An East Lansing artist is this year’s winner of the public vote at Grand Rapids ArtPrize.
Kristen Pennock’s winning entry, “Sketchdiet: A Year of Drawing Everything I Ate," was inspired by a doctor’s recommendation that she track her food intake.
“My allergist was having me track everything that I ate for a period of some weeks,” she explained. "Afterwards, I was looking back at the lists of food that I’d written down and thought, man, wouldn’t that have been way more fun if I had drawn it?”
As a professional architect, Pennock loves to draw. She favors ink and watercolors.
For “Sketchdiet”, she made five sketch books made up of paper folded accordion-style rather than individual pages and started drawing on the first day of 2024.
To keep up, she carried those sketch books and other art supplies everywhere she went that year. The images run together, and ultimately produced a work that’s 216 feet long.
This was not only Pennock’s first ArtPrize entry, but also her first-ever public art exhibition.
Her colorful, whimsical drawings include not only the food she ate, but also the people in her life and the places she went. They range from the mundane, like a half-price ice cream binge, to drinking the cholera vaccine before an overseas trip.
Support from ArtPrize visitors at the DeVos Place in Grand Rapids earned her the top public vote for this year.
Pennock says working on the project ended up succeeding in making her a healthier eater.
“When I am drawing my food, I plate my food more carefully,” she said. “I think about what I’m eating. I’ll have more colorful things. I’ll even treat myself more, going out to that new coffee shop just so I could get the cup in my sketch.”
Pennock plans to put the prize money to work supplementing her future endeavors. She thinks the notoriety of being an ArtPrize winner has the potential to boost her work as both an artist and as an architect.
“I’m known in architecture, but given that I had no presence, or no visibility I should say, you know, in the arts, I think that this will help open doors for me artistically, and hopefully, other opportunities.”
Pennock finished “Sketchdiet” more than a year ago. Since then, her work has transitioned more into urban sketching.
“The food project itself was a sort of a reportage, a documentation of daily life, and I’m very interested in documenting daily life and finding sort of the extraordinary, you know, within daily life," she said.
ArtPrize has the right to display “Sketchdiet” for a year. Beyond that, there aren’t yet any plans to display it publicly, but the piece will be digitized and placed on a laser-engraved plaque aboard a satellite that will go into low Earth orbit. That launch is expected sometime next year.
UPCOMING ARTS EVENTS
Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing opens a two- week run of the musical “Come From Away” Thursday, October 15. Shows are Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Friday, October 16, the Lansing Symphony Orchestra presents a concert featuring Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto at 7:30 p.m. at the Michigan State University Wharton Center. WKAR music host Jody Knol will lead a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m. in the Jackson Lounge.
The Jackson Symphony Orchestra presents “Gershwin’s Greatest” this weekend. The music starts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, October 17 at the Potter Center.
TRANSCRIPT
Scott Pohl: With Inside The Arts, I'm Scott Pohl.
An East Lansing artist is this year’s winner of the public vote at Grand Rapids ArtPrize.
Kristen Pennock’s winning entry, “Sketchdiet: A Year of Drawing Everything I Ate," was inspired by a doctor’s recommendation that she track her food intake.
For Inside The Arts this week, I talked with Pennock about ArtPrize.
A doctor’s suggestion launched Kristin Pennock’s "Sketchdiet" project.
Kristen Pennock: My allergist was having me track everything that I ate for a period of some weeks, and afterwards, I was looking back at the lists of food that I’d written down and thought, man, wouldn’t that have been way more fun if I had drawn it?
Pohl: As a professional architect, Pennock loves to draw. She favors ink and watercolors.
For “Sketchdiet”, she made five sketch books made up of paper folded accordion-style rather than individual pages and started drawing on the first day of 2024.
To keep up, she carried those sketch books and other art supplies everywhere she went that year. The images run together, and ultimately produced a work that’s 216 feet long.
This was not only Pennock’s first ArtPrize entry, but also her first-ever public art exhibition.
Pohl: [In interview with Pennock] You went to enter ArtPrize intending to win $100,000, right?
Pennock: [laughs] No, that was, that was not the intent! The intent was to get myself out there, to get my drawings out there, and to interact with the public and to have fun with it.
Pohl: Her colorful, whimsical drawings include not only the food she ate but also the people in her life and the places she went. They range from the mundane, like a half-price ice cream binge, to drinking the cholera vaccine before an overseas trip.
Support from ArtPrize visitors at the DeVos Place in Grand Rapids earned her the top public vote for this year.
Pennock says working on the project ended up succeeding in making her a healthier eater.
Pennock: When I am drawing my food, I plate my food more carefully. I think about what I’m eating. I’ll have more colorful things. I’ll even treat myself more, going out to that new coffee shop just so I could get the cup in my sketch.
Pohl: Pennock plans to put the prize money to work supplementing her future endeavors. She thinks the notoriety of being an ArtPrize winner has the potential to boost her work as both an artist and as an architect.
Pennock: I mean, I’m known in architecture, but given that I had no presence, or no visibility I should say, you know, in the arts, I think that this will help open doors for me artistically, and hopefully, other opportunities.
Pohl: Pennock finished “Sketchdiet” more than a year ago. Since then, her work has transitioned more into urban sketching.
Pennock: The food project itself was a sort of a reportage, a documentation of daily life, and I’m very interested in documenting daily life and finding the, sort of the extraordinary, you know, within daily life.
Pohl: ArtPrize has the right to display “Sketchdiet” for a year. Beyond that, there aren’t yet any plans to display it publicly, but the piece will be digitized and placed on a laser-engraved plaque aboard a satellite that will go into low Earth orbit. That launch is expected sometime next year.
With Inside The Arts, I’m Scott Pohl.
