See the difference?, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

These eggs are a small triumph. The extra orange egg on the right has been laid by our back yard hens. The one on the left comes from a local farm with “range free” chickens selling through the local organic grocery store. This makes me want back yard goats all the more for the extra good milk they would provide to our family. What extra potency is coming into our bodies through this good food and what added vitality is entering into our lives through the experience of taking care of our own animals and garden. These simple life giving practices are ages old and only recently shorn off from the modern life style. I think it is time to look for all the babies that went out with the preverbal bath water and bring them back into our daily life rituals were they can reconnect us with meaning, reconnect us with God, reconnect us with ourselves and who we are becoming.

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the letter I can’t read, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

I love getting letters and I even like writing letters. I like the delay of putting a letter in the mail box and then two months latter getting a reply maybe. Every thing else seems so instant with the i phone and email and a telephone call… It feels healthy to be made to wait a long time for a reply. I also enjoy the physicality of opening a letter and the potential for little things to fall out on the table, like a dried flower or a Polaroid or maybe a little drawing. Some times a letter may even carry a scent from a smudge of oil. With this post I have decided to begin to send letters again. The winter season is good for letter writing and savory soups.

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number your days #2, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

A lot of rainy days and the garden falling into late autumn ruins. Summer and all it’s glory has passed us and the long wintery sleep of ice and grey skies is approaching. We do what we can to keep our spirits up and look for silver linings in the endless curtaincloudcover that has placed itself over our city. Besides the actual clouds over my head I think there is another cloud bank that has moved in that is inside of my head and writing this blog and posting this little skull collage is my tiny effort at poking a hole through that sheet of lea for a ray of sun shine to make its way through. The light tapping of these computer keys is my attempt to punch a hole in the darkness that has shrouded my soul this morning. I realize I can not let myself think that I am alone in here, I know there are others that share this same battle this morning in late rainy October.

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Glowing, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

We are on the other side of Art Prize now. We have been working through a deep sadness that feels something like what you feel when you are putting the christmas tree on the curb in January thinking maybe you spent a little too much on presents and trimmings. The Wonder Wagon project was a very rich experience for our family and we will treasure for years to come the people and the stories that wove their lives around us not only for the two weeks of the encampment along the Grand River but also during the long journey of preparation through out the summer. As a family we grew into the challenge that this experience brought us to. We have developed muscle in places we didn’t even now existed. Both Brenda and daughter Pearl are by nature very private people most comfortable lost in a long novel curled up on the sofa for a rainy day. These finely tuned privet ladies were bombarded with clusters of new strangers every day for hours on end and they rose to the challenge that was nothing short of heroic.

For all of those who came along side of our family like Cameron and Rachael VanDyke and Matthew Fowler, Seth Thompson, Bob,Ellen and Tom, and many others, thank you so much for your love and gifts. We truly did create community through creativity.

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Click Here for  ➤ Wonder Wagon Info & Schedule

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Rick Beerhorst Short Clip on Vimeo by Dylan Gunnett, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

We have spent a lot of time this summer at our local farmer’s market on Fulton street here in Grand Rapids. We live just down the street which has made it easy to develop a connection there. We have been selling our art on Sundays for the Fulton Street Artist Market which has put us deeper in touch with the community of artists and craftspeople who make that place hum the day the farmers stay home. In a way our time spent at the market this summer has been a rehearsal for our Wonder Wagon Art
Prize project which will also involve us being out side and interacting with all kinds of people as we hang out with our wagon and lead art work shops and host musical performers. We have loved the processes of meeting new people and entering into dialogue about art making and living more simply and organically. “I want to simplify my life” seems to be the mantra for these days were are living in.

The clip here was shot on a Saturday morning when my friend DJ Vernies and I were busking at the market. That same day Dylan Gunnett, a former Grand Rapids resident who has now relocated to Chicago, was in town to create a music video for us. This footage was a detour from his original plan but he really liked it and posted this clip the next day on Vimeo and I decided to share it here. The Rick Beerhorst Band will be playing both Saturday nights at our Wonder Wagon encampment along the river 9/26 and 10/3. The second show includes Karisa Wilson and Seth. Music begins at 7:00.

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Here is a little film clip of the Wonder Wagon on its way to market. It is not yet finished but we have begun to use it anyway in order to understand how it works.

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Jesus eats with friends, originally uploaded by {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie.

What is it about sharing the table for a meal with friends that makes the friendships burn brighter? I have been working on a book cover illustration the last couple weeks that deals with that phenomena. I love it, I love the around the table intimacy that happens when we mix conversation with shared dishes, shared thoughts, and shared physical space.

Every Sunday night up to the first week of Art Prize we have a potluck dinner at our house (106 Fuller SE) beginning at 5:30. We eat and share the vision of the Beerhorst Wonder Wagon event which is all about creating community through creativity. We are really excited about Art Prize and what it is doing to rewrite the DNA of Grand Rapids. We are looking forward to the art, the music, and the friends that will come together at our encampment on the river between Kinkos and the River for those two weeks. If you are reading this and think you would like to join our Wonder Wagon team please consider this your invitation and bring a dish to pass!

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print making, originally uploaded by bbmarie {studiobeerhorst}.

I have been making wood block prints all summer and selling them at the Fulton Street Artist Market on sundays along with Pearl with her wonderful pot holders and Rose with all her sock monsters, stuffies and button bracelets. It has been a great experience meeting people and sharing our work and life with them. This is a true community experience because you are side by side with other artists when the clouds suddenly release a torrent of rain and everyone scrambles to get their products to safety, or the wind starts blowing and tarps snap in the wind and paper products go sailing or stained glass goes crashing on to the pavement. I had the thought yesterday when we were setting up our tarps over our temporary shops that this is a rehearsal for when our houses are all gone and we are all living in make shift tent cities surrounded by the rubble of what use to be our city. Then what ever lessons we learned over the course of all those outside artist markets will suddenly have great value. I continue to think that these out door markets are the fore front of a culture looking for a better way to buy sell and trade as the large corporate system we inherited falls to pieces around us.

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wonderwagon, originally uploaded by bbmarie {studiobeerhorst}.

This is a woodcut print logo for our Art Prize project we are in the midst of developing this summer. Our wagon is being constructed in our driveway. We are meeting every Sunday night at 5:30 for a potluck dinner. After dinner we talk about what needs to be done and develop ideas together. It has been a lot of fun learning to work together as a team and becoming better friends in the process. Every one is very talented and comes with a unique point of view which makes the project that much richer.

One of the things I am working on now is lining up musicians for the two weeks that our encampment will be in place between the Grand River and Kinkos/FedEx. These performances will be in the evenings between 6 and 8. Nobody’s Darling, Dave Molinari, The Brothers of Folk, Daniel Holland and Karisa Wilson are among some of the performers already committed.

We are really excited about the momentum we feel building and look forward to were this journey will take us.

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