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Strongheart Art Open House - 'Jerry's Map'
The Strongheart Center will be hosting an open house for the public to view the completed installation on Monday, April 27th from 5pm-7pm. The event is free and all are welcome to take part in this unique opportunity to see Jerry's Map. Seasonally inspired, light maple-themed food and refreshments will be provided by Darylin Berryman, a GTB Tribal Citizen and Native Food for Life chef.
GTB is pleased to announce the artwork “Jerry's Map” will be installed in its entirety at the Strongheart Center in Peshawbestown, MI this April. The artwork is part of a documentary to film the artistic process of Maple City artist, Jerry Gretzinger.
Born in Grand Rapids in 1942, Gretzinger has spent decades developing Jerry’s Map, an ongoing artwork that maps an ever changing, imaginary world. Since starting the Map in 1963, it has evolved into an abstract composition, with changes determined by an elaborate set of rules and randomly generated instructions. The work blends cartography with abstract composition, inviting viewers to discover a world of dynamic color and structure. Jerry's intricate process involves creating artwork from everyday materials – acrylic paint, colored pencils, photographs, product packaging, ink and inkjet prints- all combined together on 8” x 10” sheets of paper. The installation slated for the floor of the Strongheart Center will be the first time in over a decade that the Map will be shown as a complete set. Now consisting of over 4,100 individual panels, Jerry's Map would be six stories tall if installed on a vertical wall. The only other time the entire Map has been shown was at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012, when it was only 2,600 panels in size.
