More than 1,500 works of art at 160+ venues across three square miles. Yep, we’re talking ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, and one of those works was created by Russell Cooper ’89, Help Desk administrator at Kalamazoo College.

ArtPrize is a radically open international art competition decided by public vote and expert jury that takes place each fall in Grand Rapids. The 2015 competition began September 23 and continues through October 11.

Russell’s entry is titled “Flat Iron at the Ledyard” and features a singular location made to look like a collage of viewpoints (just the opposite of 2014’s ArtPrize piece “For Your Amusement”, a collage of multiple locations made to look like one imaginary and fantastical place). It is an old-school method of cutting and pasting real prints, with little or no Photoshop involved. The subject location is at Ottawa and Monroe Center in the heart of Grand Rapids, site of the Flat Iron Building on the Ledyard Block. Originally constructed in 1860, it’s one of three of the oldest historical buildings in downtown GR, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “Flat Iron at the Ledyard” is photographed over several months, with many times of day, many kinds of weather, and many types of pedestrian and automobile traffic patterns. If a picture is worth a “thousand” words, how about one made up of a “thousand” pictures? You can see Russell’s piece at Palatte Coffee & Art (150 Fulton Street East), and you can vote for it online.