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Midlander Annie Stout designed and built the "Key House" as part of the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region. The public sculpture is located on the grounds of Creative 360 in Midland.
Midlander Annie Stout designed and built the "Key House" as part of the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region. The public sculpture is located on the grounds of Creative 360 in Midland.
Midlander Annie Stout designed and built the "Key House" as part of the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region. The public sculpture is located on the grounds of Creative 360 in Midland.
Midlander Annie Stout designed and built the "Key House" as part of the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region. The public sculpture is located on the grounds of Creative 360 in Midland.
Midlander Annie Stout designed and built the "Key House" as part of the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region. The public sculpture is located on the grounds of Creative 360 in Midland.
A new building was erected on Creative 360’s property this week – a house without doors or locks, but covered in keys.
The “Key House,” a permanent sculpture created by Midland artist Annie Stout, is the culmination of the “NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region” initiative. The 10-month project centers around the book “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. The book's theme of community is the basis for Stout’s sculpture as well as two other public art projects in Bay City and Saginaw.
Funding for the NEA Big Read: Great Lakes Bay Region came from the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program, Arts Midwest, the Hemlock Semiconductor Community and Regional Empowerment Fund, Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum and Midland Area Community Foundation.
Stout’s installation is unique, as the public is invited to participate in its creation. Creative 360 placed collection buckets for keys throughout Midland. Enough keys were gathered to fill up the roof of the house, leaving room at the bottom where people could easily reach to hang additional keys.
On Wednesday, a small group of people, including friends of Creative 360 as well as Stout’s family and friends, gathered to hang keys on the sculpture.
“This particular public artwork is especially cool because it’s participatory,” said Megan McAdow, director of the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum. “With many artworks, you stand back and admire and enjoy. With this, you actually get to be part of its making.”
The Key House is a house frame made of steel beams and steel tension wire coated in vinyl. The sculpture stands 8 feet by 8 feet by 10 feet and is in front of Creative 360, facing Bayliss Street.
Creative 360 Public Relations Coordinator Laura Brigham explained that Creative 360 eagerly volunteered to be a part of the NEA Big Read project and be the site of a new public arts project. For her, the Key House means a lot as it helps bring the community together.
“We always bring community art projects to big events,” Brigham said. “We love it when the community can come together and work on a project.”
Having her project chosen to be built is a dream come true for Stout. She has participated in community art projects in the past, including painting a piano for Public Art Midland’s “Art Plays” summer project in 2020. The Key House, however, is her first permanent public arts installment.
Stout explained that she sketched ideas for houses for a year before entering her concept for consideration.
“I’m an introvert and a homebody,” Stout said. “I’ve always kind of kept to myself, but after the pandemic, it was apparent how important community and connection is with people. It made me appreciate what an amazing community Midland is. It was the perfect opportunity to take these sketches and turn it into something bigger.”
The house symbolizes the Midland community, Stout explained. The keys – from house keys to skeleton keys – represent individuals and their uniqueness. The keys also signify “open minds, open hearts and open doors,” according to Stout’s proposal.
“I had a lot of people try to give me a special key, and I said, ‘Keep it and you bring it and hang it yourself,’” Stout said. “If it was special, I wanted them to hang it themselves and be able to come back and find it easily.”
The Key House will continue to evolve as a work of public art. Creative 360 will plant clematis, a flowering vine, by the structure’s sides; eventually, the sculpture will be covered in greenery. Creative 360 will continue to collect keys at its office at 1517 Bayliss St. People are welcome to continue hanging keys, as the Key House is designed to accommodate around 800 key rings.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Key House is planned for a later date.
Victoria Ritter grew up in Midland and after earning a degree in English at Grand Valley State University, returned. She joined the Daily News as its newsroom clerk, and eventually began editing obituaries, and in 2016 wrote her first article. She loves the arts, from reading and creative writing to catching a movie or singing in her church choir.