Take a Walk Through Lansing’s ScrapFest 12

Near perfect mid-July weather greeted festivalgoers in Lansing's Old Town district at the 12th annual ScrapFest this weekend.

According to its website, ScrapFest "began as a scrap metal artwork competition, and has grown into a full art festival that focuses on up-cycled and repurposed artwork."

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Now in its 12th year in Lansing, the festival has grown into much more that that. Dozens of vendor booths lined Turner Street between Beaver Street and E. Cesar Chavez Avenue offering a variety of wares, mostly specialized crafts that made use of scrap metal. This year's event featured food and live entertainment as well.

Nearly two dozen artist teams were given an hour to retrieve up to 500 pounds of scrap metal from Friedland Industries back in early May, and then were given one month to turn that scrap into something beautiful. They did not disappoint.

This year's sculptures were divided into Large Piece and Small Piece categories, then judged by Caleb Brennan, the sculpture curator at Frederik Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, and Ann Gildner, a sculpture curator and metal sculpture artist in Cheboygan. They were all then offered up for auction during this weekend's display, with most of the proceeds going to the artists themselves, some going to the help offset the costs of holding the event, and 10% earmarked for a local charity. This year's charity recipient was The Davies Project, whose stated mission is "to connect families to resources and community by providing reliable transportation for seriously ill children and pregnant women to essential healthcare."

Stroll through the festival with us below, and learn which works of art were deemed to be the winners!