WRITTEN BY JORDAN KOSSUTH
Play the game! Discover prizes and award to your favorite artists during ArtPrize 2021. If you’re near an ArtPrize venue, click the button above. If you find a prize, you can award it to Cara Balmer’s I Could, Forever (70224).
Photo by Steven Cummings.
Cara Balmer has been involved in the fine arts for a long time, earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) with a focus in Graphic Design from Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids. She is currently employed as a senior graphic designer at Founders Brewing Company. She always wanted to participate in ArtPrize – an art competition that brings creatives from around the world to display their works throughout Grand Rapids and encourages public voting to award cash prizes to the artists. These works of art come in a variety of mediums and aim to spark conversations about what art is and – most importantly – why it matters.
This is the first year in which Cara felt called to create something for the event, hoping to explore the cultural impact on those grieving the loss of a loved one, and to educate viewers on a significant topic that has affected her personally.
A DIFFICULT DIAGNOSIS
In September of 2019, Cara’s mother, Beth Rubley, passed away after a two-year battle with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
Pancreatic cancer is seldomly detected in its early stages when it is most treatable, as often times it does not cause symptoms until after it has spread to other organs. There are no preventative screening tests for this disease, so it is very typical for detection to occur in Stages 3 or 4, when it has already grown larger and spread to the surrounding tissues, limiting surgical treatment options.
Beth’s diagnosis occurred in Stage 2, when she started exhibiting a skin rash after eating, and visited her physician to explore a possible food allergy. After some tests, her doctor believed it to be a gallstone, but upon going in to retrieve it, they discovered a tumor on the head of her pancreas. Shortly after diagnosis, Beth underwent a “Whipple” procedure, an invasive surgery to remove the head of the pancreas and portions of neighboring organs.
Cara notes that most people have no awareness of just how deadly pancreatic cancer can be. In 2019, reports show that the survival rate after 5 years for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is only 9 percent, making this one of the most fatal forms of cancer.
I COULD, FOREVER
Cara tends to have a difficult time naming her work, as she doesn’t consider herself a writer. And finding the words to encompass the emotions on display in this piece is not an easy task.
During a conversation with her mom in her final days at home, they kept saying goodnight, hugging, and then talking more, and continuing the cycle – neither necessarily wanting the conversation to end. “It was like a Midwestern goodbye,” Cara remembers fondly, both knowing she had to leave, but continuing to chat.
Beth said “Oh, you know me. I could just do this forever,” a sentiment that has continued to resonate with Cara. Both knowing that she did not have infinite time, but also recognizing that the love that they shared would continue to last forever. “In a sense, grief lasts as long as love lasts,” Cara explains, “As long as you love that person, you are always going to miss them.”
For anyone experiencing the loss of a loved one, Cara recommends the book It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief & Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand by Megan Devine, saying it opened her eyes. She highlights the importance of embracing your support system and letting them know what kind of support you need and how to provide it during difficult times.
PROJECT PURPLE: A WORLD WITHOUT PANCREATIC CANCER
Cara found some much needed support through outreach to Project Purple. Project Purple is a Connecticut-based non-profit organization that hosts fundraising events to benefit Pancreatic Cancer Research and financially assist those who are fighting the diagnosis. Cara’s sister referred her to Project Purple following her own involvement, and has hosted several fundraising events at her Grand Haven based CrossFit gym.
Cara’s ArtPrize installation, I Could, Forever, has also been an important part of her grieving process, as it has provided her with a lot of time to herself to reflect and be present in her own thoughts.
LINOCUT PRINTMAKING
“Linocut printmaking has become not only my creative outlet, but also a form of meditation and a coping mechanism to help me during the struggles I’ve faced.”
Linocut is an old printmaking technique in which a design is carved into a sheet of linoleum using a variety of sharp tools. The linoleum is then inked with a roller, and impressed upon a surface, pulling back to reveal your print.
The inking process can be done by hand or with a printing press, with layering colors or utilizing a variety of prints that lay over the top of each other. For this piece, Cara created five different single-color prints and hand printed each individual flower.
She was interested in adding some playful color variation while still staying true to her chosen purple color scheme, so each flower differs quite a bit in color, as well as in texture. Her use of purple is purposeful, as it is the chosen color for pancreatic cancer awareness.
SYMBOLISM IN BLOOM
The piece itself is divided into 12 panels – one for each month of the year – covered in various Linocut printed flowers and leaves. Each flower or leaf symbolizes an individual who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019. The 56,770 purple prints are those who passed away, while there are 11,020 orange prints for those who survived past their first year of diagnosis.
Cara wanted to ensure that there was a deeper meaning behind each flower choice within her piece. There are five different prints, and her first selection was the lilac petaled Michaelmas Daisy, which symbolizes a farewell or departure.
The Blue Campanula embodies affection, constancy, and everlasting love – and is often planted on graves. Dark Crimson Roses convey sadness, mourning, and death, but have also been known to represent rebirth and love.
The Ginkgo Biloba leaf symbolizes longevity and profound endurance. These trees survived the blast at Hiroshima and are still healthy and growing there today. One of Cara’s earliest explorations into printmaking was tea towels printed with ginkgo leaves as a gift for her mother.
A single live White Daisy – a symbol of innocence, new beginnings, and true love – is displayed on the ninth panel. This live flower is an embodiment of Cara’s mother, who carried white daisies in her wedding bouquet. The daisy featured in the display was one of many gifted to Cara by her husband and grown in her own garden. It has been preserved so it will maintain its shape over the course of ArtPrize while also drying over time.
A PARADISE IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN
Some of Cara’s other works outside of I Could, Forever have been floral based, as she has always been drawn to focusing on nature. In fact, her passion for nature can be attributed to her mother, with whom she shared fond memories of hiking trails to Little Traverse Lake, or through Sleeping Bear Dunes to the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.
“She had an appreciation of the outdoors, and she passed that on to me.”
One of Cara’s other recent projects was Paradise, an image of the home her parents shared in Cedar, a village in the heart of Northern Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula, named as such because her mom would refer to this home as paradise. Cara’s parents would have celebrated their 40-year wedding anniversary there this past year in June.
ARTPRIZE 2021 AT BRIDGE STREET MARKET
Cara began working on her ArtPrize submission back at the beginning of 2020, however the competition was cancelled that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She has continued working on this piece and looks forward to exhibiting it this year. She estimates over 800 hours have gone into this installation so far.
The process to enter ArtPrize is fairly simple. Any artist can create an account, build a profile, and share images of their work and process to give their audience an idea of what their piece will be. The artist then applies to pair with a venue, or has venues reach out and set up time to meet and see if the space will be a good fit.
Bridge Street Market is excited to be the venue hosting Cara Balmer’s I Could, Forever, which will be displayed hanging on dowels from the ceiling within their coffee lounge. Bridge Street Market has curated a matching bouquet which they will sell, with $1 of each bouquet sold donated to Project Purple.
ArtPrize runs from September 16 to October 3, 2021, so be sure to head to Bridge Street Market to see Cara’s installation. You may even get the opportunity to meet the artist herself, as Cara is a current WestSider living just blocks from the Market!