With an aim to promote our area artists and create temporary outdoor public art, the Arts Council created its program, the Art in the Sky Billboard Project in partnership with Adams Outdoor Advertising. Through this juried art program, digital billboards are produced featuring the art of area artists. This collective art installation is a well-recognized aspect of our region's landscape and is celebrated by residents and visitors alike. The billboards are featured in locations throughout Greater Lansing and and outside the area to attract visitors to the region. A wealth of community feedback indicates the billboards are not only visually attractive but are also effectively raising awareness about artists in the region.
Art in the Sky 2022/2023 Billboard Program is closed until September 2023.
Guidelines for 2022 are available HERE.
Select a billboard to view the artist's statement!
Select a billboard to view the artist's statement!
Select a billboard to view the artist's statement!
Artist
I have always liked photography. I took lots of pictures when I was a teenager, but mostly of trivial scenes. Now, several decades later, I can appreciate the freedom this medium offers to express my creativity. I constantly look for new approaches and opportunities to share my vision. My submission shows sunrise over a remote Chilean island. Sun rays dance with the rising, ethereal fog from the ocean, creating a lyrical, universal scene that can be experienced almost anywhere around the globe. Sometimes, there is poetry in a landscape, painted or photographed, and I want people to feel that.
Printmaker
I have been cutting and hand-printing linocuts for over 30 years. I enjoy working with linoleum because it is an unpretentious medium, has no pre-existing texture, and lends itself to bold, spontaneous images. I am drawn to the challenge of black and white design and to the problems presented through the interactions of positive and negative space. Organic shapes figure repeatedly in my work. Birds, especially, provide me with a read-made “excuse” to play with shape and pattern and to see the world in simple, sensitive, and often whimsical ways.
Artist
I have always liked photography. I took lots of pictures when I was a teenager, but mostly of trivialscenes. Now, several decades later, I can appreciate the freedom this medium offers to express mycreativity. I constantly look for new approaches and opportunities to share my vision.My submission shows sunrise over a remote Chilean island. Sun rays dance with the rising, ethereal fogfrom the ocean, creating a lyrical, universal scene that can be experienced almost anywhere around theglobe. Sometimes, there is poetry in a landscape, painted or photographed, and I want people to feelthat.
Mixed Media Painter
From the 2013 series: "Being Human ; The Anthromorphasized Beast""Is there any more mysterious idea for an artist then the conception of how nature is mirrored in the eyes of an animal"? - Franz Marc In a Postmodern technological age yearning for "mindfulness " and infantile "magical thinking" I'm curious what the non-human gaze has to tell us about being human?
Kiln-Formed Glass Artist
I work with glass in a unique style I refer to as kiln-formed art glass. Using crushed glass along with other innovative techniques to create imagery, the finished mural takes on a three dimensional quality. Through a process of firing and layering the glass several times, greater detail and depth is achieved. The techniques I created to accomplish this, from layering pieces to engineering the mounting system, are pioneering in the field of kiln-formed art glass. The submitted photo is a cropped image of a 6'X12' mural I created that is on display at Delphi Glass Corporation in Lansing, Mich.
Kinetic Metal Sculptor
As a metal sculptor I am most fond of kinetics, the idea of trying to reproduce not only the forms of nature, but also its motions is appealing to me on a very fundamental level. There is beauty in form; there is elegance in motion.
Artist
Jennifer Medler is the artist pumping paint and portraits through Jennifer Jean Designs. Jennifer specializes in vintage inspired paintings and illustrations with a unique take on expression, line work, and color. You can find Jennifer in her studio working on commissioned projects, painting in her garden in Lansing, Mich.
Printmaker
I am a maker of prints. My work is inspired by the natural world. I use patterns, shapes and lines to express the composition with a vocabulary of mark making. I print directly on paper and textiles from my hand carved blocks. This linoleum relief print, “Round About” is part of a series influenced by being back in an agricultural area after living for many years in Alaska. Now I am enchanted by fields of produce and farm markets as well as being humbled by where our food comes from.
Printmaker
I am a maker of prints. My work is inspired by the natural world. I use patterns, shapes and lines to express the composition with a vocabulary of mark making. I print directly on paper and textiles from my hand carved blocks. This linoleum relief print, “Round About” is part of a series influenced by being back in an agricultural area after living for many years in Alaska. Now I am enchanted by fields of produce and farm markets as well as being humbled by where our food comes from.
