The band is Antrim Dells and they are new to me and new to town as far as I know. Built around songster Jacob Bullard who has come down from Northern Michigan to join the simmering Grand Rapids music scene. There music is quiet and intense at the same time.  They will be in our show at The Establishment June 7th along with Gifts Or Crreatures.

"I'm continually moved by the human experience," he said. "Inventions, urban and rural spaces, theology, people and places - they all color and inspire my writing. Some are a figment of a memory, some slightly fictitious, some actual truth. They are a sort of people's history from where I stand."

These are the the words of Branden Foote of Gifts or Creatures.  This is a Husband and Wife duo from Lansing who we met at the Grass Fire Festival last year.  They are wonderful and their music is thoughtful and creative.  They will be joining the Wealthy Orphans for a show at The Establsihment Thursday night June 7th in Grand Rapids MI.

This is the event on facebook.

I would be hard pressed to think of a book that has made a deeper impression on me in my youth.  I was 22 and is was the summer of 1982.  I remember sitting on the curb of a building on Lake Drive long since torn down, reading On The Road while my laundry spun dry.  I really loved that book and the characters who were living their lives like "roman candles in the sky".  I have been living my life on fire ever since.

There is a tremendous amount of food every week that goes from our kitchen to our dining room table.  We have an unusual situation in that all seven of us are home most of the day, every day. With the exception of breakfast, we eat all of our meals together as a family. We spend about $1,200.00 on food every month. We also use food we grow on our micro urban farm as much as possible. We have the remainder of a rhubarb crisp on the kitchen counter.  The rhubarb we grew here.

We make an effort to purchase organic locally grown food as much as possible. We choose to shop at our neighborhood grocery store and the farmers market. We do not have a car to drive out to the big box stores where the food is less expensive and besides we do not see a future in those stores. Those stores do not have a good vibe and force people to use their cars.  Our farmers market is right in our neighborhood and is one of our favorite places in the whole city.

Good food prepared with love and attention to detail.  This kind of cooking takes time but it is time well spent because we are literally made out of the food we eat.  We are after all becoming what we eat

In this film we have a portrait of Tom Sachs, an artist who takes work and the making of things into high art.  His love and devotion to the process of work itself reminds me of the Shakers.  There is and incredible degree of craftsmanship that is carried through each of his projects.  He is also an artist who does well working with a team of builders that he employs to realize his unique vision. 

I need a steady diet of artist portraits like this to keep me motivated and on track with my own peculiar trajectory in this world.  Please share with us any visionary individuals you think we should know about. Thank you.

There was a time back when I washed all of our house hold laundry by hand for over a year as a sort of experiment with an aspect of third world culture.  When we finally purchased a nearly new working washing machine I remember sitting down in front of it while it went through it's cycles in amazement and deep appreciation.  A few weeks ago I was leaning on the door while pulling out the laundry when suddenly the door hinge cracked.  Our wonderful washing machine now refuses to spin and I am back to laundry by hand. I am finding it surprisingly enjoyable. 

There is something very soothing about rubbing warm soaking wet clothes over a wash board in the basement.  It is also beautiful to see all the different clothes and linen of the Beerhorst family hanging on the line through the backyard garden. I know that outside of America there are people all over the world washing their laundry by hand like I am and I appreciate this sense of connectedness.  It is a curious to me how sometimes things that we depend on have to be taken away and in the process life takes on even more vibrancy.

print available here

I will be spending this whole day with my friends from Leadership Grand Rapids.  This will be our last official day together as we wrap up the season.  This has been a very significant experience for me over the last nine months.  I feel like I have a deeper understanding of where Grand Rapids is at this point in time. Cities do not stay the same.  They are dynamic and constantly changing. Whether they are in a period of decline or new growth, they are always going some where.  I know this may seem obvious but the important thing I believe is to know where your city is now and how to go there with it.  What is appropriate now?  How do we prepare for our future? What is our city wanting to become and how can we help this process along?  These are some of the questions I live with.  These are questions LGR is helping me to address.

I feel a great respect for my fellow classmates and all the different disciplines and business that they represent for I have learned much from them.   I look forward to seeing more artists like myself woven into the fabric of the local corporate culture so that we can make innovation and fresh vision even more a natural part of our local business DNA.  These are challenging times we are living through right now.  We should not be looking for a "recovery" of our economy.  We should be imagining a complete transformation towards an economy that is truly organic and that looks more like the complex diversity you find in a rain forest.  We need to learn to embrace risk.  We need to get used to doing what is uncomfortable to us.  We need to make room for children and women given to weeping in our leadership positions.  We need to take more time to lay in the grass and look up through the trees.  We need more time staring off into space and not checking our email.  Let them get angry, let them be disappointed in us, let them fall off the edge of a cliff if necessary but we must take time to be awake to the sound of the wind in the trees.  Our families need this. We need this. Our city needs this.

portrait by Robert Shetterly

The woman is Grace Lee Boggs and she was born in 1915 and has been a social activist for now 70 years.  She has lived in Detroit since 1953 as a shaker and mover.  We heard Grace speak at the BALLE conference last night for the first time. It was so incredible to hear this woman speak so clearly about the need to completely revision the way we do culture from the ground up.  She is very clear about us to stop looking for top down solutions and allow for the answers to come up from the bottom on a grass roots level.  The answers are local ones that begin small and go on to make large systemic changes.

I have included the video above for you to hear a little for yourself.  There are many videos on line to listen to and written material from the pen of this amazing visionary woman who has only now shown up on the Beerhorst Family radar.

Perspective Lifters is the title of the Beerhorst Family ArtPrize 2012 entry.  I wrote a while back about the idea of seeing problems and frustrations as perspective lifters.  When things don't go your way. rather than get mad, take a moment to consider the current trouble as a redirection towards something better. Every day something will go "wrong" that is just the way life is.  What I am beginning to understand is that sometimes what seems like "going wrong" may actually be going right if I can gather a new working perspective to see my situation in a more positive light.

When you climb a ladder you are up high and things begin to look different.  You can see farther.  You can begin to get a fuller understanding of you present situation.  This is what we need to do in our daily lives.  Take a moment to climb the ladder and see what may really be going on.  Think of it as going into your brains preferences and changing the setting.

The Beerhorst Family will be participating in the BALLE conference which has come to Grand Rapids this week. We will be at the opening night presentation in the ball room of the DeVos Hall at 8:00.  We will be bringing the Wonder Wagon downtown this afternoon leaving our house at 106 Fuller Ave SE.  If you would like to join us we plan on leaving about 1PM this afternoon.  Come and join in the fun.