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David Nicholas: Studio 23 in Bay City is presenting the biennial exhibition 50 Artists of the Great Lakes Bay Region. The works of the artists will be on display through November 29th at the Studio 23 Gallery. I had a chance to talk with curator Amy Gibas to learn more.
DN: How did this whole project and concept originally come together?
Amy Gibas: It started in 2017 as a way to spotlight all of the immensely talented artists that are right here in our region. Around that same time, the Detroit Institute of Arts actually initiated a public art project in Bay City along the Riverwalk here. And that inspired the Studio 23 staff at the time to continue that project featuring local artists. That rolled around again in 2019, that public art project was adapted into what is now Art Around the City, and they expanded it from the original 29 pieces to 50.
DN: Have you seen a predominant medium? Has there been one medium more prominent than another?
AG: I think the biggest factor that determines sort of what the trends are, our jurors. We select a panel of jurors from the region who are either experts in the visual arts or community leaders in some capacity. And we give them a rubric to help them score the artist's work, but their opinions are subjective. So it's really difficult to predict what direction they might turn or what they might favor. But we definitely see those types of trends emerge. For example, this year we have a lot of artists working with portraiture, artists focusing on abstraction or more experimental methods. But even within those trends, we always see a wide representation of all of the different styles and mediums that are being practiced.
DN: When it comes to the artists themselves, your gallery and this is housed or has its home base, Studio 23 in Bay City, but looking at the size of the region as a whole, over the years, where have most of the artists tended to come from, and have you seen a change, expansion, or different places that become more featured when it comes to the entries that you receive?
AG: I would say we have a good core of artists that are sort of local to the Bay City, Saginaw, Midland area, and the Great Lakes Bay Region is a specific set of counties, but this year we did include six of the neighboring counties that we're in so that we could give more opportunities to artists from a little bit of a broader range to share their work with us.
DN: What is that public response like?
AG: We definitely have people come through around the city and do it as sort of a scavenger hunt and check the pieces off their list and make sure that they see all of them before they change again in the two years. So it's a pretty wide window to do that, but we definitely have people who are excited for them to change and come and see the new ones.
DN: Do the pieces themselves then at the close of the time that they are on exhibit, do they go to different galleries, all to your gallery for potential sale to the public? What becomes of the pieces once they have had their time on exhibit?
AG: So we first offer them to the artists who are represented to purchase them. And once they have purchased the pieces that they want to, then we will open it up to the public to be able to purchase them as well.
DN: We certainly wish you the best of luck with the remaining time of the exhibit and then the ongoing display, the sales of the pieces and so forth as it moves forward. Congratulations on reaching another in the biennial presentations of the 50 Great Artists of the Great Lakes Bay Region exhibit. And Amy Gibas with Studio 23, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
AG: Thank you for having me, David.
