GR Stories
The 14th Amendment:
Learning, Living, and Loving in Grand Rapids
February 1 – 28, 2026
GR Stories - Grand Rapids Public MuseumGR Stories, created by the Grand Rapids Public Museum, explores the neighborhoods of West Michigan, filling the gap of knowledge about our history in ways that are not available publicly to students or residents of the region.
GR Stories explores how “history happens here” by sharing the relationship that Grand Rapids has to the broad history of America.
The constitution, immigration patterns, and social movements of the U.S. all frame the life of West Michigan, yet, it does so differently in different places. GR Stories share how history played out in our community through critical Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), the Fair Housing Act (1968), and Loving v. Virginia (1967).
Matt Lewis
March 1 – 30, 2026
M.E.M.I #39 by Matt Lewis – Twisted ... “My work evolves out of a necessity for the work to come into being. The work is a necessary activity for me in terms of a meditation, reflection and possibility of self-actualization…. the work has become more focused in recent years on thoughts and meditations of spiritual exploration and psychological activity, both conscious and unconscious. My recent pieces are spiritual and psychological landscapes… these paintings and watercolors explore an imaginary psychological landscape that is easily accessed by our own understanding of both figure, ground relationships, and the familiarity of the landscape format. These works have no specific narrative & instead utilize a matrix of what I consider to be personal mark making activity. This activity results in the creation of unconscious personal symbols that represent, for me, the idea of the unknowable, or the unknowable by intellect… in effect, the idea of symbolizing what is instead a part of you and therefore transcends knowing and unknowing. It is therefore a representation of the mystery and a record of the meditation.”
An art teacher of many years, Matt Lewis currently teaches Painting, Ceramics & Drawing at Swan Valley High School in the Saginaw area. His work is in numerous private & public collections, including The College for Creative Studies, GM, The Nemer Group & the Kresge Foundation.
Michael Pfleghaar
April 1 – May 15, 2026
Michael Pfleghaar is an artist residing and working in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He earned his MFA in visual arts from Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2011.
Pfleghaar's original artworks are included in permanent collections, such as the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Steelcase Inc., Herman Miller, the State of Michigan, and Grand Valley State University. “My artistic focus centers on relationships, both in form and concept. From a conceptual standpoint, I find inspiration in my environment, using it to reflect one's inner self.”