City Saunter Gallery

I realized I might not have officially put this out there. I have been sitting at 1133 South Washington Ave since finishing my final walk October 4. Each day I get my kids ready for school and onto the bus then I get ready and drive into Lansing to watch over my exhibit. It has really been a lot of fun! This space also houses Good Fruit Video, UnoDeuce Multimedia, I’m A Beer Hound and Soulful Earth Herbals. Each time I come into “work” I enjoy this group more and more. They are all entrepreneurs, putting their heart and soul into their work. These businesses are the perfect examples I sought out on my walks and here I am amongst them.  If this ends up being my final days here I want to express how much I’ve enjoyed it! If something else grows from this experience I will truly feel I have been blessed. Again, I would like to thank all the people and businesses that offered sponsorship to get me here! I hope you’ve had time to stop by and see what your donation created. I will forever be thankful for this experience and I am still shocked when people thank me. It’s been a symbiotic relationship for sure!

Sincerely,

Ariniko

Too Festive to Falter

On a day like yesterday the sauntering must go on. It wasn’t out on city streets, however, this time we traveled by car to the lovely Fenner Nature Center. Yesterday was their annual Applebutter Festival. It runs today from 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and with sunny weather with a high of 66 degrees I would think there is no better place to be.  With at least three separate places to park there is no need to stress. Some are a walk from the actual festivities but on a weekend like this it should be quite enjoyable. They’ve stretch the festivities out a bit by moving the applebutter cooking pot out “through the meadow” which is down one of the main trails.If you attend the Maple Syrup Festival then it’s where the syrup is collected from the Sugar Maples. Back at the center you can enjoy apple tasting (my favorite thing to do. There’s an apple that tastes like a banana!). Please watch for the bees. If you don’t swat they won’t sting but with the apples all cut up right there I had bees flying into my face. There is live entertainment, Boy Scout troops sawing logs, facepainting and pumpkin carving areas. Inside is the typical Greater Lansing Potter’s Guild making pottery, natural products and lace weaving. They’ve moved the little store to the back area where they use to do demonstrations and have animal pelts. It’s a much more open area. Downstairs there are the normal food; popcorn, donuts, cider and ice-cream sandwiches. Bring bills not quarters. The little bake sale area was sorely missed. My street sauntering might finally be over but with a place like Fenner and days like we’re having there is no reason to stop the fall trail sauntering.

A new 18 acre prairie area! 

In Summary

I have been finding it very difficult to begin, let alone finish this blog post. How does one write a post that summarizes a three year project? It started out as a simple walking project. Somewhere along the journey it changed. I changed. It started as a show and tell; look at Old Town, now let me tell you about it. Here’s Hawk Island, let me tell you about it. Somehow, though, you let me get personal. You let me tell you about my deceased brother and our adventurous childhood in north Lansing. You let me express my heartache that comes with a grandmother aging out of her matriarchal position in a family.  You let me tell you about people I admired. You let me express great excitement with events and festivals. You put up with all the photos of my twins.

You followed me as I traveled through your streets, around your neighborhoods, and into your businesses. When I began to get attention from media, or a photograph was purchased, or I was asked to join in on something great, you cheered me on. Then as I was coming to the end I needed support for my gallery, and you all came through on that too! I sit here in a gorgeous turn of the century space with 32 framed pieces of art on the walls, four of which have little sold signs under them. I have my LSJ article framed as well as the Capital Gains article written by my friend Suban. I also have a pile of The Lansing City Pulse sitting on a table with my photo on the cover.

So let me tell you about Lansing. Lansing is my home. It’s filled with people I love, admire, trust, respect and believe in. It has mom & pop and farm to table. It has urban gardens and Land Bank restorations. It has local celebrities that aren’t afraid to wear a pair of red and white striped socks or don a suit to be auctioned off for charity. It has sports teams and races (dirty, marathon, or colorful). It has green enthusiasts (Sweaty Mouse, Mid-MEAC, Walk & Bike Lansing) and the Blues (Blues Fest, The Root Doctor). There is such an excitement for entertainment and fun that holidays are invented and created here; Plaidurday, Capital City Dragonboat Races, Vacant, Peace of Lansing. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit here that pairs up alongside the corporate world creating this wonderful ebb and flow.  It houses a captivating Capitol building that spurs conversation and debate. This is Lansing, Michigan sitting dead center in the palm of my right hand that I forever will clutch to my heart. Thank you Lansing!  #lovelansing

My Walking Marathon

Post dated from October 3, 2013

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary one of the definitions of marathon is; “something (such as an event or activity) that lasts an extremely long time or that requires great effort”. I think this very much describes my City Saunter Project. For three years I’ve strategically made my way from Haslett to Lansing and walked on the public streets for a given amount of time. While walking I carried with me my full sized dslr Canon camera, extra lens, notebooks, sometimes water, and my phone (after November 2012). I carried all of these supplies in a messenger bag with Velcro closures. As I walked the motion rubbed my clothing to the level that most of my pants now have a frayed spot on the left thigh. I even bought a new shirt and the metal brackets on the bag wore a mark on this brand new shirt. I wore my way through 5 separate pair of shoes. I think in this last month alone I put 300 miles on my car driving to the south side of Lansing. There were the summer days when I left my kids sitting in front of the television and rushed off to get a few miles in. As I type this, my word counter has just surpassed 10,000 words. I rolled my camera 4 times with probably a quarter to a third of those photos being City Saunter photos. To complete this project by my gallery opening date I really started walking a lot more than normal.  My combined walking for this summer’s months is 200.9597 miles; all the months (years) up to that equal 333.7674. This project of walking every street in Lansing totaled 534.7271 miles walked. On October 3, 2013 I walked the most miles I had ever walked in my life. I did not train. I did not stretch. I really did nothing right yet by the grace of God was I able to walk from 8:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. with only a 20 minute break to buy a little food at Meijer. The total for this walk was 29.43 miles. I biked a small amount of this but also neglected to calculate biking from a finished spot back to my car or another walking location. I estimate I also biked another 3-4 miles on top of the walk. A marathon, I walked a marathon! I marked it on my map in orange instead of my typical hot pink highlighter. It’s quite impressive, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s even more impressive if you add in that the weekend before I was bedridden with a fever, sore throat and swollen glands. Yet it was done. Because of that extraordinary feat I was able to complete the project the next day just as I had planned (hoped). 

Some of my finds from this long walk:

My walks

First; Second; Third; Fourth; Fifth; Sixth; Seventh; Eighth; Ninth

Fitting it all in

As I am looking back at the last week I had, I am amazed and a bit flabbergasted that I got done everything I needed to do. Yes, there were a few minor details that might have enhanced the experience, like serving wine and beer at the gallery opening but cider and Cravings Popcorn were perfect in my mind. I did forget a sign for the front and a sign in notebook but friends came through for me and a little packaging tape goes a long way! So on this day, Tuesday the first of October I wasn’t even sure I would be able to do any walking. I was supposed to get the keys to the gallery but I hadn’t heard from the manager yet. I also had been sick over the weekend and chose to not walk. I needed to walk! So again I set out the south side. I believe I spent 7 full days on the south side. I had huge main streets that needed to be walked; Waverly from Jolly south, Miller from Waverly east and some of MLK. It was also trying to rain so I needed to walk as much as I could before rain, exhaustion or time limited my walk. I had only planned to walk until about noon because I had an important photo shoot to get to by 3:30. I had been booked months ago to shoot It’s a Breast Thing, a fantastic fundraiser event to help cancer patients. Just like Hannibal would say on the A-Team; “I love it when a plan comes together”, these last days worked much the same way. I was able to walk 16 miles, not get rained on, find a port-a-potty at just the right moment and not be too exhausted to shoot “It’s a Breast Thing”. 

Finger on the Pulse

This is posted dated from September 30In the last week of walking I had quite a few different groups interested in the finale. One such group was The Lansing City Pulse. I was so very thankful to have the opportunity to meet Mary Cusack who wrote the story for them. I also met up with another employee who captured the front cover photo. I loved the experience in its totality. At the gallery opening I was even asked to sign one. For this day September 30 I walked 15 miles. 

Here is the link to the article