December Art Hop encourages holiday spirit

By Laura Citino
Western Herald

This Friday, the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo will present its December Art Hop in downtown.

Art Hop, Kalamazoo’s monthly arts and culture festival, expands into a large-scale version of itself four times a year, and December is one of the biggest.

In addition to the usual artsy spots downtown, such as the Arts Council, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Midtown Gallery, over 50 merchants will open and present their wares and crafts to the public downtown.

Western Michigan University itself often has a large presence at the Art Hops, and this month’s installment is no exception.

“We have a lot of involvement from WMU students,” said Beth McCann, communications director of the Arts Council. “At least every month, if not every other month, we have some connection to Western.”

One of the highlights of this month’s Art Hop is an exhibition at the Powell Library’s Barnabee Gallery off of West Patterson Street. The exhibit, titled, “An Exquisite Corpse,” is a collaborative drawing project between the WMU School of Art and the Savannah School of Design in Georgia.

The project juxtaposes artwork by the Kalamazoo students elaborating on themes of north, top, and up on the upper half of a piece, while the Savannah students worked on ideas of south, down, and bottom for the lower half of the pieces. Projects like this show one aspect of the Art Hop’s collaborative artistic nature.

WMU is featured elsewhere as well. The Arts Council’s own exhibit at the Epic Center on the Kalamazoo Mall features “Corvus,” a collection of mixed-media drawings by WMU professor Karen Bondarchuk. Also the WMU Department of Dance is performing its Winter Dance Project at the Epic Center.

The Art Hop always strives to feature local and regional artists in an open format, where artists can directly interact with the community. Another highlight of the Art Hop is the recent addition of author Gary Cialdella, who will be reading from and signing his book, entitled, “The Calumet Region: An American Place,” which explores the area in and around Gary, Ind., a hallmark of working-class Midwestern life. The reading is presented at the Park Trades Center and sponsored by Kazoo Books.

Besides the obvious creative hot spots, many restaurants and shops will also be sporting exhibits and offering discounts and special deals.

“It’s a fun time to be downtown,” McCann said.

The monthly Art Hops are a boon to downtown commerce, bringing in people of all demographics from Kalamazoo and surrounding towns like Portage and Mattawan. According to McCann, even visitors from as far as Lansing, Mich. come in for a visit.

“Our Art Hops are considered one of the best-produced,” she said. “They bring in a lot of people outside of the downtown work community.”

“The Art Hop reinforces the fact that Kalamazoo is a vibrant, fun place downtown with lots of stuff to do,” McCann said.

According to McCann, cities like Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, Mich. on the other side of the state offer a certain mixture of Midwestern comfort and hominess with a funky, exciting urban scene. That sort of paradox lies at the heart of Michigan culture.

As would be expected with a December festival, Art Hop also brings the holiday spirit, with many businesses such as Lana’s Couture and the Carver Gallery showing holiday and Christmas-themed exhibitions. Holiday lights and giant candy canes sparkle throughout downtown, especially in Bronson Park, offering just the sort of winter-wonderland fun that has become a downtown Kalamazoo signature.

“It’s that colorful, fun atmosphere that you can only get in a downtown area,” McCann said.

If the winter weather sounds too daunting, the Art Hop has the perfect solution to avoid trudging through possible snow and wind. The Holly Jolly Trolley will be available free of charge to cart patrons around the Art Hop and to its outlying sites.

Although the weather forecast can always change, Art Hop is at least one place where its curators would not mind a bit of a snow to match its full-fledged decorations.

“It’ll at least set the atmosphere a little better,” McCann said.

This December’s Art Hop begins at 5 p.m. on Friday, and continues on through the evening at various sites and stores in and around Kalamazoo’s downtown area. For more information visit the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo’s Web site at www.kazooart.org.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Dec 3 2009. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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