Latest news with #ArtPrize
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Health workers still feel COVID's impact 5 years later
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — It has been five years since the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Michigan's . The impact of the pandemic is still being felt by frontline workers, including those who work for Corewell Health in Grand Rapids. They tell News 8 they will never forget the pandemic, from the lives lost to the emotional toll it has taken on so many in their profession. 'It is hard to believe it's been five years. We still talk about COVID like it was yesterday,' said Renee Gummere, a respiratory therapist for the hospital system. 'On and on': How COVID-19 defined high school for Class of 2023 Gummere said the patients she treated are forever etched in her memory. 'During COVID there weren't a lot of visitors allowed and so we were the support system for a lot of those family members that were allowed to be there. So you know, it's been five years and I still remember faces, names and room numbers that people were in. Those are things that I probably will never forget,' Gummere said. The number of patients and their conditions were things Renee never expected to encounter when she studied to become a respiratory therapist. 'I never thought I would see a pandemic like we saw at Blodgett, specifically, we had two makeshift ICUs beyond our regular ICU so we had three ICUs going at once,' Gummere said. She said working through the pandemic helped the team learn to work together to care for the increase in patients. 'This is an impossible task to care for all these people, all of these critically ill people,' Gummere said. 'We did the best we could with what we had at the time.' Until antivirals were created, there were not many treatment options other than providing supportive care. ArtPrize entry reflects on COVID-19 losses in disabled community 'It was really hard because there was no specific criteria for … the type of patient that was going to die from COVID. I've seen 20-year-olds all the way up to 96-year-olds pass away from COVID. Athletes, police officers, ex marines, it doesn't matter who you were, COVID affected everybody,' Gummere said. In addition to the toll the virus took on patients, healthcare workers continue to feel the impact. Jennifer Kaiser, nurse scientist and magnet program director with Corewell Health Grand Rapids Hospitals, completed a study on the years after the height of the pandemic. 'Nurses have experienced a sense of moral injury because the conditions of the practice environment didn't allow them to be the nurse they wanted to be,' Kaiser said. 'My study was on nurses' professional identity which is just not just doing nursing but what it means to identify as a nurse to be a nurse to have that as part of your self-concept.' The pandemic also had an impact on staffing turnover for hospitals across the country. Families reflect on confusing time, losing loved ones early in pandemic 'We lost over 100,000 nurses throughout the pandemic, leaving the profession entirely, and that number does not include nurses that went to a different care setting so maybe they didn't want to work in ICU or inpatient anymore,' Kaiser said. Respiratory therapists like Gummere, who stayed with the profession, know the impact healthcare workers made to save lives and the trauma they saw firsthand seeing the patients who did not survive. 'It's going be something that effects healthcare workers for the rest of our lives,' Gummere said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Venue registration opens for ArtPrize 2025
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — ArtPrize 2025 will be here before you know it. In preparation of that, for the massive annual art competition in Grand Rapids. Venue registration will stay open through May 2, while artist registration will begin March 31. Business, restaurants, museums and other spots can register to host art during ArtPrize 2025, which runs from Sept. 18 through Oct. 4. ArtPrize saw 800K visitors, $71M economic impact in 2024 'Being an ArtPrize venue is more than just showcasing art—it's about becoming a hub for creativity, conversation, and community,' ArtPrize Executive Director Catlin Whitington said in Monday release. 'It's an opportunity to bring inspiring works into your space, connect with visitors, and welcome new audiences through your doors. The energy and engagement ArtPrize brings to Grand Rapids is unmatched, and being a part of it is an experience like no other.' Last year, work from some 1,000 artists were divided up among 166 venues. Drawing in almost 800,000 visitors, ArtPrize had an economic impact of at least $71 million in 2024, researchers at Grand Valley State University found. That was up by about 30% compared to 2023, when the same study found ArtPrize had an economic impact of around $54.7 million. Artists across the country to compete for $10K ArtPrize grants The economic impact includes spending at ArtPrize venues. Matthew Rothenberg, the president of the Heartside Business Association and the co-owner of ArtRat Gallery, said ArtPrize was 'tremendous' both for the Heartside neighborhood and for his business. 'It's given us a big boost in visibility and traffic – and even in capital improvements to our space. We saw our biggest sales ever during this past ArtPrize, and it was super-gratifying to be recognized as Outstanding Venue for ArtPrize 2024,' he said in the release. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Artists across the country to compete for $10K ArtPrize grants
Editor's note: The video in the player above is a report that ran on Sept. 27, 2024 about that year's ArtPrize winner. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Artists across the country have a chance to compete for $10,000 grants to bring them and their work to ArtPrize this year. This is the first time ArtPrize has brought back pitch nights since the pandemic, Executive Director Catlin Whitington said. 'We're really excited to see this this program back in action,' he said. ArtPrize has partnered with art organizations across the country to in April and May, starting in Louisville, Kentucky and ending in New York City. ArtPrize saw 800K visitors, $71M economic impact in 2024 After applying to the pitch night, five finalists will have five minutes to pitch their idea to a panel of five judges. What the judges will be looking for will vary by organization. In Indianapolis, for example, the judges at the Eiteljorg Museum will be looking for contemporary Native American artists, while the judges at the Satellite Collective in New York City will be focused on finding new media installations and time-based art, Whitington said. 'Broadly, the grants we're looking for (are) merit and really exciting, ambitious works,' he said. 'Works that we feel really represent the region and that will be well served in coming out here to ArtPrize. And we're excited to see what the applicants bring to show.' One artist from each city will be given a $10,000 grant to bring their idea to Grand Rapids. ArtPrize is also working to put together local pitch nights in each Grand Rapids ward. It's still finalizing the venues and local partners for that series, but Whitington said local artists can expect an announcement soon. Venue registration for ArtPrize 2025 — which runs from Sept. 18 through Oct. 4 — opens in the beginning of March. Artist registration will open at the end of March. 'We are very excited to share some of the big projects that we have coming here very soon,' Whitington said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Board chair: Festival of the Arts died of old age
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The way the board chair describes it, after 55 years, Grand Rapids' Festival of the Arts died of old age. Some longtime volunteers were leaving and new volunteers were hard to find, Chairman Eddie Tadlock told News 8 in a phone interview. 'Basically, the volunteers were saying, 'You know what? We're tired,'' Tadlock said. 'That's it. And if you don't have volunteers who are willing to move the ball forward, it's not going to happen, and that is basically what it came down to.' Festival of the Arts ending after 55 years The board announced Saturday that it was ending the festival, though a statement didn't say why. Launched in 1970, Festival of the Arts was ArtPrize before — the city of Grand Rapids' biggest summer draw by far. At its peak, some 250,000 people descended on the city every first weekend of June for the art, live performance and food booths (not necessarily in that order). Lately, though, attendance had been cut in half. But the biggest challenge, the board chair said, was getting new volunteers and new ideas. 'They just started hitting roadblocks, 'Well, we're not going to change this because we've always done it this way,'' he said. 'It was like an undercurrent of resistance to change,' he said. There's also the money: higher costs, less cash coming in. Tax records obtained by Target 8 show the nonprofit 501(c)(3) got much of its funding from private foundations and sales and just a few thousand from government grants. 'A lot of the foundations, the usual suspects, a lot of them have changed their focus on what they're going to fund, and Festival was falling out of that footprint,' Tadlock said. From 2019 to 2021, Festival usually ended the year with about $200,000 in its fund balance. But by the end of 2022, the last year for which records were available, that fund balance was about $10,000. Festival took in nearly $247,000 that year, but spent $424,000, about half of that on labor and equipment. That's a $177,000 loss. 'Things change': Grand Rapids church reflects on years of service at Festival of the Arts Tadlock said finances had improved somewhat since then. Still, Festival was already planning on a smaller event this year: fewer stages and a smaller downtown foot print, Tadlock said. Then on Thursday, the board gathered for a Zoom meeting, along with some longtime volunteers. 'It's a big thing in the region. It's a really big thing,' Tadlock said. 'I was kind of hoping that we could, if nothing else, put it on pause. Say, OK, we're not going to do it in 2025. We need to get our ducks in a row and get our collective stuff together and come back reimagined in 2026. 'The rest (of those at the meeting) were just like, 'We're done.' These are folks who've been with Festival for years.' The vote to shut it down, he said, was unanimous. 'It was very sad,' Tadlock said. 'I've been going to Festival since I moved to Grand Rapids in 2008 and it was always a highlight for me.' In a written statement, longtime volunteer and former board co-chair Mark Azkoul wondered if Festival was the victim of changing times. 'Somewhere,' he wrote, 'too many of us stopped finding community by working shoulder to shoulder as volunteers… Perhaps today, we find that community through our phones instead.' The board chair said he still hopes Festival could return, reimagined, in 2026. 'We haven't dissolved our 501(c)(3) status,' he said. 'My hope is to regroup, build a new board, build some new committees with some fresh blood, with people who have ideas and who have experience in doing different types of festivals and just reimagine Festival and be the phoenix rising out of the ashes.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
