Celebrating vibrant people.

Captivating places and remarkable things.

This is Living West Michigan.

♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ Show me your world ♪ ♪ Everything that ♪ ♪ you say and do ♪ ♪ you say to me ♪ ♪ Can’t get enough ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ ♪ I’m all about you ♪ This program is supported in part by an award from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, and is also powered by you and your dedicated support.

Thank you.

("Rest" by Basic Comfort plays) How did this Artists Creating Together get started?

So it started 40 years ago.

It's a really monumental celebration for us this year.

We're very excited.

But in 1986 it was just one little program and it was started by the Junior League of Grand Rapids and some Grand Rapids Public Schools administrators and teachers.

Just seeing that there's a real lack of the arts for special education students.

So they started with one little program, and now here we are today, 40 years later, with programing all throughout the community.

So we have a studio right downtown Grand Rapids, right here on the corner of Leonard and Monroe.

And a lot of our classes are here.

So we'll have both visual and performing art classes, and those are switching up every semester.

So right now we're doing Animal Kingdom and musical theater and dance year round.

We have a ukulele club and a drum troupe, but then we also have a choir of 60 adults.

It's the most boisterous, vibrant concert you'll ever go to.

And then a lot of our program is in special education classrooms in Kent and Ottawa county, and then out in the community at different health entities like hospitals and the vets home and nursing homes.

So it really runs the gamut.

And then a lot of our community programing is done through our Creative Cube.

So it's a 40ft long race trailer reimagined as a pop up, accessible art studio.

(Fun music) Artists Creating Together.

Is that what happens?

That is what happens.

We're not only doing art and sharing the arts, both visual and performing, but we're also creating community and we're bringing together professional artists from the community.

Artists with disabilities that are more established in their arts, and then just beginners who are just starting to dabble and figuring out if the arts are meant for them.

Artists Creating Together is.

It's a beautiful, fun filled place.

Everyone's just excited to create.

You know, everyone's really open minded.

You have a lot of freedom in our creative expression, a lot of encouragement.

It's just a really fun place to be.

Artists of all ages, they just make me smile.

Everyone's unique.

You know, everybody has their own story and their own loves and their own preferences.

And it's a fun and unique challenge and a great opportunity to be able to meet them where they are and help them create the work that they want to make.

We have some of our regulars that take every single class, so they're coming and they are good role models for some of our new participants, and they come here and miss each other and can't wait to catch up.

So there's a social aspect to every class, but then every weekly class, especially a multi-week class, we're incorporating independent projects, but then also collaboratives.

So there's always an opportunity in a class for them all to contribute something to a whole.

Alright gentlemen, I only get the best, as they say.

Joe, how did you come to know Artists Creating Together?

Well, that's a good question.

I've been with the act as long as I can remember.

I remember when I was in Lincoln School, I used to go to the very special arts, which was the VSA festivals.

I came to the Act studio back in 2014, and ever since then, I've been a part of Act for a very long time.

Act has a huge impact on me.

Based on the arts and the theater classes as well.

They get to showcase all of the abilities and and how they express their feelings.

(Fun music) Describe more of your Animal kingdom theme.

What are the kids and adults doing while you're actually working on it?

I present the idea that we're working on and make sure they have all their materials, and this is kind of a mixed media class.

So today we're doing a lot of collage.

Animals are a big part of a lot of our students lives.

Sometimes when your social circle is smaller, you are drawn to animals in that sort of way.

Some of them have service animals or therapy animals in their own home.

So it's always something that we see present in a lot of their art.

There are a lot of times using animals as a subject matter.

So we knew this would be a really popular class.

Why use a theme for an activity?

I think it's important in art to have boundaries of some sort.

Just so we know where to go.

Sometimes we can get overwhelmed when we have a bunch of materials and can just be free to create.

Sometimes that can be paralyzing for anybody.

So it's a good idea to have some some structure to from which to be creative around a very good relationship with all the staff and all my friends here at Act, and they're very helpful in helping me with my artwork because I can't see, I cannot see the paper or anything, and they do a very good job helping me out with all my artwork.

Other people that helped me.

And when I ask when I have questions, sometimes I can get it down where it's like.

It's like, Once I know what I want?

I lay it down on the art and that’s how I do it.

They're very helpful with the hands on as well, with the other students that really need the help.

And if they don't have access or they need anything, they can go over to the supplies and get it.

I think my training as an occupational therapist comes in.

It's a good, you know, mental challenge to figure out what project we should work on and how we can make it accessible to everyone.

So, you know, we have some adaptive tools.

We really work to make sure that people can grasp on to things and manipulate things to the best of their ability.

If they need a little help, that's okay too.

Yeah, we just work one on one.

It's really an individual kind of process, but something that's really important to consider.

Are you changing lives?

I think so.

I think when I hear from parents that they are learning something about their own son or daughter that's changing a whole family.

When I see students that are really reserved and then all of a sudden we're putting them in the ukulele club and they're igniting their own personality through the music and the beat that helps them to make friends.

That opens up their confidence and helps them be creative.

And that is life changing.

I think creativity is our birthright, and it's something that we all love to do on a deep level, and it's just extra fun when we get to do it all together.

There's no masks, you know?

We just are who we are and we're happy to be here.

And that's the kind of place I like to be.

All artists belong.

The because it is a great nonprofit organization.

I think it's very important for for folks that can't see or like, it's very hard for some people to hold a paintbrush.

And I feel like it's it's accessible, but it can be hard at first.

I think I think that individuals with disabilities have a place to do art, and I feel like ACT is the best place.

The Grand Rapids Film Society is a product, a thing.

Through Grand Rapids Community Media Center, Grand Rapids Community Media Center is the umbrella that oversees Wealthy Theatre.

It sees The Rapidian, sees Grand Rapids Film Society and our whole goal is building community through media.

So can you tell me a bit more about the history, specifically about the Grand Rapids Film Society, how that got started?

It was running through Art Prize for a little bit.

It was actually founded by David Blakeslee, who sits in a committee, and he started it with like a Facebook group, and it was like two guys just kind of talking about film in Grand Rapids, right?

It never really went anywhere.

And when I came on board at wealthy, Chris was like, hey, so we have the rights to the film society.

That means because Art Prize is like, they don't want anything to do with it anymore.

They want to give it to Wealthy Theatre.

So he asked me if I wanted to be in charge of it, take care of it and run it.

And that's how it kind of evolved to me here.

But it's been around since like 2015.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I got started with the Grand Rapids Film Society a little under three years ago.

I was talking with Spencer and Nick, who had kind of revamped the film society, and they asked me to maybe come and pitch some community event ideas.

So I pulled on my computer and as a producer, just kind of thought of what was helpful for me with networking, getting people involved.

And I pitched them a couple of ideas, and they really liked my idea for roundtable and just asked me to keep coming back.

Grand Rapids Film Society helps filmmakers get into the industry through kind of a plethora of different avenues, so you can just come to screenings and meet people and learn more.

But you can also go to events that are geared towards helping you expand your network, gain knowledge and experience.

So we kind of try to give a holistic approach to the more conversational elements, as well as the hands on elements of filmmaking.

We came up with the idea of building the community here, and how are we doing that?

So starting around tables, that's one event that we do around tables are like bringing people together to talk about movies stuck with screenwriting to talk about their screenplays and like, right together.

Then we have our pitch nights where filmmakers can pitch their ideas or the filmmakers in the audience.

Then we have our rough cut night.

You can have a rough cut of your film, play it for feedback, and then we have Open Projector Night, and it's like the final thing, if you get into it, you celebrate your film.

Meet other filmmakers.

So that's like a really like this ecosystem we've built of like nurturing the film community here in Grand Rapids.

Secondly, we're doing a lot of screenings, like every Monday, every other Monday, playing like classic films, films that we want to talk about, films that we care about, films that are like seeing in like the major spotlight all the time.

We're doing a lot.

So how does the GR Film Society maybe help people get into the film industry, if that's their desire?

We want to do as much as we possibly can to help these people to get that next step of getting into the film industry, but I think people also need to understand we're a stepping stone, but we can't do it for you.

We're giving you these tools such as roundtable.

Do not be scared to come on out if you have anxiety like me, I get it.

But I try to get past that.

Talk to people.

A couple of years ago, when it first started, the very first meeting, I randomly came across, I think, an Instagram post that they had posted.

And I'd been interested in filmmaking for years and wanted to go.

So I just got real brave that night and I showed up.

I didn't know a single person here came by myself.

It's amazing how kind the people are at the Film Society meetings.

I was just shocked at how open and like, nice everybody was and like, everyone's just so willing to accept when new people come in, just talking to them, helping them like just, you know, being very open and accepting to people who walk in with, just talk and introduce themselves and be part of the fold and be part of the group.

Why do you feel like communities and spaces like this are so important for these people?

Helps you move forward, helps you keep going because like, making movies is hard.

It's it's tough.

It's kind of the worst sometimes.

So it's great to have people there you can, like, lean on or just even complain to or talk problems out with.

And it's nice to have a room where you can sit down and just like talk about the the lows and the highs of it and have places where you can screen your things and talk about your things and show your things, and they'll be interested in engaging with you on it and like it just it motivates you to keep going and keep pushing forward and just keep creating.

If you're in your bedroom watching these things by yourself, even just messaging filmmakers on Discord or Reddit, you're not truly being able to meet with someone and learn other experiences, hear other points of view, and see how other people reacted to a movie.

So by meeting community, gaining a larger community, and being out in the world, you're gaining world views, you're getting better social skills, and you're also probably meeting filmmakers that you can work with in the future.

Like on my second movie, I had people from the film society that I met at Film Society that helped on my movie as like crew members and locations that I got from connections that I made at the Film Society.

So it just helps build your network, helps get crew members, cast members, locations, just anything you can even think of for how to get your project off the ground.

I think the reason that Wealthy Theatre And the Grand Rapids Film Society has been able to sustain their presence in the community throughout all of these different trials and funding issues that other independent readers have been facing is because of the community.

We've built a very strong community.

People show up time and time again.

What makes me so proud of the film society in general is just seeing filmmakers go from just coming to watch movies to making a movie through the resources we have and just through meeting people.

So that honestly, my goal for the next five years is just to see more films get made locally.

We are firm believers in like really catering to our film community, to film students, to keeping film alive in Michigan.

When I was in film school and I graduated, I saw some of my peers just like, pack their bags, moved to New York, moved to LA, moved to Chicago, and everyone's like, why is there no scene here?

I was like, well, you're leaving.

So our goal is to continue to, like, help people out, help filmmakers out and get people excited about movies that are happening in our city.

You know, like you look at New York, LA, Chicago, why can't we do that here in Grand Rapids?

If you desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, whether it's morals or good or bad, the quality of its music will tell the answer.

Music in a community is so important when you think about the turn of the century, when there was no recorded music, and it wasn't really until the 1920s when it was commercially available.

But there is still a great appeal to live music, and I think that's why a lot of people stay with the band, come to the band as they want to perform live music.

I remember the first day that I decided I wanted to join.

I listened to the concert in the audience and I thought, I want to be in that band.

This band is a really wonderful community band.

We just wish everybody knew about us.

The band has grown from when I started directing 14 years ago, they had 13 members and now we're up almost 70 members with some wonderful musicians in the group.

We have young people that are kind of high school band level all the way through our seniors who are 80 and maybe 90 now.

Everybody belongs.

Everybody cares.

Everybody gets a part that they're able to play, and this is their mental recess from life.

All the stresses go away and we just go to band because we want a band night.

I retired and I was looking for something to have some social contact, and this is just a great place for that.

I have some people who had not played their instrument for 40 years, and they remembered the band, and it just chokes me up because the people come back to being because that's what they remember and they love and they can get back in the band, you know, it's like riding a bike.

You get on it and you write it again.

I wanted to continue playing my flute.

I did majoring music in college and this was a good band.

I don't want to just play in something that's rinky dink.

I want a plane, something that has quality and that's what keeps me going.

It's a little like you said.

The music is a little challenging at times, but it gives you something to work on and be proud of if you can achieve it.

And this band.

I play percussion and so I'm in the back of the band, and the thing I love about that is I'm historically a flute player.

So you sit in the front of the band and you don't see the rest of the band, but standing in the back, I look out and sometimes it just makes me smile to see all these people who come together every week to put this band together.

The legacy of a band depends on a conductor.

Band members, venues, music, all of those things.

It's just a coming together for something bigger than any one of us.

We try out a lot of music that sometimes fits us and sometimes it doesn't, so Rose will toss the ones that don't work and stuff that we can play well and that fits our instrumentation.

We'll rehearse hard.

Zealand community band.

Tell me about the word community.

We are from Zeeland.

Zeeland is our host.

We practice at the schools, but we are also a magnet.

We bring in people from distances.

We have people that come in from Portage and Kalamazoo, Plainwell, from East Kentwood, Forest Hills, Muskegon, Grand Haven, Spring Lake.

So a lot of people from Holland as well.

But we bring outside people into our area.

Anybody who's played in more than one band in their life, or anyone who's played for a director who's not so fabulous, knows the importance of a good director.

Rose brings not only her music selection, but her commitment to the growth and the improvement in the quality of the music we play is so obvious, and she does it in such a kind and supportive way that people want to come.

(Hype music) That truck is a brand new gift to us.

We had just bought timpani, and we had people that were bringing their cars and their pickups to try to carry instruments to the concerts, and it just wasn't going to work anymore.

And we needed a vehicle that could both be used for storage and hauling, and it was a gift.

You know, we were bombarded with media and telephones and and we can hear just about anything at any moment.

But to hear live music performed is there.

It's really special and it's, I think, much more emotional because you can feel it in ways that that recorded music just doesn't do that.

Good job.

Thank you, thank you.

I grew up listening to CDs like that was my thing.

And then once I got into like, a lot of the underground punk scene, which is where vinyl was kept alive through the dark times of the early 2000, grew more into that.

I mean, my entire apartment is just wall to wall stacks of media.

There's no specific kind that I like more than the other.

I started out as a book scout when I was like 19.

I actually read in another book, another novel by a Chicago professor when he was a young punk in the 80s.

He used to scout books and sell them to stores around the city.

He used to help pay his rent and pay his way through college.

And I thought, well, I love collecting.

I have a good I, I can do that.

I know what I need when I see it.

It's an instinct.

Developed over 27 years.

For the most part, I say anything printed or recorded books, CDs, records, VHS, DVDs.

We even have a few local artists selling patches and things like that.

During the pandemic, the wound up moving up here, wanted something different from Chicago, worked at a few places here, and kind of just decided that I didn't want to work for anybody.

I wanted to go back to being kind of an independent contractor who was thinking about a store and saw this space for rent, thought that it would probably be far too expensive because I had priced out a lot of other spaces and they were far too expensive, but it wasn't, so we just jumped on it.

The records came from another record store in Chicago that closed down, actually in 2007, and these records sat in storage for 15 years, 18 years, all just kind of came together very last minute, to be honest.

Took seven weeks.

We don't know what we lost when the Library of Alexandria burned.

So I want there to be a record of what we might lose.

You know, if these things go, go away.

It's just important to have a document of, I mean, history, current events, things like that.

You learn as much from a novel that is written during a certain period as you do from a history book that's written about that period.

Years later, the same way I feel about libraries is that we're not not even for somebody to come in here and specifically buy something.

But you can you come in here and we're, we're archiving things that are rapidly disappearing.

This is mass produced art.

It is still art.

So it is important to me.

Media is extremely important, speaks to everybody in a different way.

And I think that any way that you can connect with the outside world or another person or help you grow your interior, life is really important.

I think it's good for personal growth.

I also think it's good for the community just to have a space, a third space to go.

That's not necessarily a bar or a restaurant.

Grand Rapids is becoming, has become and is, you know, a very vibrant and thriving urban area.

Honestly, it's I guess I didn't expect it to be so welcoming at first, but it seemed like we just kind of fit as a puzzle piece that was missing.

It was immediately embraced and accepting, so I'm really happy to be here.

My band used to tour through here through the early 2000, and we always loved coming here.

Everybody was so great.

The underground punk scene was amazing.

Loved the city.

I'm glad to live here now.

He palmed the whole thing.