GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — Mary Seger never lost her faith in humanity, even after she saw surveillance footage of young people on scooters stealing windchimes she had worked on for months as part of her ArtPrize piece, "A Joyful Noise."
But since our story on Mary's misfortune aired, ArtPrize reached out to Mary.
"We wanted to offer to Mary that she could pivot if she wanted to. And thankfully, she did take us up on that, and now we're here at the ArtPrize Oasis with her work," said JoLee Kirkikis-Casares, who serves as ArtPrize's exhibitions director.
The ArtPrize Oasis is located at 555 Monroe Avenue NW. It's a venue that ArtPrize runs itself.
"We have security overnight, so Mary's work will be safe and secure and taken care of. If there's any issues we will be notified immediately instead of a multi-day-long communication run around," JoLee said.
Mary and her husband moved the piece on Tuesday night, putting dozens of windchimes up one-by-one. ArtPrize staff members helped her out, and so did members of the community who had seen Mary's story.
"I'm very happy. Last interview I did with you guys, I was pretty angry. But not today. Today, I'm pretty happy. Because it's where it should be. It's making the music that it should be and it will bring happiness to everybody, because when you walk through and ring the chimes, everybody smiles. Even the grouchy person will smile," Mary said.
"I hope everybody comes down and makes the chime ring. You walk through them and you just gently run your hands along the bottom, and they all sing to you and makes you smile."
Following ArtPrize, the chimes will go up for sale. They'll cost between $30 and $75 depending on how elaborate they are. One opportunity to buy the pieces will happen on Nov. 4 at the Recycled Art Market at City High Middle School.
Mary expects that this will be her last year participating in ArtPrize. She says she wants to spend more time fishing and she'd also like to be able to spend more time looking at other ArtPrize pieces.
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@13onyourside.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
