beautiful and restorative place.

Out in front of the cabin is a small lake of perhaps fifteen acres. It is ringed by marshy lowlands that vary in width from a few yards to several hundred yards. Beyond the marshes, birch-forested hills strewn with boulders arise and give shape to the lake's natural basin. Our cabin is the only cabin on the lake. At night, stars like you've never seen fill the sky over the water. Sometimes the northern lights dance on the horizon. Wolves howl often.

I love the cabin itself. It suits its surroundings perfectly - it looks like it's always been there. The kitchen is clustered around the old wood-burning stove in one of the back corners. A big iron grate in the middle of the floor lets up heat from the furnace in the basement. Propane lamps hang from the ceiling and cast their soft light over the room at night. Wide picture windows face southeast, making for a dramatic sunlit awakening for whoever sleeps on the pull-out couch. The interior decor is an eclectic affair: numerous deer antlers and old forest-y prints mixed with 1950s paint-by-numbers and an imitation Salvador Dali painting I did my senior year of high school. Bumper stickers are affixed to the fridge (which we use as a cabinet, since there is no electricity to have it function as a fridge).

The fire pit out in front of the cabin is the true center of life at the Camp. One rock for every year of our ownership of the Camp encircles the fire. Two boulders that my dad excavated from the driveway sit there - one is usually a convenient place for sitting my grandpa's trusty old radio. I like that the radio is our only media up there. It makes things less complicated. You get news and entertainment without all of the sensory overload of TV or internet.

Up at the Camp I feel much more energized than I do in Muncie or Grand Rapids. I think it's because we spend most of our time outside. For a good two hours on Saturday I chopped down small trees in front of the cabin that had become overgrown. It's nice to do some physical work without the pressure of necessity or time constraint. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn. I went to bed exhausted every night.

Up North

I have spoken before about the wonderful Michigan tradition of heading "up north" in reference both to my family and to the general restorative feeling that walking in the woods has on a person. This past weekend some friends and I stayed at one of my friend's cottage on White Lake (a large lake near the western shore of Lake Michigan). This was the second time that I have stayed at a cottage that was not connected to my family in some way. However, with the experiences I have had all over "up north" it seems that the need to get back to nature can be accommodated in many diverse instances.

Up north is roughly defined in Michigan geography as the vast northern swath of the state above the cities of Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Flint (generally speaking). This region is the true heart of "Pure Michigan", the states ubiquitous tourism motto. Sure the cities of the southern half of the peninsula have some charms (I dare to include Detroit), but it is in the mild wilderness of the north that the true Michigan experience can be found.

Of course, the point of this post is that "up north" is not confined by geography, but merely accommodated by it. Going up north is so much more the journey to a state of mind. Up north is universally a place where gadgets are abandoned (no doubt helped in part by the lack of reliable cell phone service) and time slows down to a more human pace. Each family that makes journeys to their own special part of up north has certain traditions and activities that make the experience one of happy familial bonding. In my own family, we often simply spend time sitting on the boat in the middle of the lake, while at night the predetermined entertainment is often a good tournament of euchre (jokingly referred to as my family's primary religious affiliation). Interspersed are campfires, grandpa's stories, rides in the golf cart, and just being childlike in the woods.

There is something to be said of times like these; they help restore the soul. They help us live more deeply. When we strip away the day-to-day and throw out the ipods, ipads, and computers, and spend a few days in the company of friends, enveloped by nature, we emerge refreshed - and quite happier. Indeed, as I stated before, the location is not the key. The cottage we stayed at last weekend was small, humble, and uncluttered, yet it was the site of some of the best times I've had all summer. Heck, just sitting on the sun porch reading before dinner was ready was a nice moment.

So I guess this is part philosophy, part travel literature, but my point is that our lives are moving more quickly and we are losing real contact with both man and nature. Taking a trip up north, whether physically or just simplifying life for awhile, can have profound benefits and provide many happy memories for years to come.

When Germans Come to Town

Well, distinguished readers, it has been awhile since I've written anything, so I want to update everyone as to the recent goings-on this side of the computer. I haven't blogged in a great long time because of a very happy set of circumstances caused chiefly by the visit to the US of my good friend Florian - of Weil am Rhein, Germany. You may recall some of my posts dealing with my grand tour of the Continent that transpired last May. Those wonderful travels grew out of my visit to him, for which I will ever be thankful. So, long story short, he has been staying in Grand Rapids with me and my family since June 10th and will depart for his home on July 5th.

In the time that he has been here, we have attempted to survey as much of the Midwest as possible, for he did not get much opportunity for travel while he was here on exchange (the genesis of our friendship was caused by him attending my high school my senior year). Chief among the places we sampled was the great city of Chicago. It is one of those cities that never really gets old - this, I believe, was my sixth (give or take) visit. Skyscrapers were gazed at, deep-dish pizza was ingested, and a grand time was had by all.

We shifted gears from the epitome of urban to the epitome of rural as we journeyed from Chicago to the humble town of Nappanee, Indiana (probably my sixth or seventh visit there as well). Several readers of this blog are residents of Nappanee and they were gracious hosts to the two of us. Seeing the Amish was a highlight for Florian and provided a nice contrast to the hustle and bustle of the big city. On our return from Nappanee, we stopped off at the University of Notre Dame to enjoy the sights and atmosphere of that august institution.

Since then, we have stayed closer to home, with a weekend visit to the cottage (involving an entire cohort of the Schmalzel-Mitera clan, in addition to my lovely girlfriend), and a trip to Lake Michigan to enjoy the sun and sand. This past Tuesday, a party was held in Florian's honor which brought together many old friends from high school that I have not seen in some time. The jovial company lasted into the wee hours.

The greatest adventure, however, surely lies ahead. Tomorrow, at the shocking hour of 5am, we (my family, plus Florian, plus my sister's boyfriend) depart for a ten day escapade featuring such locations as Niagara Falls, Upstate New York, Boston, Acadia National Park, and the Province of Quebec. Several of the places on the itinerary will be new to all of us (Quebec City, Acadia, and Boston), while Upstate New York is an old family favorite and Montreal featured on my architecture field trip last October.

Keep us in your prayers for safe travels and the maintenance of everyone's sanity as we embark on what will surely be a memorable week. When I return, expect blogs on a number of things that have occurred recently (Pentecost, Corpus Christi) as well as my thoughts on issues as diverse as the Republican Presidential candidates to the necessity of streetcars in urban Grand Rapids. Until then, Arrivederci!