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Now let's go out to Hastings, where we can see how art has transformed a small town into
a cultural destination.
There's lots of special things about Hastings. Obviously I'm standing next to the sculpture.
We have a great sculpture exhibit. This is our second annual year. It's turned into 20
sculptures and they're within walking distance of the downtown and you can walk from sculpture
to sculpture enjoying the vibrancy of our beautiful little downtown Hastings.
So many people from all over have heard about our sculpture tour and come to visit. From
the outlying cities: Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Lansing, Grand Rapids and other communities
as well from Michigan. I had a lady who lives here in Hastings. She brings her two sisters
every year. They come to visit every year and they think it's great and walk around
and have lunch. So we're getting lots of exposure all over the state, so I think that's pretty
exciting.
I would say one of the favorites is the horse, which is right behind you. That I love because
of the fact it's... when you get up close to it, it's made up of all different kinds
of pieces of metal. Like things that you would recognize. It's kind of neat to see those
things and maybe some things that you see laying in a junk yard or different places
that have no use anymore and now they do because they're part of the horse. And his name is
Gaze.
John Hart, our Director of Community Development here in Hastings obviously is an art enthusiast.
So that's where it all began and he researched Midwest Sculpture Initiative and that's how
we began is he got one sculpture from them. Midwest Sculpture Initiative comes here and
they show us a slide show of different sculptures that the artists have submitted to him to
be in the sculpture exhibits. We chose to have 10. You can choose the amount that you
want. You can have 15, 20. But we chose 10.
So what happens is those art enthusiasts and artists and actually different artists we
have in town, art teachers, other community members, come on that day and then there's
a vote about which ten that we will have downtown. So it's not chosen by John or I, it's chosen
by the community of which ones they would really like to have in our downtown. And as
you can see, when you walk through downtown there's a different variety of art here. Things
that kids and adults both enjoy.
Business professionals, real estate developers, marketers throughout the state and within
the region as well as our community members view the installation of the sculptures for
what they are: art, a community, and economic development strategy. It's been pretty fantastic.