CREDIT: KEVIN LAMURE
Kevin Lamure's piece All ways = the same Destination will be on display at the B.O.B. in Grand Rapids, Michigan until October 6 as part of an international competition called ArtPrize.

Fanshawe alumnus and current manager of the First Nations Centre Kevin Lamure recently took a short trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since then, he's got the locals talking.

Lamure, a Fine Art graduate, submitted a piece he'd finished in 2005 to ArtPrize, an international art competition held in Grand Rapids.

Artists don't get to choose their venues, so when Lamure got a call from the Big Old Building (B.O.B.), a bar/restaurant, he was hesitant to accept. Eventually he said yes to the B.O.B., but conducted research on the building.

“In April and May 2013, two separate events, two 21-year-old guys died in the stairs,” he said. “They fell down the stairs drunk.”

According to Lamure, it was the third incident that's happened since 2009. He quickly suspected the bar was using him for publicity. You see, his piece is an Xshaped casket.

Last Tuesday, Lamure received a phone call from a reporter in Grand Rapids saying the locals were upset about his work. “The reporter warned me, the people are going to make opinion comments,” he said.

Because of the numerous comments about his piece, Lamure thought it would be best to explain and express himself in a blog post. “It's not any disrespect to the families, I can't choose where my art goes,” he said. “If I would have known, I likely would have been reluctant to show my piece there.”

But that's the thing about art. “Good art is provocative — it makes people think,” he said.

He did explain what his piece is about, however.

“It looks like an X but what it is, is a circle. No matter who we are, what colour we are, what nation we come from, we're all the same. We all start in the centre of somewhere. We all travel the cardinal directions North, South, East and West, and essentially and inevitably at some point we all meet back in the middle.”

The casket he made himself, but the handles, well... “The handles are actually [from real caskets],” Lamure said.

While you can purchase handles for $150 a pair, Lamure started thinking outside the box — pun intended.

“I found out there's four crematoriums in London, and I phoned around, saying, ‘I'm an artist [who's] wondering what [you do] with the handles,'” he said.

Eventually, the fourth call he made was a success. “The fourth guy was like, ‘How many do you need?'”

Lamure was given permission to take as many he needed.

“I don't know where the handles came from, and [from] who. It's all just random, and that's life — randomness,” he said.

Lamure is still in good spirits about the art competition, despite the negativity surrounding his piece. “It's a good opportunity, and I'm just happy to have my art in the U.S. for an international showing.”

But he hopes to be able to create more pieces in the future. “I'm just glad to get some exposure, because when you don't get to create your art and that's what you're meant to do, it's not a good feeling. You're stagnant.”

All ways = the same Destination will be on display until October 6 at the B.O.B. in Grand Rapids. To find out more on Lamure and his piece, visit tinyurl.com/klamure13, and visit artprize.org for more information on ArtPrize.