Arts exhibitions and performances have returned in full swing to West Michigan. This season, there’s absolutely no shortage of concerts, symphonies, plays, musicals, ballet, visual arts and beyond. 

Ladislav Hanka was born in America, the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants. If his parents seem to have emerged from another time, it’s because they did; while automobiles were not unknown in Czechoslovakia, only the rich owned them. Most people rode horse-drawn buggies.

Like just about everything in life, the arts community here in West Michigan has seen some huge shifts over the past five years.

Jake Orr’s specialty is capturing the energy and presence of music and artists both on and off the stage.

Orthodoxy tells us that hair metal was an aberration: a dragon, crude and swollen, who reigned over our radio waves until the knights of grunge slayed him. 

Scott Carey and Carol Wagen are the husband and wife co-owners of Metal Art Studio, a well-known entity at the corner of Cherry and Diamond in East Hills (Center of the Universe).

On October 24, 1971, The New York Times published a review of Jesus Christ Superstar by Walter Kerr. Kerr had enjoyed the concept album, released a year before, but found the stage production bizarre and unappealing. 

When you see Nick Hartman’s work under the alias Chapel of Ghouls, the message is clear: Life is hard. Live it to the fullest. While always fascinated by art, especially music and film, he didn’t necessarily see himself as an artist. But a series of tragic deaths and visits to the hospital throughout his youth later bubbled up in the form of panic attacks, and also as an interest in the dark side of life—goth culture, horror movies, metal music and beyond.

Grace Close has been drawing ever since the moment her mom put a crayon in her hand and a paper in front of her, at around the age of 3.

It’s been said that nearly 88% of private book clubs are all-female, a fact that likely wouldn’t surprise Dot, Meg, Carol, and Ellie, the four women who gather in a Minnesotan cabin in Karen Schaeffer’s play Girls’ Weekend (onstage at Circle Theatre through August 23rd). They’re there to discuss their latest read—well, that’s the plan, anyway. But this is a farce, and farces mean complications.