SKYMINT To Become First-Ever Cannabis Sponsor Of ArtPrize, The Most Attended Public Art Event In The World

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SKYMINT, Michigan's leading purveyor of premium cannabis brands and lifestyle products, is now the first cannabis company to sponsor ArtPrize, Michigan's internationally renowned art competition and festival that takes place over the course of 18 days (Sept 16 - Oct 3) at more than 100 indoor and outdoor venues located within the ArtPrize District of Grand Rapids.

"Since our inception, SKYMINT has been dedicated to celebrating the intersection of cannabis, art, culture, and community," explains SKYMINT Senior Director of Marketing, Aimee Michalak.  "ArtPrize and Sheefy McFly are treasures of Michigan's cultural legacy, and we are honored to have this incredible opportunity to join forces with both to kick-off and close the U.S.' biggest biennial event." 

As an official 2021 ArtPrize Premier Sponsor, SKYMINT will host the festival's Oct. 1 closing event at The Atrium, honoring ArtPrize's 2021 participating artists. In addition, SKYMINT is collaborating with the multifaceted Detroit-based visual artist, muralist, musician, and designer, Sheefy McFly, to kick-off ArtPrize 2021 with a two-day (Sept. 16 and 17; 6pm-10pm) immersive installation event titled "The SKYMINT X Sheefy Experience" at ArtPrize's transformed "Welcome Center" tent and social zone at Canal Park. 

Located on the city's riverfront and directly across from its host, City Built Brewing Co, the "SKYMINT X Sheefy McFly Experience" will simultaneously serve as Sheefy McFly's unique submission to the ArtPrize 2021 competition, as one of a small minority of BIPOC artist competition entries.  Featuring McFly's signature figures and faces, seen throughout the city of Detroit on over 20 murals, the transformed Welcome tent and social zone will showcase multidimensional pop-up art experiences and live installations for ArtPrize attendees to enjoy.

"This is a historical moment not only for me as an artist, but also for cannabis," says the ArtPrize alum, Sheefy McFly. "Cannabis use and its inspiration on radical art movements is well recorded. But it's only now, as legalization continues to sweep across the U.S., that we can finally begin to appreciate their long-standing, deep relationship, out in the open.  That is what this SKYMINT x Sheefy McFly collaboration and tent is all about - sparking dialogue, creativity, and new perspectives."

Just named "Artist of the Year" by the Sean Anderson Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Detroit-native and American rapper, Big Sean, McFly - whose work has been featured in Wallpaper Magazine, Architectural Digest, The Architect's Newspaper, ArchDaily, Architect Magazine and others - is known for his vibrant and abstract expressionism infused with influences from pop-art, street-art, Detroit history and culture, and his African-American heritage.

During the 18-day festival and competition, the "SKYMINT x Sheefy McFly Experience" tent will continue to host a variety of interactive events for ArtPrize festival goers, including an intimate Paint & Sip class in collaboration with City Built Brewing Co. on Sept. 25 and an Oct. 1. OktoberFest event, also in partnership with City Built Brewing Co.  ArtPrize attendees can stay abreast of newly added events taking place under the "SKYMINT x Sheefy McFly Experience" tent by visiting https://www.skymint.com/artprize-2021/skymint-x-sheefy . 

Since celebrating its 10th anniversary, ArtPrize visitors have cast 3.4 million votes, and the "part art, part social experiment" event has awarded $4.6 million to artists from around the country and world. ArtPrize was named the "most attended public art event" in 2014 and 2015 by the London-based publication, The Art Newspaper, and the expressive and interactive public art event has reported seeing up to 26,000 attendees per day since its inception. The 2021 ArtPrize festival and competition will commence on Sept. 16, and is expected to be attended by more than 500,000 visitors this year, with more than 1,600 artists planning to participate through the event's final day on Oct 3.

"The world is in need of a lot of healing right now," says McFly.  "Art is healing and brings people together.  The same can be said of cannabis.  I'm proud to be a part of this festival and really excited knowing that the 'SKYMINT x Sheefy McFly Experience' tent will remain up for an entire year in Grand Rapids." 

To vote for Sheefy McFly, visitors of ArtPrize 2021 are encouraged to scan QR codes discoverable throughout the "SKYMINT x Sheefy McFly Experience" tent.

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ABOUT SKYMINT
Beginning operations in Fall 2018 and headquartered in Ann Arbor, SKYMINT is Michigan's leading vertically integrated cannabis company and the state's largest medical and recreational license holder. With two state-of-the-art indoor grow facilities as well as SKYMINT Farmstm, a 1000-acre sungrown, sustainable farm, the company cultivates, processes, markets, distributes and sells a full range of branded cannabis products, including SKYMINTtm, North Cannabistm, Jolly Ediblestm, the Two Jointstm brand, which benefits the Last Prisoner Project, and SKYMINT X DNA GENETICS.tm  Just as SKYMINT treats its plants like people - tending to and caring for them by hand, and even playing them music - each and every product is handcrafted to ensure the safest, cleanest, highest quality products at the best value. SKYMINTtm products can be found at the company's 15 SKYMINTtm retail centers. As purveyors of premium-crafted cannabis, SKYMINTtm has developed a portfolio of the finest cannabis brands available for daily wellness, healing, or just getting high on life. Happy Plants.  Happy People. Visit www.skymintbrands.com

ABOUT SHEEFY MCFLY 
Emerging from a long line of street-smart graffiti artists, who successfully crossed over to the international art gallery circuit, Tashif "Sheefy McFly" Turner has swiftly risen to become one of the most promising American artists of his generation. The critically embraced and popularly celebrated painter and muralist is an alum of Detroit's College of Creative Studies, where McFly very skillfully and purposefully brought together, in his art, a host of disparate traditions, practices, and styles to create a unique kind of visual collage - one deriving in part, from his Michigan based origins, and in another by his African -American heritage. Showing heavy influence from Keith Haring, Pablo Picasso, and Roy Lichtenstein, McFly's style is a colorful mass of disembodied faces, eyes, noses, and mouths that fit together like puzzle pieces.  In 2017, Metro Times readers voted him the year's best artist and his work has been showcased in stunning solo exhibitions as well as in group projects at Red Bull House of Art and Playground Detroit. In recent years, McFly has made a name for himself with his colorful murals around Motor City. As part of 2018's Murals in the Market festival, he painted Haring-esque figures jit dancing and twerking next to a man wearing Buffs with a cartoon word balloon saying "Detroit never left." In 2019, around a viaduct on Seven Mile and John R Road, he painted more Haring-esque dancing figures, along with the bold words "TECHNO IS BLACK MUSIC" and an anthropomorphic coney dog saying Detroit's greeting, "What up doe."  This summer, McFly was commissioned to paint his largest public mural yet - The Monroe Street Midway outdoor rink. He was also recently commissioned to paint a piece, "Blue" for the Michigan Opera Theatre.

PRESS CONTACTS:
Ally Galanty, 313.575.0361, [email protected]
Holly Aubry, 646.943.0541, [email protected]

SOURCE SKYMINT