Grand Rapids Ah-Nab-Awen Park
— a resting place, named in the old language.
Not only on a wall.
Grand Rapids Ah-Nab-Awen Park, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Six grass mounds rise from the riverbank between the Gerald R. Ford Museum and the Grand. The name is Anishinaabe — Ah-Nab-Awen, a place of rest. ArtPrize gathers here in the fall; the Polish Heritage statue marks the south edge; the river slides past low and brown. A civic lawn that still remembers the language of the people who named it. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Ah-Nab-Awen Park is a riverside civic park on the west bank of the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids, immediately south of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. The name is Anishinaabe and is generally translated as resting place — a reference to the Odawa and Ojibwe gatherings held on the river before Grand Rapids was founded. The park opened in 1981 as part of the museum's riverfront design.
The park's calendar tracks the civic year. ArtPrize, the open-entry art competition founded in 2009, anchors here each September and October with large-scale installations across the lawn. Polish Heritage Days, Festival of the Arts, and the Grand Rapids Public Museum's summer events all stage on or beside the grounds. President Gerald and Betty Ford are interred just across the path at the Ford Museum, a quieter draw the rest of the year.
The park sits between Pearl Street NW and Bridge Street NW along Front Avenue, a short walk from the Grand Rapids Public Museum and the Ford Museum. Entry is free and the lawn is open year-round. The Grand River Greenway runs the riverbank past the park; the Blue Bridge to the east side of the river is two blocks south. City lots and street parking along Pearl and Front are the easiest approach.
