2025 Year End Blog

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2025 Year End Blog

( image above) at Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), 24 January 2025

2025 Year End Blog

A Year of Travel, Stewardship, and Connection

Dear Friends, Family, and Fellow Travelers,

As we look back on 2025, we’re filled with gratitude for the many moments of beauty, discovery, and community this year brought—both far from home and close to it. The year unfolded through richly textured travel as well as a renewed sense of caretaking at The Plant at Kyle, our family cottage in Maine, and our Austin condo. We were blessed to spend meaningful time with loved ones. We also pause to honor the deep personal losses we experienced, remembering two people who profoundly touched our lives.

IN MEMORIAM

Nancy Friis-Hansen (1922–2025)

Dana’s stepmother Nancy passed away peacefully at the age of 102 on February 2. Her life—spanning nursing, military service, corporate leadership, and deep civic engagement—was defined by strength, integrity, and love. She embraced Dana and his family with warmth after marrying Poul Friis-Hansen in 1977, and lived a remarkable life of purpose and grace.

Her funeral service was held on February 24 in Scarborough, Maine, and her memorial service took place on June 17 at the Central Maine Veterans’ Cemetery.

Larry Faragalli (1978–2025)

Our dear friend Larry became part of our chosen family after we first met at a 2013 MUX conference cocktail party in Grand Rapids. Over the years, he and Susan became cherished travel companions, joining us on Tiny World Tours adventures from California to Bhutan. Larry brought insight, warmth, and generosity to every conversation and every trail. His quiet gestures—like saving our holiday postcards in his home’s “Murphy’s Bar”—spoke volumes. In April 2026, during our next Bhutan tour, we’ll hold a memorial for Larry in the Himalayas with Dorji and, we hope, Eames. We’ll light butter lamps in his memory, and carry him with us as we walk familiar paths once more.

URBAN ENERGY & CULTURAL IMMERSION

Mexico – January 22 to February 8

Our first trip of the year was south of the border, with a few days of ‘reconnaissance,’ focused on new destinations, checking in at our favorite museums and markets, tasing new restaurants, and making new friends. Then it was time to welcome our Tiny World Tour guests for "Walking Mexico: Towns, Markets, and Gardens” experience, a co-creation between Tiny World Tours and our amazing friend and guide Joel Pelaez Cruz. Although Joel is based in Querétaro, he can take you all around Mexico—and if you’d like an introduction, let us know!

This year’s journey began in Mexico City, and featured vibrant neighborhoods, bustling markets, historic architecture and tranquil gardens, giving everyone a sense of CDMX as a living tapestry rather than a set of monuments. We also ventured north into the lush Huasteca region to explore Las Pozas, the surrealist garden in Xilitla created by Edward James. Its sculptural stairways, tropical waterfalls, and dreamlike concrete structures offered a magical counterpoint to the urban energy of the capital.

 

Cincinnati & Cleveland – February 12–14

We spent a wonderful weekend celebrating the double-header openings for our friend Shahzia Sikander’s Collective Behavior exhibition, shared between the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cincinnati Art Museum. Launched last year at the Venice Bienale, this dramatic survey celebrated a full range of her exploration of global identity. While in Ohio, Mark reconnected with childhood friend (and now excellent home chef!) Eli Becker.

OKINAWA EXPLORATIONS – March 9–12

Next, onto Japan! Our recon here was focused first on Okinawa—a region rich in cultural and ecological diversity. Mark traveled to Iriomote Island, where he paddled through mangrove swamps, snorkeled coral reefs, walked through the island’s subtropical jungle, and explored the deep cultural history of the Yaeyama Islands.

Meanwhile, Dana remained in Naha, Okinawa’s vibrant capital, meeting with contemporary artists and gallerists, continuing his ongoing engagement with art ecosystems across Japan.

While on the main island, we reconnected with our dear friend from our MIT Media Lab days, Kenji Taima. He welcomed us into his world on the islands and showed us the innovative aquaculture project he’s working on at the University of the Ryukyus, where new research is shaping the future of sustainable marine environments.

Together, we visited the profoundly moving Peace Memorial Park, honoring the lives lost during the Battle of Okinawa. We also spent time at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, home to one of the world’s great displays of ocean life, where the rhythms of whale sharks, manta rays, and coral ecosystems reminded us of the deep connections between nature and culture across the islands.

ART ENCOUNTERS: JAPAN IN SPRING

Our Tiny World Tour, Through Artists’ Eyes: Japanese Nature & Culture proved to be one of our most rewarding journeys yet. Together with a mix of international travelers with broadly different interests and experiences, we explored Japan through the lens of artists—past and present—visiting museums, studios, historic sites, sacred landscapes. From contemporary galleries to ancient temples, from coastal islands to mountain forests, the itinerary offered a richly textured encounter with the forms, philosophies, and environments that continue to shape Japanese creativity.

We’re deeply grateful for the enthusiasm and trust of our past Tiny World Tour guests, and excited to share that: both our 2026 Mexico tour and our 2026 Spring Japan tour are already sold out as well. It’s a joy and privilege to continue crafting these immersive, art-centered journeys with such engaged and curious companions.

We also celebrated the appointment of our long-time friend Yukie Kamiya as Chief Curator at the National Art Center, Tokyo—a major milestone for a visionary curator and cultural bridge-builder whose leadership promises to shape the future of contemporary art in Japan. We also met with other longtime friends and colleagues from our 1990 life in Tokyo and met many new artists and arts leaders.

Once again, during our Japan residencies, CIC Tokyo was our Asian “headquarters,” a shared workspace and community for startups, researchers, and global companies founded by our friend Tim Rowe. We enjoy our Tokyo routines, which include swimming in some wonderful civic pools, exploring neighborhoods that are new to us, and researching new restaurants.

EXPO 2025 – OPENING DAY IN OSAKA

We were lucky to get advance tickets to attended the opening day of Expo 2025 in Osaka, a global gathering of ideas, architecture, and innovation. We were joined by our good friend Michael Cohen, and met up with Seiji Kunishige, a research affiliate at the Media Lab, who gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the Iida Group Holdings / Osaka Metropolitan University Pavilion. We even briefly met Mr. Iida himself. While in Osaka, we were reunited with old MIT Media Lab friends Keishi and Tomoko Kandori, their son Hiroshi and his wife Mina, over dinner at the vibrant Grand Green Osaka—a new urban district that blends nature, sustainability, and a modern urban vision, which featured a major architecture retrospective of Tadao Ando, who designed the complex.

Expo highlights:

- Osaka Healthcare Pavilion – playful, glitchy, and health-focused, including a digital twin experience.

- KANSAI Pavilion – nine prefectures with local flavor and travel inspiration.

- USA Pavilion – immersive simulation and nostalgic moon rock experience.

- Drone Show – 2,500 drones lit the night sky in Guinness World Record fashion.

And for a blast from the past, we really enjoyed a visit to the Osaka Expo ’70 Commemorative Park and Tower of the Sun/Tree of Life by artist Taro Okamoto—the iconic centerpiece of the first world’s fair held in Asia.

On our way home to Tokyo we spent the night at our dear friends’ home Robert and Yukiko Lunday. Want to experience a unique rural home stay in southern Japan? Please click here and go!!

“MARY’S DREAM TRIP”…ART, THEATER & FAMILY NEW YORK CITY, MAY 10–12

A spring highlight was the joyful New York City weekend escape we planned for Mary Kevorkian (Mark’s late father Tom’s widow). Over three packed days, we soaked in the city’s culture and cuisine: an AIA-led architectural boat tour around Manhattan, Betty Boop on Broadway, a concert at Lincoln Center, visits to The Met and MoMA, a rousing gospel brunch at Red Rooster in Harlem, and a classic pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Deli on the Lower East Side.

We were joined by Mark’s sister Ellen, nephew Alex, and his girlfriend Elena, who now live in NYC — and we’re thrilled to share that Alex and Elena got engaged later this year and are planning a wedding in New Hampshire, September 2026!

 OUR MAINE SUMMER: Family, Friends, Porch Time

Portland & Little Diamond Island – June 15 to July 17

The start of summer brought us to Portland and Little Diamond Island, and the traditional shingle-style cottage with a wraparound porch that holds five generations of memories. The deck great place to reconnect with family and friends or read a book on the swing, and this year we created “pop-up porch offices” (temporary folding tables and HermanMiller office chairs), perfect for catching up with emails, and even studying Japanese and Italian through YouTube tutorials. We were happy to host Dana’s sister and husband Ted and their family, cousin Scott and wife Robin and daughter Hannah, celebrated July 4th with Mark’s sister Ellen, brother Jim, and nephews Alex and Andrew, and their partners, as well as a visit with another cousin Chris Doughty and his wife Frankie to compare family genealogy research notes and photos. We enjoyed being part of regular island community activities such as the Association Annual Meeting and cooking for a Saturday Night Supper, as well as stewardship of the property such as painting the porch and refurbishing some furniture. We also hosted a lively, well-attended “History of Cheese” for the community by Eric Rector at the Island “Casino.” The island community’s warmth and openness is always a highlight.

Honoring Nancy – A Family Memorial in Maine

On June 17, we held a memorial ceremony for Dana’s stepmother Nancy at the Central Maine Veterans’ Cemetery, where she was interred next to Dana’s father Poul, who was buried there in 2016. It was an emotional sendoff with a group of Maine veterans arriving in a motorcycle entourage, then holding large flags near Nancy’s grave, while a soldier played taps on a bugle. The ceremony felt intimate and moving.

Nancy served with distinction in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II, and Poul served in Denmark’s military in the 1940s—both veterans in their own right.

NORTHERN JAPAN IN AUTUMN – CULTURE, NATURE & LIVING HISTORY

Our Fall 2025 Tiny World Tour brought us deep into Northern Japan, where we explored landscapes shaped by millennia and met people continuing age-old traditions. A highlight was engaging with members of the Ainu, Japan’s Indigenous people, whose artistry, language, and cultural resilience made a profound impression.

We also spent time learning about the Jomon culture, Japan’s prehistoric civilization known for its elaborate pottery and deep spiritual connection to the natural world.

ANNIVERSARIES, ECOLOGY & HOLOGRAPHY: BOSTON & VERMONT

October marked the 40th Anniversary of the MIT Media Lab (where Mark was a grad student from 1985-88) and List Visual Arts Center (where Dana was Curator from 1985-1990)…we met in the building’s lobby.. Over the course of several beautiful fall days, we reconnected with dear friends and colleagues—an energizing reunion across generations of Media Lab creativity, and attended the opening of the latest exhibition at the ground-floor Arts Center.

Mark helped organize a special side visit to the Living Observatory at Tidmarsh Farms, founded by our friend and MIT professor Glorianna Davenport. This long-term ecological restoration initiative has been a deep inspiration for the evolving mission of The Plant at Kyle.

After the anniversary, Mark spent the weekend with his SPI Holography Research Group in Waitsfield, Vermont. He also made visits to Middlebury, where he reconnected with his high school classmate Professor Emeritus Tim Spears and his wife Nancy, and to Plainfield, visiting longtime friend Norman Kennedy, a 92-year-old Scottish weaver and folksinger.

TRANSITIONS, PROJECTS & QUIET JOYS

Tokyo in Autumn – Aug 29 to Oct 17 (Mark), Sept 10 to Oct 16 (Dana)

Our fall return to Japan brought extended time in Tokyo. We set up daily rhythm: early morning swims at a local municipal pool (often with our friend Michael Cohen), followed by work sessions at CIC Tokyo, the co-working space founded by our friend Tim Rowe.

Mark focused on language studies (Italian and Japanese), Tiny World Tours operations, and continued work on The Plant at Kyle. Dana contributed to museum leadership search projects through Museum Search & Reference, while also organizing and planning for our art collection and future gift-giving.

COMING HOME: STEWARDSHIP AT THE PLANT

In 2025, we made a significant shift in how we manage rentals of our property The Plant at Kyle—limiting guest events to no more than 15 people, and working with Hill Country Premier Lodging for bookings and care. It’s a relief to have reliable support while we travel, and we’re thinking ahead about how best to preserve this special place.

Our mission: “To steward The Plant at Kyle and serve as a cultural and educational amenity that expands awareness and appreciation of architecture and nature through content, conversations, celebrations, and retreats.”

If you have ideas—or want to be part of a longer conversation about its future—we’d love to hear from you.

CLOSING THE YEAR: EAST COAST ROAD TRIP AND “HOME IN MAINE” FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Philadelphia, New York, Portland – December 16 to 30

We’re wrapping up 2025 on the East Coast: starting in Philadelphia and New York visiting family (Alex, Elena, Lloyd & Daniel Leaverton), friends, colleagues, architecture, museums, broadway shows, and ending in Portland, Maine, for Christmas with Dana’s sister Sandy and husband Ted, and time with Ted’s two sons, their families, and grandsons Theo and Hugh—a joyful, kid-filled holiday to end a rich and memorable year.

LOOKING AHEAD

2026 already has some exciting journeys on the horizon. Spring will bring us back to Mexico, Japan, and Bhutan. If you hurry, two spots have opened on our once sold-out Mexico tour (January 26, 2026 – February 6, 2026)! Join us for this magical journey through the jungles, art, and dreamscapes of Xilitla and beyond. 
Spaces are also available for our immersive Walking Bhutan Tour (23-30 April, 2026):   — a compact but rich itinerary guided by Dorji and Mark. If either Mexico or Bhutan speaks to you, or you’d like to explore with us in the future, we’d love to connect! In 2027 Tiny World Tours may evolve into something different…so please stay tuned.

We’re deeply thankful for our community—friends, family, collaborators, and fellow travelers—who make all of this meaningful. Wishing you a healthy, connected, and peaceful year ahead.

Let’s Stay in Touch!

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

CORRECT Mailing address (a mail forwarding service): 2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-8188, Austin, Texas 78741-6931, USA

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

If you are interested to see what we published on our recent past year end blogs, please check the links below:

Mark & Dana’s 2024 Year End Blog (December 2024)

Mark & Dana’s 2023 Year End Blog (December 2023)

Mark & Dana’s 2022 Year End Blog (December 2022)

Mark & Dana’s 2021 Year End Blog (December 2021)

Mark & Dana’s 2020 Year End Blog (December 2020)

Mark and Dana’s COVID Pandemic Reach-Out Blog (April 2020)

WE LOVE YOU!!

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2024 Year End Blog

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2024 Year End Blog

( image above) at Enoura Observatory, 21 March 2024

2024 Year End Blog

Celebrating the joys and challenges of 2024, and wishing you the best for the year ahead!

Dear Friends, Family, and Fellow Travelers,

As 2024 comes to a close, we reflect on a year filled with meaningful connections, transformative adventures, and serendipitous moments that brought joy and perspective. This year has been a journey—across continents, through history, and into our sense of purpose. We’re grateful for the people, places, and ideas that have enriched our lives along the way.

Here’s a look back at the moments that made 2024 so memorable.

 Celebrating the Seasons in Texas at The Plant at Kyle

 We welcomed 2024 at The Plant at Kyle, surrounded by friends. The warmth of that gathering set the tone for a year filled with creativity, community, and celebration. As an event space and vacation rental, we ourselves have limited access, but with reservations down this year, we took advantage of periodic visits for ourselves and hosting friends across the year. Highlights included the Total Solar Eclipse Celebration (see special section further below) and Thanksgiving with the extended Holzbach/Kevorkian families and other dear friends. Stewardship of The Plant, as well as our condo in Austin, and shared family cottage in Maine continues to be a cornerstone of our mission, which serve as sites of work and rejuvenation, as well as hubs for shared experiences.

Serendipity in the City and Country… meet-ups around the globe!

Whether traversing Japan, Italy, Iceland, Sweden, New England, or New York, we’ve learned to appreciate and expect encounters that bring joy and extend connections. Below are some meaningful encounters, some by chance, others orchestrated. What moments of serendipity have surprised and delighted you this year?

In Tokyo, a Facebook post alerted us to a restauranteur friend from Grand Rapids who was studying ramen-making. We met Paul Lee for a memorable meal at Tatsukichi in Shinjuku, one of our favorite restaurants, where we laughed, caught up, and shared a fantastic evening.

In April in Venice, at the Biennale vernissage, we were honored to attend special events for several exhibiting friends. Shahzia Sikander’s dramatic retrospective Collective Behavior filed Palazzo Van Axel and MIT Media Lab’s Tod Machover collaborated with Lee Bae on Sailing Through Fire. At the American, Japanese, and Canadian pavilions we reunited with colleagues and friends. Venice has a way of fostering serendipitous reunions, and this year was no exception.

In July in Southern Italy, while walking from the top of Monte Cervati to the town of Sanza, Mark and Astrid Meijer stopped for a drink of water and met fellow traveler Michele Curcio who offered us cookies. Within the first few minutes of conversation, we discovered that Mark and Michele are cousins!

As you know we love to travel…sometimes the destination is set by an event, other times for research, and often just for the pleasure of connecting with friends… so we’re included snapshots documenting reunions with other friends who crossed our paths coming or going through Tokyo, Paris, Nepal, Vermont, Los Angeles, and San Antonio…

Family and Heritage

Our families are important to us, not only closest relatives, but also extended familes near and far.

Mark’s genealogical research and “roots travel” have deepened and broadened the Cozza/Curcio realm both back in Italy and in the US, Canada, and Sweden.. In May, Mark visited his Italian-Canadian Lavoratore cousins in Montreal for the first time. Connected by shared ancestry in Rovito, Calabria, they welcomed us with warmth and enthusiasm, sharing family stories, delicious Southern Italian meals, and laughter. It was a joy to deepen our connection to this branch of the family and learn more about our shared roots.

In Brooklyn, Mark also spent time with his cousins Antonio Curio and his son, Sabino, and daughter Michela, at Antonio’s panini shop. Antonio was born in Sanza and immigrated to the US. He and his wife and children and grandchildren continue to champion the “Madonna della Neve” traditions, preserving a strong cultural bridge between Brooklyn and Sanza. Another mutual cousin, Lloyd Leaverton, now lives in Brooklyn and it was my pleasure to introduce him to Antonio.

In Stockholm, Mark reconnected with his cousin Daniel Aromí Leaverton (Lloyd’s brother), who grew up in Barcelona (as did Lloyd), and has now made Stockholm his home. Spending time with Daniel brought a new appreciation for our family’s global ties and the vibrant life Daniel has created in Sweden.

We traveled to Portland, Maine several times this year to spend time with Nancy, Dana’s stepmother and Sandy, his sister, and her family, and our Johnston cousins, and spend time at the shared family summer cottage. Below are snapshots from some of our gatherings in Maine, including Nancy’s birthday (102 years young) Sandy’s birthday (60), and her husband Ted Halverson’s birthday (never mind!) as well as Christmas Dinner with the extended Halverson/Lilienthal Family.

In June, Nancy’s service as an Army nurse during and after WWII was highlighted in a wonderful article in the Portland Press Herald. In December, Nancy entered long-term care at the Maine Veterans Home in Scarborough, and was welcomed with a ceremony honoring her service to our country.

We pause, too, to remember and honor family and friends we lost this year: Mark’s father, Tom Holzbach; his cousin, Mary Ferrell Cavallo; and dear friends David Berman, Wendy Marty, James Magee, and Tonya Porter. Their legacies live on in the memories we cherish.

Mark’s father, Raymond Thomas Holzbach, MD (1929-2024)

 Journeys of a Lifetime

Our year was FILLED with travel around the world…leading Tiny World Tours, attending art and cultural events, visiting friends and family; and doing research for FUTURE travel! We are excited to share some of the highlights!

Our travels this year also included:

                  •               Through Artists’ Eyes Japan: In March, we led a Tiny World Tour that took art lovers to Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, Kyoto, and the Enoura Observatory (by artist Hiroshi Sugimoto). It was one of our best tours yet, filled with laughter, inspiration, and the beauty of Japanese culture. The 2025 version of this trip is full, but if you are interested, take a look at Through Artists’ Eyes Spring 2026 on the Tiny World Tours website.

                  •               Paris and Angers with the Austin Film Society: In April, we led a Tiny World Tour to Paris and Angers for the Austin Film Society, immersing participants in the rich history and artistry of French cinema and culture. Highlights included exclusive film screenings, behind-the-scenes tours, and unforgettable meals shared in some of France’s most charming settings.

                •               Stockholm and “Love and Chaos”: Mark attended Doug Fitch’s Opera, Love and Chaos at Drottningholm Palace Theater, an 18th-century gem. A backstage tour of this historic venue added to the magic. Everyone was surprised when our dear friend Chef Steve Couch (aka Mr. Eat Right) swung by on a scooter while the group was exploring the Moderna Museet’s park. Tracking Mark’s cell phone, (boundary-less / borderless) Steve knew exactly where in the world to find us. We had just celebrated the April eclipse together in Texas and had no idea Steve was planning to meet us in Sweden! Steve then went on to join us in Iceland!

                 •               Into the Heart of Iceland: Siglufjörður and Beyond: In June, Mark traveled to Iceland for the Intoo Art Festival in Siglufjörður, where Tommy Nguyen performed alongside an inspiring group of international artists. After the festival, Mark and Tommy circumnavigated the country, exploring breathtaking landscapes, visiting remote Kcymaerxthaere monuments, and creating lasting memories with new and old friends, including the intrepid Denise and Mike Reiss and the peripatetic Steve Couch.

 Inspired by Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mark explored two of the novel’s key locations one month apart: Snæfellsjökull volcano in Iceland and Stromboli Island in Italy. Witnessing these breathtaking landscapes brought a sense of wonder and a deeper appreciation for the natural world’s power and beauty, and of Verne’s imagination

                 Italy’s Treasures: Our summer expedition to Italy was multi-faceted, including time in Sanza to experience the Madonna della Neve festival and time with relatives; deeper exploration of the nature and culture of South Italy with our guide Astrid Meijer; visiting expat friends in Florence, Lucca, and Perugia; art experiences in Florence, Rome, and Niki de St. Phalle’s fantastical Tarot Sculpture Garden. We enjoyed leading another Cozza Family Tour, with special experiences in Naples, along the coast, and in the Cilento region.

·       Japan Regional Reconnaissance In the fall, we took time to diver deeper into Japanese regional culture and into pristine and remote landscapes.. We engaged our favorite Japanese guide, Masa Fujiwara for a week-long journey to sacred natural and cultural sites with a focus on Shinto pilgrimage destinations including the Kumokodo and Ise Shrine. Another expedition took us to the southern prefecture of Kyushu, where we visited our Texas friends Yukiko and Robert Lunday at their valley home in the town of Yamaga, Kumamoto. We also visited Fukuoka, reconnecting with colleagues at the Contemporary Asian Art Museum. We flew north across the archipelago to Hokkaido where we met with experts on the ancient Joman culture as well as artists and representatives of the native Ainu peoples. (check out our Tiny World Tour, Ancient to Contemporary: Cultures of Northern Japan, October 5-16, 2025)

What places are calling to you for your next adventure?

Dana continues moving to a new mode of cultural work

Over the past year, Dana has continued his journey from CEO at Grand Rapids Art Museum (July 2011 to February 2023) to developing a practice in collaborative work with artists, museums, and communities, including developing deeper connections in Japan. His vision for an open, flexible “cultural projects studio” includes research, curating, writing, museum consulting, along with developing and leading itineraries for Tiny World Tours. He’s been active attending varied cultural events, including Tokyo Art Fair, Aomori Gokan Fest Press Launch, Yokohama Triennale Press Preview, EXPO Chicago, La Biennale de Venezia Vernissage, Artists Fair Kyoto, and Art Week Tokyo, among others.

Project highlights include research for the Mystic Seaport Museum to travel Alexis Rockman: Oceanus exhibition to Japan; an essay for the Devos Museum /NMU’s exhibition, Across Time and Place: Liz Ward and Robert Ziebell; and a text for the book, Day by Day: Drawings by Denny McCoy.  Dana also gave several public presentations in Austin, including Japan Through Artists’s Eyes at SAGE UT Austin (with Mark) ; Beverly Penn: Foregrounding Conversation at Women and Their Work; and a Perspectives Tour on the exhibition Carl Cheng: Nature Always Wins at The Contemporary Austin/Jones Center.

Total Solar Eclipse Celebration at The Plant

On April 8, 2024, we hosted a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the Total Solar Eclipse at The Plant at Kyle with about 100 co-creating participants. This Tiny World Tour event was a joyous blend of science, art, and community, bringing together friends, family, and eclipse enthusiasts for an unforgettable day.

Finding Joy in the Everyday

Not all highlights required crossing oceans.

In Austin, we usually start each day with a bike ride from our downtown condo on the Hike and Bike Trail to Barton Springs, a freshwater spring open year round. We are still getting settled since 2022 move, so each time we return from a trip, we aim to open more boxes, organize files and records, and hang more of our art collection…while keeping up with emails, promoting The Plant and Tiny World Tours, and… planning our next roadtrip. We enjoy re-connecting with friends in and around the city, and attending arts events.

Last summer, we spent a month at Dana’s family cottage on Little Diamond Island, Maine. We enjoyed being close to family and friends, time to read, write, and study Japanese, and visiting our Mainer friends…and escape from the Texas heat! The porch became a welcoming, ergonomic “pop-up office”with two new Herman Miller Cosm chairs and a folding table from Costco. Our time there was a perfect blend of work, relaxation, and continued connection with family and friends.

Even in Japan we have our favorite routines. When not leading or researching a tour, our base is in Tokyo, and we’ve stayed in Airbnb apartmentss and friends’ homes in a variety of neighborhoods, becoming familiar with different parts of the city over the past two years. To support our need for reliable working habits, we have joined the CIC Tokyo workspace in the Toronomon Hills Business Tower, founded by our friend Tim Rowe, a great environment with many amenities and an internationl entrepreneurial community. On weekends we enjoy visiting all types of museums, exploring the restaurant scene, seeing Japanese friends, and welcoming visitors to Tokyo.

Looking Ahead to 2025

As we plan for the year ahead, we’re excited to lead Tiny World Tours in Mexico, Japan (spring and fall), and Italy. We’re also highlighting Bhutan tours, led by our wonderful collaborators and co-creators, who bring deep cultural knowledge and a love of the region to each experience.

A major milestone awaits us in June 2025 when Mark’s Italian Citizenship project is expected to conclude successfully in a court in Potenza. This moment will grant Italian dual citizenship to Mark and 52 of his close relatives—a legacy of connection to our ancestral roots.

We are also embarking on a significant strategic planning project for the future of The Plant at Kyle, envisioning its continued growth as a hub for creativity, community, and sustainability.

In October, we’re planning to attend the MIT Media Lab’s 40th Anniversary Celebration. Returning to the Lab will be an opportunity to reflect on the innovative spirit that shaped so much of our lives and to reconnect with friends and collaborators.

What dreams and goals are you envisioning for the year ahead? Let us know—we’d love to hear from you.

 With Gratitude

Thank you for being part of our journey. Whether we’ve shared a meal, a conversation, or an adventure, your presence has enriched our lives. Here’s to a 2025 filled with connection, creativity, and discovery.

 With love and appreciation,

Mark & Dana

Here’s to the adventures ahead!

Please write and tell us how YOU are doing since we last connected!

(The easiest way: scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment!)

Let’s Stay in Touch!

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

NEW Mailing address (a mail forwarding service): 2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-8188, Austin, Texas 78741-6931, USA

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

If you are interested to see what we published on our recent past year end blogs, please check the links below:

Mark & Dana’s 2023 Year End Blog (December 2023)

Mark & Dana’s 2022 Year End Blog (December 2022)

Mark & Dana’s 2021 Year End Blog (December 2021)

Mark & Dana’s 2020 Year End Blog (December 2020)

Mark and Dana’s COVID Pandemic Reach-Out Blog (April 2020)

WE LOVE YOU!!

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2023 Year End Blog

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2023 Year End Blog

( image above) In front of the Miyajima Torii gate, near Hiroshima, Japan, 15 November 2023

2023 Year End Blog

For us, the year-end holidays are a time to express gratitude, consider our blessings and privileges, celebrate the many wonderful people and places in our lives—we are privileged. In parallel, we must acknowledge the very difficult times in which we live—the threats to democracy, racial justice, and reproductive freedom in the U.S., wars around the globe, and climate change and ecological instability, to say nothing about the Texas Legislature. In this year of personal changes for us, we have been focusing on connecting the local with the global, through what we hope are positive actions, engaging interactions, and building forward-focused relationships in different communities. We look to find ways to have greater impact in making the world a better place. We hope that you will reach back to us and share your activities and ideas about moving forward towards a better world, as well as your personal news, stories, and thoughts at this important time of year.

The mix of writing and photos that follows is meant to be an informative and efficient way to keep in touch and share news with our family and our wide circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Although posting photos and commentary will never be as personal as a handwritten letter or postcard, we want to convey our hope to keep connected to you, and give you a broader awareness of our experiences, commonalities and differences, hopes and aspirations. But if you feel like sending us a postcard or letter from time time, you can be sure we’d love that…but please note the new address for our mail service below!

Mark and Dana December, 2023

Celebrating the joys and challenges of 2023, and wishing you the best for the year ahead!

05/17/23 Sunrise looking at Mt Everest from the Hotel Everest View, near Khumjung, Nepal (altitude: 13,000 ft / 3,880 meters)

Dear Family & Friends,

As we start writing this blog on Christmas Day, December 25, we are enjoying a week in New England, first a few days in Boston, and then the rest in Portland, Maine with Dana’s family. We’ve rented a large sunny top-floor apartment in a triple-decker on Munjoy Hill, a wonderful neighborhood near downtown and visiting with friends and family. It’s a wonderful temporary base for sending out holiday cards, planning lots of travel, finishing work projects, and shaping this selection of words and pictures about the year ending soon, and some of our plans for the coming year.

Please write and tell us how YOU are doing since we last connected!

(The easiest way: scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment!)

04/01/23 Mark & Dana at Enoura Observatory, Odawara, Japan

A Quick Take of Some 2023 Highlights—first, here’s to our elders!

…a few 2023 bullet points:

  • New Years 2023 brought major transitions! Last January and February, Mark first settled in Austin and then led a walking tour in Mexico, Dana finished his 11+ years at GRAM in early February on a high note, serving as guest curator of Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder. His solo road trip from Grand Rapids spanned over 1500 miles in four very full days, on a purposefully-plotted course planned to see art, architecture, and friends along the way in Chicago, Kansas City, MO, Lawrence, KS, Bartlesville and Oklahoma City, OK, and Fort Worth, TX to Austin. What transitions have you made this year? Any fun road trips?

  • Austin, Texas is once again our home base—and the center-city townhouse we’ve owned since 1997 is headquarters/launch pad as we navigate challenges and opportunities in our new lives. We have developed “home,” routines to keep us healthier and energized--for example, almost every day we ride our bikes two miles on the Hike and Bike trail to Barton Springs for a refreshing swim and other exercise. We are just getting started re-connecting with longtime friends and meeting new people, enjoying the art and cultural opportunities, studying Japanese, reading more, and slowly getting our home, office, and computers better organized. Our rental property, The Plant at Kyle, is nearby, and we are able to take short retreat breaks and gather family and friends from time to time. We’d love to hear about your everyday realities, and what home means to you!

  • We are travelling more than ever! Although it was a bit abrupt, five days after Dana pulled in the garage from Grand Rapids, we packed up and hopped a plane for three and a half months in Japan, India, Bhutan, and Nepal. Returning for summer, we enjoyed extended time with family and friends in Texas, Maine, New York and along the East Coast, and Colorado. October brought us to Southern Italy with nineteen of Mark’s Italian-American relatives to see their ancestral home towns of Sanza and Rovito, meeting newly-discovered relatives and learning about their family history. November found us back in Japan with a tour, and explorations in Hokkaido and Aomori to learn about the ancient Jomon culture and the indigenous Ainu peoples who are unique to that region. We enjoyed Thanksgiving back in Texas for a feast at The Plant at Kyle with Mark’s family, and spent a week at Christmas with Dana’s family in Portland, Maine. We’d love to hear where you’ve been lately!

  • Work+/-Life… now merged… has become a dynamic, energizing tension! In our new, semi-nomadic lifestyles, the lines are now blurred between the time and focus needed to manage our several small businesses and making the most of our “personal” lives. Sometimes it is a struggle for us—we can’t keep up with communication, creating content, lifelong learning as we hope to. Our rental property in the Texas hill country, The Plant at Kyle, is doing well, especially after some major upgrades including new interior lighting, restoring and painting the pool canopy, and replacing and repainting the wooden porch doors and screen frames. We research, design and lead custom- and group cultural tours for our company, Tiny World Tours, and this year offered seven group trips and private expeditions, spread across Japan, Bhutan, Nepal, Mexico, and Italy. Dana has initiated a consulting practice, conceived as a “cultural project studio,” to develop collaborations between museums, artists, and communities, with a focus on Japan. He is already helping some artists and their families donate art to museums in the U.S. and Japan, and working with museums and curators in those countries to develop exchanges, exhibition tours, and collaborations. This work intensify when we return for extended periods in the spring and fall.

Join us in 2024 for one of these events or expeditions!

  • Be part of a a day-long, multi-disciplinary celebration of the total solar eclipse at The Plant at Kyle! Our Total Solar Eclipse Celebration on April 8 features experiences focused on science, nature, and art including the unveiling of a new site-specific artwork by Eames Demetrios, performances by Deborah Hay, Doug Fitch & Tommy Nguyen, Polynesian Drum and Dance by Hula Halau Keepa, Indigenous Land, Sun, and Moon Ceremony by Kimbali Talking Medicine, and short informative talks. Space is limited, reserve your tickets here.

Total Solar Eclipse Event at The Plant at Kyle on 8 April 2024

Sapporo, Japan

  • We want to keep in touch! We always apprecicate hearing from family and friends near and far, and hope that you will share your news, reflections, and aspirations… we will be traveling a lot more in 2023. Keeping connected makes it more likely for our paths to cross!

2023 has been a big year for our families!

Mark’s Family (and friends) celebrating Thanksgiving (on the Saturday after) at The Plant at Kyle 11/25/23

A few of our family highlights…

We had several wonderful trips to Maine to be with Dana’s family Nancy turned 101 in May, settled into the Scarborough Terrace retirement community, where she actively participates in resident dialogues and enjoys reading novels, history, and biographies. Dana’s sister Sandy and her husband Ted are busy with their jobs however find pleasure on their boat (May to October) and working in their yard and garden (year round!)

We returned several times to the Little Diamond Island summer cottage that we share with Sandy and cousins Mark and Scott Johnston. Sadly Mark and Scott’s stepmother, Gail, passed away in July in Rhode Island, and we all attended a beautiful memorial service there, followed by a lively luncheon with Gail’s extended family and friends from across the country..

Mark’s family Mark’s father Tom and partner Mary Kevorkian continue to enjoy life in independent living at Austin’s Westminster Manor. Austin is often the focal point for our immediate family gatherings including our annual Thanksgiving traditional gathering at The Plant at Kyle. Mark’s sister Ellen lives in Berkeley, California, is an active runner and is a leader of the Pinkathon Challenge for Breast Cancer project. Mark’s brother Jim and his family live in San Antonio, where he works in fundraising at Trinity College. Alex and Andrew, our two nephews, at Rice University studying engineering, and spend their summers with internship jobs, travelling, and learning Chinese.

Successful Italy Tour with Mark’s Cozza family relatives Following an August visit to our Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York historic family neighborhood, in October Mark and Dana brought 19 Italian-American family members to visit our spectacular ancestral villages in Southern Italy (Sanza, Campania, and Rovito, Calabria). We were very warmly welcomed by our Italian relatives - and we’ll lead another Cozza family tour to these villages in August 2024! (please let Mark know if you’re interested). We expect our Italian Citizenship petition to be completed in June or July 2024.

Share your best family memories of the year…

People and Places important in our lives

lots of Photos and a few words…

(Click on a thumbnail to enlarge, and use your arrow key to move through the images.)

Austin Highlights

It’s been wonderful to return to Austin, where we’ve had a base since 1996. We moved back into the townhouse we’ve owned since 1998 on a tree-lined street at the edge of downtown near Shoal Creek and West 6th Street, and the Hike and Bike Trail. We take advantage of the nearby Public Library,, the large Whole Foods flagship store, and plenty of wonderful restaurants and bars, museums, architecture, and a lively street life. We love riding our bikes to Barton Springs each morning, allowing us to beat the heat in the summer months. Our rental property The Plant at Kyle, and important early building by Lake|Flato Architects, is 35 miles away, and we have been restoring and upgrading the facility and landscape, and enjoy it with family and friends when not rented. Though this year has had lots of international travel in 2023, we’ve spent about 16 weeks settling in to our “Austin Headquarters”..we still have lots of boxes to open, organizational projects, and ongoing downsizing… Oh well…

Maine Highlights

Dana traces his family roots in Maine back over 150 years, and his stepmother Nancy, and sister Sandy and cousin Scott and their families live in Portland area. This year we were able to visit family and friends several times, with longer visits in the in summer to the cottage on Little Diamond Island we share with family, while in the winter we rent an apartment in town. We enjoy the Portland Museum of Art and many restaurants, bookstores, and farmers markets in this charming historic city, and visit the many strong museums that are part of the Maine Art Trail and visiting friends along the coast.

Grand Rapids Highlights

After nearly a dozen years in Grand Rapids, that community will always be very important in our lives. In February this year, Dana completed his CEO role at GRAM, and his final project was to guest-curate the exhibition Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder from the Portland Museum of Art. In September, we were thrilled to return to Grand Rapids for a week of activities, including attending GRAM’s fundraiser, Autumn Affair, to spend time with GRAM’s new Director and CEO, Cindy Myers Foley, to experience GRAM’s new Creative Learning Center, and especially to reconnect with our many friends and colleagues, to take walks in our favorite parks, and see art. It was so great to catch up, to re-kindle relationships, and to meet new friends.

Japan Highlights

It was exciting to return to Japan twice in 2023, since COVID closures had forced us to several trips since our last visit in 2019. We planned extended stays which would allow us to lead four Tiny World Tours, see longtime friends, and do research and reconnaissance for future tours and possible collaborative partnerships. For example, we attended the wedding of Aya and Tim Rowe; ventured to see amazing art projects including as Enoura Observatory , Benesse Art Site, Isamu Noguchi’s Japanese Studio/Museum, and his monumental Moerenuma Park; explored the Shikoku, Kamakura, Aomori, and Hokkaido regions new to us; and enlisted guide Masa Fujiwara to better appreciate Kyoto culture and meet wonderful craftspeople and behind the scenes in temples and gardens. We also refreshed our Japanese language skills, became re-acquainted with favorite neighborhoods and cultural destinations and discover new experiences, with a focus on the ancient Jomon and indigenous Ainu peoples.

Mexico

In January, Mark spent a wonderful two weeks in Mexico, leading a tour, Walking Mexico: Towns, Gardens, and Markets with our delightful travel partner Joel Peláez Cruz. Destinations included Mexico City, the interior colonial cities of Queretaro, and San Miguel de Allende, the Surrealist garden Las Pozas in Xilitla, and charming towns, villages, markets, and Spanish missions rich in history, culture, art, and nature with many UNESCO-recognized sites. We’re planning a similar itinerary for January 2025, in case you are interested!

Bhutan Highlights

Bhutan has been a special destination for us since Mark’s first visit in 2018, and we have benefited from our friendship with guide, historian, host, and farmer Dorji, of Drukyul Holidays, whose deep knowledge and contagious enthusiasm for his country is amazing. Our 19-day May tour, Kcymaerxthaere Monuments in Bhutan and Nepal was focused on the Kcymaerxthaere works of polymath artist Eames Demetrius in those two countries, as well as landscape, spiritual, and historical highlights. In Western Bhutan, the itinerary included fortresses, monasteries, artist studios, archery competitions, and a hike to Tigers Nest Monastery (Taktsang), a preview of Dorji’s newest project, The Happiness Farm, a rural retreat in the mountains.

Nepal HighlighTs

Our Nepal experience, coordinated by our Sherpa guide Nima and Buddhist scholar Nabin Moktan, stretched from the bustling city of Kathmandu, including the Swayambhanath Temple, Boudhanath Stupa, and Pashupatinath Temple, and to the mountainous Solukhumbu region with views of Mount Everest to the lowland jungle of the Chitwan National Park. Our group visited numerous Kcymaerxthaere monuments created in the past five years, and participated in the completion of a new one at the Beni River in Junbesi..

Italy

Italy has played major role in the “People and Places” of our lives this year. Mark traces his maternal roots to Southern Italy, and for the past few years has been researching the Cozza family with Italian genealogists, and filed a petition for Italian citizenship for himself and 52 other family members, with a court review set in 2024. He has continued to meet, and deepen relationships with new relatives in the U.S., Canada, and Italy. Last summer, he attended ceremonies at the Society of the Madonna of the Snow, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood to which many from his ancestral hometown of Sanza, Campania emigrated. Working with the geneologists, he designed a ten-day family expedition to visit the hill towns, meet many of their Italian relatives, and take dive deep in this “living history.” Next August, Tiny World Tours will present a follow-up tour which includes a visit to original Sanza Chapel Madonna of the Snow on Monte Cervati, and other festivities.

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

NEW Mailing address (a mail forwarding service): 2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-8188, Austin, Texas 78741-6931, USA

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

If you are interested to see what we published on our recent past year end blogs, please check the links below:

Mark & Dana’s 2022 Year End Blog (December 2022)

Mark & Dana’s 2021 Year End Blog (December 2021)

Mark & Dana’s 2020 Year End Blog (December 2020)

Mark and Dana’s COVID Pandemic Reach-Out Blog (April 2020)

WE LOVE YOU!!

09/16/23 Remote Day Hike in Rocky Mountain National Park

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2022 Rovito Blog

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2022 Rovito Blog

( image above) 18 October 2022 riding a public transport boat (Vaporetto) on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy

This personal blog page by is intended as an efficient way to keep in touch and share news with our family, friends, and extended acquaintances. While it’s not quite as personal as a hand written letter or postcard, we want to convey our hope to keep connected to you, with a mutual awareness of our experiences, commonalities and differences, hopes and aspirations.

Mark and Dana December, 2022

Please help us to stay connected with you!

4/25/21 Aman Park, Grand Rapids, MI you may recall a similar COVID-virus-reminiscent photo that we posted last year)

Dear Family & Friends,

1/2/21, biking down Haleakala Crater Maui, Hawaii

What another long, strange year it’s been! We hope that you and your loved ones have been keeping healthy, safe, and finding creative ways to survive, perchance to thrive, in these uncertain times!

We are still both safe, healthy and keeping quite busy (sometimes distracting ourselves as a break from our normal life pressures and obligations). Last year we posted a a 2020 year-end blog sharing then-news, photos, and inviting you to respond and share news with us. We loved your responses and we hope that you enjoyed viewing our blog and the responses that others posted there. We hope that you’ll respond again to this 2021 version! Please leave comments below (scroll ALL the way down) and/or communicate with us privately via mail / email, or schedule a phone / live video catch up call with us! Besides hearing good news and milestones, we also hope to hear when people in our sphere have fallen ill, have passed away, or have suffered a loss or setback.

Please write and tell us how YOU are doing since we last connected!

(The easiest way: scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment!)

A Quick Take on Our 2021

3/28/21 Mark & Dana at Seven Magic Mountains by Ugo Rondinone outside Las Vegas, NV

…a few 2021 bullet points:

  • We’ve avoided COVID infections (so far, knock on wood), and have received our third-dose booster shots. We feel very fortunate not to have had close friends or family members die of COVID or COVID-related complications since the pandemic started.

  • This year Dana turned 60, Mark turned 63, and our parents (Nancy, Tom, and Mary) are doing well in their 90’s.

  • Dana announced he will step away from his leadership role at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in January 2023. Here is a link for the full story.

  • The Plant at Kyle received a significant legacy award from the Texas Society of Architects/AIA.

Family

10/9/21 Mark’s Family at The Plant at Kyle’s Award Ceremony with local Mariachi Band

How’s YOUR family doing?

As the pandemic challenges continue, our family ties remain strong nonetheless. Dana’s sister Sandy, brother-in-law Ted, and their family enjoy life in Portland, Maine, and nearby, our stepmother Nancy Friis-Hansen, is a lively 99-year old, engaged in Red Sox baseball, Patriots Football, and volunteer activities within her retirement community. In July we had a wonderful visit with them, and enjoyed quiet time at our shared family summer cottage on Little Diamond Island in Casco Bay, and have returned for a week at year-end.

Texas, especially Austin, remains a key part of our lives, and we are equally well-connected to Mark’s family there, with whom we spent time at Thanksgiving. Mark’s father Tom and partner Mary are both in their 90’s and live in a lovely independent living facility in Austin, TX. They maintain a positive outlook despite being forced to set aside their busy travel schedule, social gatherings, concerts, and in-person lifelong learning programs. We had a very nice outdoor Thanksgiving dinner Tom, Mary, Mark’s sister Ellen, brother Jim, sister-in-law Ying-Chao, and nephews Alex (19) and Andrew (17). Alex started attending Rice University in September, 2020. Andrew was just accepted at Rice and will join Alex there next fall. They are both interested in engineering.

Mark’s maternal-side family celebrates Italian heritage with the last name of “Cozza” originating from small towns in the Southern Italian regions of Campagna and Calabria. Current Italian law supports the case that American-born Cozza descendants are Italian dual citizens since birth. Mark is leading the effort to petition the Italian government for recognition of Cozza family dual Italian citizenship (which also comes with European Union rights and privileges) on behalf of about fifty Cozza descendants. This petition process involves a lot of coordination and collection of vital records to prove descent for each petitioner. It is expected to take about two or three years and is not 100% certain, so please wish us all luck!

Mark’s Uncle Chuck Cozza died at age 75 in Colorado after a decades-long struggle with a traumatic brain injury. Many Cozza family members gathered outdoors in Denver in July 2021 to celebrate Chuck’s life.

Our Lives

7/10/21 Casco Bay, Maine

How’s life where you are?

Grand Rapids continues to be a wonderful home for us. We have adapted to “Life during COVID” and its continual changes, including “working from home,” “returning to the office” and then a mixed model when the virus flared up again. As very social people, we developed ways to see our friends by entertaining outdoors, in a garage, or indoors with socially distanced cocktail tables placed around our condo. Our food experiences continued to widen; we joined the local Blandford Farm CSA which provided a varied allotment from late spring through early fall, and Dana learned to cook vegetables new to him, and developed soups from the leftovers.

Exercise helped keep us sane. We especially enjoy our 2021 local nature walks in the amazing city, county, and state parks, often joined by a mixed group of friends, of which Kayem Dunn and Alexander Stoffan were regulars. in 2021 we logged over 350 miles (according to Mark’s AllTrails app,) which doesn’t include our daily indoor workout routine down and up 34 flights of stairs at our high-rise residence.

A key part of our pandemic time has been reflecting on what is important to us in life now. Last year we started to downsize our possessions, reduce our footprint, and focus more on meaningful experiences and community impact. With an aim to find a smaller condo in this building, we put our unusual River House penthouse loft on the real estate market over a year ago, but a buyer excited about our vision has not yet come along…so if you are curious, we invite you to take a look at our condo’s info page, with the realtor’s link at the bottom.

In the meantime, we have logged our book collection and will donate most of them to the local Kendall College of Art Library, while others will go to The Asia Society. We’ve also been reducing our files, archives, and photographs, often through scanning and recycling...with mixed feelings about letting go.

Expanding Horizons

3/27/21 Dana and Mark’s family visiting Double Negative by Michael Heizer outside of Las Vegas, NV

How have you expanded your horizons?

Like many others, this past year we watched a lot of television, movies, YouTube learning videos, and other streaming content… We did read books, both in hardcopy and on iPad, and scheduled a good share of zoom calls with friends. Topics that continue to interest us are contemporary art, culture, science (including astrophysics), languages, food, and travel, Mark rejoined the board of visitors at the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas, operated by the University of Texas at Austin.

We also cautiously re-incorporated travel back in our lives, to see friends and family, to experience new places, and re-ignite memories and connections to destinations we’ve frequented in the past. We spent the holidays last year in Hawaii, with time on Oahu and Maui, hiking, biking, swimming, and exploring the history, architecture, and art of the islands. In February we were invited to join Dana’s Carleton friend Karen and her husband Scott for a sail on their catamaran in the Florida Keys, and met up with Mark’s family in Las Vegas later in the spring, spending more time in the desert than on the strip, topped off by a fun evening at Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart immersive theatre experience.

In early May we took a wonderful southern road trip to celebrate Dana’s Birthday (which turned out to be a surprise celebration weekend with friends from college days, and our time in Texas, and Michigan.) Highlights included Louisville (Speed Art Museum, 21C Museum Hotel), Nashville (Frist Art Museum, Civil Rights walking tour, National Museum of African American Music, Birmingham Alabama Civil Rights sites (including Forth Avenue Historic District, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church), Montgomery (the amazing Memorial and Museum of the Equal Justice Initiative), The Rural Studio in Hale County, Alabama, Selma, Muscle Shoals recording studios, and Memphis (Natl Civil Rights Museum).

In the summer we spent time on the east coast visiting friends, family, civil rights and art destinations from Washington D.C. to Maine, and in the fall we were road-tripping again from Austin to GR with stops in Oklahoma City (First Americans Museum) and Tulsa (Greenwood Rising), Bentonville, (Crystal Bridges Art Museum) St. Louis (St. Louis Art Museum, Cahokia Mounds), and Bloomington, IN (Eskenazi Museum of Art).

Work

5/6/21 Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibition focused on the life of Breonna Taylor at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY

What are you working on these days?

Our work continues to give us great fulfillment. Recently Dana announced that 2022 would be his last year as Director/CEO of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM). He will pivot his career to other passions, working with artists on exhibitions and international exchanges, as well as helping lead cultural tours with Mark through our company, Tiny World Tours. After ten years at the helm of GRAM, this was a difficult personal decision. He loves GRAM and West Michigan and leading a dynamic institution has been incredibly fulfilling. He has immense gratitude for the many friends, partner organizations, collaborators, and GRAM supporters who have played an essential role in the many accomplishments achieved together since starting in July 2011.

Over the course of the year GRAM gradually increased its exhibitions, programming, public hours, events, and facilities rentals, as well as started a variety of learning initiatives. A Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Task Force comprised of staff members across all levels and departments was initiated to research and implement staff trainings. So far, sessions have been held with Overcoming Racism, Disability Advocates of Kent County, and Native American leader Cecelia Lapointe. In the spring, a group of GRAM department heads and program managers took a field trip to meet with staff at the Speed Art Museum who organized the exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance focused on Breonna Taylor (born in Grand Rapids and killed in Louisville) and the protests that followed. Developed with the guidance of Taylor’s family, a Steering Committee of Louisville community members, and a National Advisory Panel, it provides a model for future GRAM practices. An intensive Strategic Planning process for 2022-2026 spanned the past year, with participants including local residents, members, Board, and staff committees shaped the Objectives and initiatives.

The timing of Dana’s announcement was important, allowing for a twelve-month transition process. The Museum can continue to build momentum, and Dana is especially excited about the powerful exhibitions in the coming season and new acquisitions on the way. GRAM will be intensifying our engagement with community conversations and co-created programming. In the realm of creative learning, many wonderful discoveries are ahead. The Board has just voted to move forward on a new five-year Strategic Plan focusing outward to expand and diversify GRAM’s impact and engagement.

Under Tiny World Tours (TWT), Mark has had to cancel many planned 2022 international tours. During 2021 TWT led successful “drive your own car” COVID-aware black culture and history tours to Idlewild, MI and Memphis, TN, and intends to repeat these and co-create other black culture and history tours. Tiny World Treasures (a project of Tiny World Tours) successfully commissioned and sold online items from traditional pattern textiles from Bhutan, and Gee’s Bend Alabama quilted potholders. The TWT store will probably close in early 2022 due to the challenges of maintaining product inventory and fulfilling individual orders while traveling (if you have any ideas that may help, please share!).

The Plant at Kyle, the historic Lake|Flato Architects-designed landmark property we own in the Texas Hill Country, is a key part of our life’s activities. This year, despite COVID, our wonderful co-hosts/collaborators/next door neighbors Martha and Jamie Kinscherff coordinated multiple significant maintenance projects there including a fresh coat of paint on the steel structures and inside the pool that makes the place sparkle. The Plant is an ideal “distancing” destination with thoughtful COVID protocols in place. Although many guests were unexpectedly forced to cancel or downsize their planned events such as weddings, the canceled calendar dates rebooked quickly. Our beloved Rude Mechs collective theatre company continues to actively run their Rude Mechs Artist Residency at The Plant. Dana and I look forward to continuing our stewardship of this inspiring place as we enter the new decade.

Hopes

10/3/21 Mark traversing Hueco Tanks State Park, Texas

What are your hopes for next year?

As we finalize this blog on December 22, we are enjoying ten days in New England, first in Boston, and then Portland, Maine. We’re visiting with friends and family, seeing art, architecture, and historical sites, and relaxing by reading and writing. At the end of the week, we had hoped to spend ten days in Italy, but the ominous Omicron variant has prompted us to cancel that trip, as well as future 2022 travel to Mexico and Japan. Like many others, we are tired of the way COVID controls our lives but know this is the prudent thing to do. With our experiences in 2020 and 2021, we know we can live engaged and fulfilling lives under increased safety protocols and have already started to adjust our aspirations of returning to international travel to more local pleasures, car trips, and “hunkering down.”

We aspire to be better stewards of things we value: relationships, possessions, resources, environment, time, attention, energy, truth, knowledge, and wisdom.

Although we’ll hate to move out of it, we hope to sell our downtown Grand Rapids condo in 2022 as part of our gradual life downsizing plan.

We hope to be able to lead Tiny World Tours in 2022 that can go forward with COVID-aware precautions. Black and Indigenous History tours are a growing interest.

Mark is enjoying learning how to be a drone pilot, taking 360° photos, and listening to foreign language podcasts in Italian, German, and Japanese.

We envision a semi-nomadic future spending time in Japan, the Americas, Europe, and other destinations, flying Mark’s drone, and taking 360° photos. We hope to spend more time with you in person!

We envision participating in an ever-increasingly collaborative, agreeably interdependent and connected global community. We hope that medical experts are heeded, and politics are minimized to decrease death and suffering as the global COVID threat quickly subsides in the year ahead.

Other Memorable Moments from 2021

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

Mailing address: 335 Bridge St NW, Unit #3301, Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

WE LOVE YOU!!

PS - There is a small assortment of 2021 videos below that we hope you may find interesting.

2021 Videos

2021_05_09 National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, AL

2021_06_13 McDonald Observatory Drone Test

2021_06_17 Enchanted Rock (Texas) Drone Test Flight

2021_06_23 Dana and Sandra Gaddy birthday at Ritsu and Stafford’s home in Grand Rapids, MI

2021_09_18 Mark’s 63 birthday in Central Park, NYC

2021_10_01 Harlan Smith Telescope

2021_10_01 Hobby Eberle Telescope

2021_10_02 Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas

2021_10_09 Architectural Award Celebration at The Plant at Kyle

2021_10_31 Grand Rapids Condo For Sale

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2022 Year End Blog

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2022 Year End Blog

( image above) 18 October 2022 riding a public transport boat (Vaporetto) on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy

This personal annual blog is intended as an informative, colorful, and efficient way to keep in touch and share news with our family and our wide circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Although posting photos and commentary will never be as personal as a handwritten letter or postcard, we want to convey our hope to keep connected to you, and develop a awareness of our experiences, commonalities and differences, hopes and aspirations. But if you feel like sending us a postcard or letter from time time, you can be sure we’d love that…but please note the new address for our mail service below!

Mark and Dana December, 2022

Celebrating the joys and challenges of 2022, and wishing you the best for the year ahead!

09/09/22 Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) “Live Artfully” event in Grand Rapids, MI… Some of you may recognize that 09/09 is also our anniversary, when we were married in Toronto in 2005 (eloped!), then held a wedding celebration in Portland, Maine in summer 2006.

Dear Family & Friends,

07/21/22, Mark & Dana at Glacier National Park

As we start writing this blog on Christmas Day, December 25, we are enjoying ten days in New England, first a few days in Boston, and then a week in Portland, Maine with Dana’s family. We’ve rented a large sunny attic apartment in a 19th century house in the town of Westbrook, visiting with friends and family, seeing art, sending out holiday cards, planning trips, finishing up various work projects, and shaping this selection of words and pictures about the year ending soon, and the future ahead. 

We want to keep in touch! We always apprecicate hearing from friends near and far, and hope that you will share your news, reflections, and aspirations… we will be travelling a lot more, and keeping connected means its more likely our paths will cross.

Please write and tell us how YOU are doing since we last connected!

(The easiest way: scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment!)

A Quick Take of Some 2022 Highlights

05/06/22 Happy 100th Birthday Nancy Friis-Hansen!!! (Portland, Maine) - with Dana and sister Sandy

…a few 2022 bullet points:

  • We are re-wiring, not retiring!  As you may know, last December Dana announced that 2022 will be his last year as GRAM CEO, and in February he will turn to independent curating, writing, and cultural projects, including international exchanges. An extended visit to Japan where we lived 1990-1995 is the first step. Stay Tuned!

  • We are re-booting Tiny World Tours!  Mark has been busy “building back better,” expanding the offerings of Tiny World Tours after the slowdown (and many canceled tours) forced by the pandemic. This past year he lead cultural trips to Idlewild, Michigan in June, and to Mexico in November, as well as reconnaissance journeys and planning for 2023 tours to Japan, Bhutan and Nepal, and Italy.

  • We are celebrating more time with family! We have been lucky to spend more time with our families this year, gathering in Texas with Mark’s family, and enjoying time with Dana’s family in Maine, and discovering Mark’s relatives in southern Italy.

  • We are moving! We sold and moved out of our River House city view penthouse condo RH3301 in the fall, and moved our belongings back to the downtown Austin condo that we have owned for decades. During the weeks around New Years, we’ll unpack more boxes and continue to get settled, and make this our “headquarters.”

  • We want to keep in touch! We always apprecicate hearing from family and friends near and far, and hope that you will share your news, reflections, and aspirations… we will be traveling a lot more in 2023. Keeping connected makes it more likely for our paths to cross!

2022 has been a big year for our families!

11/24/22 Mark’s Immediate Family celebrating Thanksgiving at The Plant at Kyle (all wearing shirts custom-made in Bhutan) (top l to r- Mark, Ellen, Ying Chao) (bottom l to r- Jim, Mary, Tom, Andrew, Alex, Dana)

A few of our family highlights…

We had several wonderful trips to Maine to be with Dana’s family. The highlight was the 100th birthday of Nancy Friis-Hansen on May 7, celebrated with a lively party, and reported in the evening news. We returned in the fall to be together after Nancy took a fall and was in rehabilitation, and again in December, when Nancy moved to a new apartment in Scarborough Terrace the assisted-living facility where she’s lived since 2015. Dana’s sister Sandy Halverson and her husband Ted live in Falmouth, and in the summer enjoy spending time on their boat “Hydrotherapy”in Casco Bay, and enjoying time with a blended family of grandchildren. This year we enjoyed spring and fall visits to the island cottage we share with Sandy and cousins Mark and Scott Johnston.

Mark has been spending more time with family in Texas, and Dana visits whenever possible. His father Tom and partner Mary Kevorkian enjoy life in independent living at Austin’s Westminster Manor. Mary maintains a lively travel calendar, which this year included a river cruise focused on the Oberammergau Passion Play, and to visit friends and relatives in California and Michigan. Mark’s sister Ellen lives in Berkeley, California, and enjoys running and hiking outdoors, and was a co-founder of the Pinkathon San Francisco fundraiser for breast cancer research. Brother Jim and his wife Ying-Chao live in San Antonio, and enjoy family trips with their two sons Alex and Andrew, who are now both engineering students at Rice University in Houston. .

Italy’s population may soon be growing by 53 descendants of Mark’s Italian Great Grandmother! In September of 2020 Mark started working with an Italian law firm to gain Italian citizenship for himself and 52 of his relatives through his great grandmother, Anna Felice Curcio Cozza (1859-1925). Despite moving from Italy to Chicago in 1887, Anna never renounced her Italian citizenship, so her descendants including Mark can claim Italian citizenship. Mark has been gathering documentation to prove his family’s lineage to an Italian judge, and thinks that this court case will succeed in 2023!

We’ve been researching and documenting our genealogy, with some amazing discoveries! In October, Mark journeyed to the iconic Southern-Italian hill towns of his ancestors, Sanza and Rovito, to work with professional genealogists—and meet many wonderful living relatives. It has been meaningful to make connections across the ocean and across generations. We also hired the Maine Historical Society to research Dana’s family relationship to American Impressionist painter Walter Griffin (1861-1935). We found out that Walter Griffin was the brother-in-law of Dana’s great-granduncle. These projects have inspired us to explore future relations, such as Dana’s paternal family in Denmark. Our genealogical discoveries, some going back 7 generations, have been entered into the ancestry.com website. Please ask Mark if you’d like to know more!

Share your best family memories of the year…

Our Lives

We were honored at the annual “Live Artfully” fundraising event at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

Our lives in 2022 were shaped by planning for a wide range of transitions ahead in 2023, as well as responding to unexpected opportunities and challenges that came our way. For example, Dana worked closely with the GRAM Board, senior staff, and an executive coach to create a smooth and intentional transfer of responsibilities before, during, and after the search for a new Director and CEO (expected to be hired this spring.). Although we “staged,” photographed, marketed, and held open houses for our Grand Rapids penthouse condo, it took longer than we expected to get a solid offer. In the end we made the sale to enthusiasts of modern architecture (who even agreed to let us stay for two months in order to pack and move our belongings). After considerable downsizing, two trucks moved most of our possessions to Austin. Dana is living in a Grand Rapids rental apartment until he departs in early February. He’ll pack up remaining possessions and drive our car “home” to Austin.

We are downsizing! The COVID years prompted us to prioritize experiences over ownership, to reduce our footprint, and share books, art, and furnishings we’ve enjoyed so they have a wider impact on others. In the fall, after an extensive process of cataloging and appraisal, we donated over 1,500 international art books to the Kendall College of Art Library. Each volume will have a special book plate designed by our artist and friend, Doug Fitch. In December we donated over 25 works of art to the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and have set aside others as future promised gifts.

The highlight of our year—and perhaps our lives—was to be surrounded by so many friends and family (and viewers online) at GRAM’s 2022 Live Artfully fundraising event celebrating our community contributions. We were thrilled by the special performances by Ritsu Katsumata performing original compositions for electric violin on the grand staircase, a surprise dance spectacle during dinner by the whole Grand Rapids Ballet company, and singer/songwriter Ralston Bowles opening the presentations. We were touched by commentary and congratulations by artists, fellow travelers, board members, and local leaders. To catch the spirit, check out this gallery of photographs, and enjoy a short, playful video that was debuted that evening.

We also enjoyed certain daily or seasonal routines that had been disrupted by the pandemic—or that we came to appreciate during lockdown. For example, when the exercise room was closed, we pivoted to a workout routine focused on climbing the 33 stair flights of our condo building, enjoying the solitude and time to listen to podcasts. We also continued our weekend walks with friends at local parks and along the lakeshore, and started entertaining more frequently at our condo, especially for out of town visitors intrigued to see Grand Rapids through our eyes.

How’s life where you are?

Our Work

05/19/22 Dana and Librarian Ben Boss cataloging 1,500 book donation to Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD)

While many think (and worry) about “work/life balance,” we prefer to instead think about the contiuum between vocation and avocation, and how we can make the world a better place by blending what we do for a living and how we choose to live. Dana has spent over two decades as an art museum director, with a special focus on making arts institutions more community focused, and the art they show more approachable, socially relevant, and thought-provoking. GRAM’s mission is to “connect people through art, creativity, and design.

Mark has built upon his lifelong love of bringing people together in unique places and global cultural exploration to build two companies, The Plant at Kyle and Tiny World Tours. Focusing on landmark building designed by Lake|Flato Architects, our mission is to steward The Plant at Kyle and serve as a cultural and educational amenity that expands awareness and appreciation of architecture and nature through content, conversations, celebrations, and retreats. Tiny World Tours, with a vision to bring people together in meaningful ways, follows its mission to to steward our planet’s natural and cultural ecosystems via a platform for co-creating and sharing stories, enabling unique experiences, and engendering cherished relationships.

2022 will be Dana’s last full year as Director/CEO of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM). Late in 2021, the Museum’s board unanimously approved a five-year Strategic Plan, which charts the institutional path through 2026. GRAM organized and travelled the major exhibition, Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue which brought together the work of these important and influential photographers who have been exploring and addressing race, class, and representation grounded in African American experience. Currently on view at the Seattle Art Museum, and traveling to The Getty Center in the spring, the project is accompanied by a scholarly illustrated catalogue. Our major summer exhibition celebrated the rich past, present and extension of American Impressionism, In A New Light, comprised of 130 works drawn from the Bank of America Collection. And now for something completely different, The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited is a dynamic, immersive experience surveying the broad range of Henson’s groundbreaking work for film and television through historic objects and film clips—catch it before it closed on January 15! Looking ahead, Dana’s final project at GRAM is to coordinate, install, and launch Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder, a riveting exhibition of 145 photographs that capture the full range of human experience, which travels from the Portland Museum of Art, Maine and opens February 11. Join us opening weekend!

Two Michigan Artist Series were presented, first-time museum exhibitions for talented creatives in our state. An Interwoven Legacies: Black Ash Basketry of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish presented both traditional basket forms and contemporary approaches to woven sculpture, including many works created during and in response to the COVID pandemic. Carole Harris: Bright Moments showcased the Detroit-based artist’s journey from traditional quilt making to innovative free form works of textile art. and works selected from the exhibition were purchased for the collection. To celebrate a transformative gift of over 65 modern art objects to GRAM’s collection, An Extraordinary Legacy celebrated Miner S. and Mary Ann Keeler and they're the civic and cultural leadership in our city.

At The Plant at Kyle, 2022 was a year for large investment in lighting and electrical upgrades. The results are very satisfying. There are a few before and after in this blog. Lake|Flato architects held their annual 150-person company retreat there in October (click here to view short slide show).

For Tiny World Tours, 2022 was a year for multiple Michigan tours (Detroit and Idlewild) and our first post-pandemic international Tiny World Tour (Mexico City and Interior Mexico - including the surrealist Las Pozas garden in Xilitla).

What are you working on these days?

Expanding Horizons

7/17/22 Banff National Park

During the pandemic while home-bound, we worked on a number of major data-intensive projects including scanning & organizing our digital records (e.g. documents, audio, photos & videos), our Bhutanese commissioned textiles, and our 1,500 KCAD book collection donation. A number of young friends helped us all along the way, including Jacob Starner (20). When Jacob told us that he would be working this summer as an outdoor hiking / camping guide, we signed up for one of his guided experiences in Glacier National Park, two-nights, three-days back country camping. We also visited Banff National Park in Canada on our own. Our COVID-time Grand Rapids stair-walking routine paid off because we were able to participate in some very challenging full-day hikes, and gave us a deeper appreciation of wilderness adventure travel. As international semi-nomads, our navigation and physical endurance skills are an important frontier for us to continue challenging in the years ahead.

Dana’s largest “expanding horizon” will be shaping his time and projects after having worked at a “regular job” as an art museum director and curator for over three decades. He will certainly play a larger role in planning, leading, and shaping Tiny World Tours trips as well as experiences at The Plant at Kyle. He aims to build on past work as a curator and his free lance work in Japan. He is already thinking about opportunities for international collaborations and exchanges to create unique content, experiences, and cross-disciplinary thinking, focused on art and design.  “Curating, writing, and cultural projects” will be the tag line on his business card, and he will spend the next year further defining how and what those realms. If anyone has any ideas, please reach out!

Another way that we have been expanding our horizons and challenging ourselves is by intensively refreshing our knowledge of the Japanese language including Mark’sroutine of memorizing the Japanese 2000+ kanji characters. Dana is refreshing basic vocabulary, grammar and basic kanji. We find podcasts, YouTube videos, the Anki app for flashcards to be especially helpful, as well as watching Japanese films and tv shows.

How have you expanded your horizons?

Hopes

10/16/22 Venice Biennale

Looking Ahead…

We know already that 2023 will be like no other year! Our move will be complete, Dana will step away from his museum career, and there is already lots of personal, family, and professional travel booked! The COVID pandemic limited our international travel since 2019, so our spring is focused on Asia, especially Japan, with time to re-connect with colleagues and do reconnaissance. Tiny World Tours will present Walking Mexico in February, Japan Through Artist’s Eyes in March, Walking Japan: Past, Present, Future in April, and Kcymaerxthaere Monuments in Bhutan and Nepal with Eames Demetrious in May, Idlewild, Michigan in June,…. and have just announced a 10-day Walking Japan tour for next November.

We hope to remain connected to all our friends in Michigan! We’re planning a visit in June, and will be offering a Tiny World Tour to Idlewild, and perhaps other sites. We’d love to welcome you in Austin when we are there, or better yet, plan rendezvous on the road.

Beyond that, we have numerous ongoing projects to tend. Mark will continue his pursuit of Italian citizenship for himself and his relatives, currently expected before the end of 2023. If you’re interested in details about Mark’s Italian citizenship journey, please let Mark know! We will continue to gift more books and artworks in institutions around the country. As we steward The Plant at Kyle, we are considering how we might manage it for greater impact and long-term sustainability.

We plan to spend more time with family in Maine this summer and fall, as well as at Christmas. We will be in and out of Austin throughout the year, but know we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving with family at The Plant at Kyle.

As part of Mark’s efforts to build stronger ties with his family’s Italian heritage, he is planning a Cozza-focused tour October 7-14 for family members in the U.S. to visit the Italian ancestral hill towns and meet their relatives. If you’re one of Mark’s Italian-American relatives, please ask him for details.

And if that’s not enough… we hope to spend more time reading, writing postcards, and appreciating all the blessings in our lives.

What are your hopes for the coming year?

Other Memorable Moments from 2022

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

NEW Mailing address: 2028 E Ben White Blvd #240-8188, Austin, Texas 78741-6931, USA

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

If you are interested to see what we published on our recent past year end blogs, please check the links below:

Mark & Dana’s 2021 Year End Blog (December 2021)

Mark & Dana’s 2020 Year End Blog (December 2020)

Mark and Dana’s COVID Pandemic Reach-Out Blog (April 2020)

WE LOVE YOU!!

11 Comments

2021 Year End Blog

8 Comments

2021 Year End Blog

( image above) 11 October 2021 Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR

This personal blog page by is intended as an efficient way to keep in touch and share news with our family, friends, and extended acquaintances. While it’s not quite as personal as a hand written letter or postcard, we want to convey our hope to keep connected to you, with a mutual awareness of our experiences, commonalities and differences, hopes and aspirations.

Mark and Dana December, 2021

Please help us to stay connected with you!

4/25/21 Aman Park, Grand Rapids, MI you may recall a similar COVID-virus-reminiscent photo that we posted last year)

Dear Family & Friends,

1/2/21, biking down Haleakala Crater Maui, Hawaii

What another long, strange year it’s been! We hope that you and your loved ones have been keeping healthy, safe, and finding creative ways to survive, perchance to thrive, in these uncertain times!

We are still both safe, healthy and keeping quite busy (sometimes distracting ourselves as a break from our normal life pressures and obligations). Last year we posted a a 2020 year-end blog sharing then-news, photos, and inviting you to respond and share news with us. We loved your responses and we hope that you enjoyed viewing our blog and the responses that others posted there. We hope that you’ll respond again to this 2021 version! Please leave comments below (scroll ALL the way down) and/or communicate with us privately via mail / email, or schedule a phone / live video catch up call with us! Besides hearing good news and milestones, we also hope to hear when people in our sphere have fallen ill, have passed away, or have suffered a loss or setback.

Please write and tell us how YOU are doing since we last connected!

(The easiest way: scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment!)

A Quick Take on Our 2021

3/28/21 Mark & Dana at Seven Magic Mountains by Ugo Rondinone outside Las Vegas, NV

…a few 2021 bullet points:

  • We’ve avoided COVID infections (so far, knock on wood), and have received our third-dose booster shots. We feel very fortunate not to have had close friends or family members die of COVID or COVID-related complications since the pandemic started.

  • This year Dana turned 60, Mark turned 63, and our parents (Nancy, Tom, and Mary) are doing well in their 90’s.

  • Dana announced he will step away from his leadership role at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in January 2023. Here is a link for the full story.

  • The Plant at Kyle received a significant legacy award from the Texas Society of Architects/AIA.

Family

10/9/21 Mark’s Family at The Plant at Kyle’s Award Ceremony with local Mariachi Band

How’s YOUR family doing?

As the pandemic challenges continue, our family ties remain strong nonetheless. Dana’s sister Sandy, brother-in-law Ted, and their family enjoy life in Portland, Maine, and nearby, our stepmother Nancy Friis-Hansen, is a lively 99-year old, engaged in Red Sox baseball, Patriots Football, and volunteer activities within her retirement community. In July we had a wonderful visit with them, and enjoyed quiet time at our shared family summer cottage on Little Diamond Island in Casco Bay, and have returned for a week at year-end.

Texas, especially Austin, remains a key part of our lives, and we are equally well-connected to Mark’s family there, with whom we spent time at Thanksgiving. Mark’s father Tom and partner Mary are both in their 90’s and live in a lovely independent living facility in Austin, TX. They maintain a positive outlook despite being forced to set aside their busy travel schedule, social gatherings, concerts, and in-person lifelong learning programs. We had a very nice outdoor Thanksgiving dinner Tom, Mary, Mark’s sister Ellen, brother Jim, sister-in-law Ying-Chao, and nephews Alex (19) and Andrew (17). Alex started attending Rice University in September, 2020. Andrew was just accepted at Rice and will join Alex there next fall. They are both interested in engineering.

Mark’s maternal-side family celebrates Italian heritage with the last name of “Cozza” originating from small towns in the Southern Italian regions of Campagna and Calabria. Current Italian law supports the case that American-born Cozza descendants are Italian dual citizens since birth. Mark is leading the effort to petition the Italian government for recognition of Cozza family dual Italian citizenship (which also comes with European Union rights and privileges) on behalf of about fifty Cozza descendants. This petition process involves a lot of coordination and collection of vital records to prove descent for each petitioner. It is expected to take about two or three years and is not 100% certain, so please wish us all luck!

Mark’s Uncle Chuck Cozza died at age 75 in Colorado after a decades-long struggle with a traumatic brain injury. Many Cozza family members gathered outdoors in Denver in July 2021 to celebrate Chuck’s life.

Our Lives

7/10/21 Casco Bay, Maine

How’s life where you are?

Grand Rapids continues to be a wonderful home for us. We have adapted to “Life during COVID” and its continual changes, including “working from home,” “returning to the office” and then a mixed model when the virus flared up again. As very social people, we developed ways to see our friends by entertaining outdoors, in a garage, or indoors with socially distanced cocktail tables placed around our condo. Our food experiences continued to widen; we joined the local Blandford Farm CSA which provided a varied allotment from late spring through early fall, and Dana learned to cook vegetables new to him, and developed soups from the leftovers.

Exercise helped keep us sane. We especially enjoy our 2021 local nature walks in the amazing city, county, and state parks, often joined by a mixed group of friends, of which Kayem Dunn and Alexander Stoffan were regulars. in 2021 we logged over 350 miles (according to Mark’s AllTrails app,) which doesn’t include our daily indoor workout routine down and up 34 flights of stairs at our high-rise residence.

A key part of our pandemic time has been reflecting on what is important to us in life now. Last year we started to downsize our possessions, reduce our footprint, and focus more on meaningful experiences and community impact. With an aim to find a smaller condo in this building, we put our unusual River House penthouse loft on the real estate market over a year ago, but a buyer excited about our vision has not yet come along…so if you are curious, we invite you to take a look at our condo’s info page, with the realtor’s link at the bottom.

In the meantime, we have logged our book collection and will donate most of them to the local Kendall College of Art Library, while others will go to The Asia Society. We’ve also been reducing our files, archives, and photographs, often through scanning and recycling...with mixed feelings about letting go.

Expanding Horizons

3/27/21 Dana and Mark’s family visiting Double Negative by Michael Heizer outside of Las Vegas, NV

How have you expanded your horizons?

Like many others, this past year we watched a lot of television, movies, YouTube learning videos, and other streaming content… We did read books, both in hardcopy and on iPad, and scheduled a good share of zoom calls with friends. Topics that continue to interest us are contemporary art, culture, science (including astrophysics), languages, food, and travel, Mark rejoined the board of visitors at the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas, operated by the University of Texas at Austin.

We also cautiously re-incorporated travel back in our lives, to see friends and family, to experience new places, and re-ignite memories and connections to destinations we’ve frequented in the past. We spent the holidays last year in Hawaii, with time on Oahu and Maui, hiking, biking, swimming, and exploring the history, architecture, and art of the islands. In February we were invited to join Dana’s Carleton friend Karen and her husband Scott for a sail on their catamaran in the Florida Keys, and met up with Mark’s family in Las Vegas later in the spring, spending more time in the desert than on the strip, topped off by a fun evening at Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart immersive theatre experience.

In early May we took a wonderful southern road trip to celebrate Dana’s Birthday (which turned out to be a surprise celebration weekend with friends from college days, and our time in Texas, and Michigan.) Highlights included Louisville (Speed Art Museum, 21C Museum Hotel), Nashville (Frist Art Museum, Civil Rights walking tour, National Museum of African American Music, Birmingham Alabama Civil Rights sites (including Forth Avenue Historic District, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church), Montgomery (the amazing Memorial and Museum of the Equal Justice Initiative), The Rural Studio in Hale County, Alabama, Selma, Muscle Shoals recording studios, and Memphis (Natl Civil Rights Museum).

In the summer we spent time on the east coast visiting friends, family, civil rights and art destinations from Washington D.C. to Maine, and in the fall we were road-tripping again from Austin to GR with stops in Oklahoma City (First Americans Museum) and Tulsa (Greenwood Rising), Bentonville, (Crystal Bridges Art Museum) St. Louis (St. Louis Art Museum, Cahokia Mounds), and Bloomington, IN (Eskenazi Museum of Art).

Work

5/6/21 Promise, Witness, Remembrance exhibition focused on the life of Breonna Taylor at the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY

What are you working on these days?

Our work continues to give us great fulfillment. Recently Dana announced that 2022 would be his last year as Director/CEO of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM). He will pivot his career to other passions, working with artists on exhibitions and international exchanges, as well as helping lead cultural tours with Mark through our company, Tiny World Tours. After ten years at the helm of GRAM, this was a difficult personal decision. He loves GRAM and West Michigan and leading a dynamic institution has been incredibly fulfilling. He has immense gratitude for the many friends, partner organizations, collaborators, and GRAM supporters who have played an essential role in the many accomplishments achieved together since starting in July 2011.

Over the course of the year GRAM gradually increased its exhibitions, programming, public hours, events, and facilities rentals, as well as started a variety of learning initiatives. A Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Task Force comprised of staff members across all levels and departments was initiated to research and implement staff trainings. So far, sessions have been held with Overcoming Racism, Disability Advocates of Kent County, and Native American leader Cecelia Lapointe. In the spring, a group of GRAM department heads and program managers took a field trip to meet with staff at the Speed Art Museum who organized the exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance focused on Breonna Taylor (born in Grand Rapids and killed in Louisville) and the protests that followed. Developed with the guidance of Taylor’s family, a Steering Committee of Louisville community members, and a National Advisory Panel, it provides a model for future GRAM practices. An intensive Strategic Planning process for 2022-2026 spanned the past year, with participants including local residents, members, Board, and staff committees shaped the Objectives and initiatives.

The timing of Dana’s announcement was important, allowing for a twelve-month transition process. The Museum can continue to build momentum, and Dana is especially excited about the powerful exhibitions in the coming season and new acquisitions on the way. GRAM will be intensifying our engagement with community conversations and co-created programming. In the realm of creative learning, many wonderful discoveries are ahead. The Board has just voted to move forward on a new five-year Strategic Plan focusing outward to expand and diversify GRAM’s impact and engagement.

Under Tiny World Tours (TWT), Mark has had to cancel many planned 2022 international tours. During 2021 TWT led successful “drive your own car” COVID-aware black culture and history tours to Idlewild, MI and Memphis, TN, and intends to repeat these and co-create other black culture and history tours. Tiny World Treasures (a project of Tiny World Tours) successfully commissioned and sold online items from traditional pattern textiles from Bhutan, and Gee’s Bend Alabama quilted potholders. The TWT store will probably close in early 2022 due to the challenges of maintaining product inventory and fulfilling individual orders while traveling (if you have any ideas that may help, please share!).

The Plant at Kyle, the historic Lake|Flato Architects-designed landmark property we own in the Texas Hill Country, is a key part of our life’s activities. This year, despite COVID, our wonderful co-hosts/collaborators/next door neighbors Martha and Jamie Kinscherff coordinated multiple significant maintenance projects there including a fresh coat of paint on the steel structures and inside the pool that makes the place sparkle. The Plant is an ideal “distancing” destination with thoughtful COVID protocols in place. Although many guests were unexpectedly forced to cancel or downsize their planned events such as weddings, the canceled calendar dates rebooked quickly. Our beloved Rude Mechs collective theatre company continues to actively run their Rude Mechs Artist Residency at The Plant. Dana and I look forward to continuing our stewardship of this inspiring place as we enter the new decade.

Hopes

10/3/21 Mark traversing Hueco Tanks State Park, Texas

What are your hopes for next year?

As we finalize this blog on December 22, we are enjoying ten days in New England, first in Boston, and then Portland, Maine. We’re visiting with friends and family, seeing art, architecture, and historical sites, and relaxing by reading and writing. At the end of the week, we had hoped to spend ten days in Italy, but the ominous Omicron variant has prompted us to cancel that trip, as well as future 2022 travel to Mexico and Japan. Like many others, we are tired of the way COVID controls our lives but know this is the prudent thing to do. With our experiences in 2020 and 2021, we know we can live engaged and fulfilling lives under increased safety protocols and have already started to adjust our aspirations of returning to international travel to more local pleasures, car trips, and “hunkering down.”

We aspire to be better stewards of things we value: relationships, possessions, resources, environment, time, attention, energy, truth, knowledge, and wisdom.

Although we’ll hate to move out of it, we hope to sell our downtown Grand Rapids condo in 2022 as part of our gradual life downsizing plan.

We hope to be able to lead Tiny World Tours in 2022 that can go forward with COVID-aware precautions. Black and Indigenous History tours are a growing interest.

Mark is enjoying learning how to be a drone pilot, taking 360° photos, and listening to foreign language podcasts in Italian, German, and Japanese.

We envision a semi-nomadic future spending time in Japan, the Americas, Europe, and other destinations, flying Mark’s drone, and taking 360° photos. We hope to spend more time with you in person!

We envision participating in an ever-increasingly collaborative, agreeably interdependent and connected global community. We hope that medical experts are heeded, and politics are minimized to decrease death and suffering as the global COVID threat quickly subsides in the year ahead.

Other Memorable Moments from 2021

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

Mailing address: 335 Bridge St NW, Unit #3301, Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW AND/OR COMMUNICATE WITH US PRIVATELY VIA MAIL / EMAIL, OR SCHEDULE A PHONE / LIVE VIDEO CATCH-UP CALL WITH US!

You are receiving this because you are on Mark and Dana’s “Friends and Family” mailing list. We also maintain mailing lists for Tiny World Tours and The Plant at Kyle. If you’d like to get on or off any of these mailing lists, or have any special interests or requests, please let Mark know.

WE LOVE YOU!!

PS - There is a small assortment of 2021 videos below that we hope you may find interesting.

2021 Videos

2021_05_09 National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, AL

2021_06_13 McDonald Observatory Drone Test

2021_06_17 Enchanted Rock (Texas) Drone Test Flight

2021_06_23 Dana and Sandra Gaddy birthday at Ritsu and Stafford’s home in Grand Rapids, MI

2021_09_18 Mark’s 63 birthday in Central Park, NYC

2021_10_01 Harlan Smith Telescope

2021_10_01 Hobby Eberle Telescope

2021_10_02 Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas

2021_10_09 Architectural Award Celebration at The Plant at Kyle

2021_10_31 Grand Rapids Condo For Sale

8 Comments

Mark and Dana's 2020 Year End Blog

22 Comments

Mark and Dana's 2020 Year End Blog

HI, How are YOU holding up??

Dear Friends,

06/29/20 Dana and Mark kayaking Pictured Rocks (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula)

06/29/20 Dana and Mark kayaking Pictured Rocks (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula)

What a long, strange year it’s been! We hope that you and your loved ones have been keeping healthy, safe, and finding creative ways to survive, perchance to thrive, in these uncertain times! After over seven months since the COVID pandemic and closures started, through protests against institutionalized racism, the elections, and recent spikes in the spread of the virus, we remain optimistic about the future, and more reflective about what is important.

We are still both safe, healthy and keeping quite busy. Last April we created a catch-up postcard and a personal COVID Update blog to share news of our activities during this unprecedented moment, as well as to invite you to share news about yourselves, offer thoughts and insights, and provide photos, links, writings, and creations which might be relevant. We hope you’ll participate in this 2020 Year End version and leave comments below and/or communicate with us privately via mail / email, or schedule a phone / live video catch up call with us!

How’s YOUR family doing?

Despite the roller coaster ride of the past year, our family ties remain strong. Dana’s sister Sandy, brother-in-law Ted, and their family enjoy life in Portland, Maine, and nearby, our stepmother Nancy Friis-Hansen, is lively, engaged in Red Sox baseball, Patriots Football, current events, and volunteer activities within her retirement community. In August and September we carefully made two trips to visit them, and enjoy quiet time at our 100+ year-old shared family summer cottage on Little Diamond Island in Casco Bay. Although because of the recent spike, we’ve canceled plans to head Downeast at Christmas, we talk regularly by phone.

08/09/20 Mark, Dana, Sandra, and Captain Ted sailing in Casco Bay, Maine

08/09/20 Mark, Dana, Sandra, and Captain Ted sailing in Casco Bay, Maine

Texas, especially Austin, remains a key part of our lives, and we are equally well-connected to Mark’s family there, with whom we spent time at Thanksgiving. Mark’s father Tom and partner Mary are both in their 90’s and live in a lovely independent living facility in Austin, TX. They maintain a positive outlook despite being forced to set aside their busy travel schedule, social gatherings, concerts, and in-person lifelong learning programs. We had a very nice outdoor Thanksgiving visit observing safe distancing protocols with Tom, Mary, Mark’s brother Jim, sister-in-law Ying-Chao, and nephews Alex and Andrew. Unfortunately, Mark’s sister Ellen, based in Berkeley, California, was understandably unable to attend because of COVID concerns.

11/26/20 The Plant at Kyle near Austin,TX

11/26/20 The Plant at Kyle near Austin,TX

Mark’s maternal-side family celebrates Italian heritage with the last name of “Cozza”. Current Italian law supports the case that American-born Cozza descendants are Italian dual citizens since birth. Mark is leading the effort to petition the Italian government for recognition of Cozza dual Italian citizenship (which also comes with European Union rights and privileges) on behalf of about fifty Cozza descendants. This petition process involves a lot of coordination and collection of vital records to prove descent for each petitioner. It is expected to take about two or three years and is not 100% certain, so please wish us all luck!

07/15/17 Cozza Family Reunion in Chicago

07/15/17 Cozza Family Reunion in Chicago

How’s life in your hometown…or wherever you may be?

In spite the health, political, justice, and environmental challenges which emerged this year, Grand Rapids continues to be a wonderful home for us. We ended 2019 with Christmas in Maine and New Years week in Europe: Roma, Napoli, and London. During January and February 2020, work took Dana to Atlanta for the Art Museum Directors meeting and to Florida to meet with donors. Mark led two tours within Mexico before heading to Austin for the SXSW conference…which was unexpectedly cancelled. He hurriedly made it home to Grand Rapids before major shut downs. Travel—a key part of our joy in life—stopped. Trips to Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands were postponed…indefinitely.

We expected being stuck at home would be much harder to endure... We soon settled into basic routines, including new approaches to exercise due to the closure of our workout room (stair climbing each morning, and walking in local parks in the evenings), more cooking (lots of soups for Dana, inventing new ice cream flavors for Mark), journaling for self-reflection and goal setting, and staying connected through video calls with friends and family around the world. We realize we have much to be grateful for, and to be more flexible with our expectations. While regulations have been reduced, we still continue many of these good habits.

A key part of our pandemic time has been reflecting on what is important to us in life now. Looking ahead, we've decided to downsize our possessions, reduce our footprint, and focus more on meaningful experiences and community impact. The challenges—and opportunities—brought by COVID-19 have inspired us to reflect on how we live, what is important, and what to let go. As part of that process, in October we put our River House penthouse condo on the real estate market. We have no plans to leave Grand Rapids or GRAM, and hope to lease back our unit for a while, or find a smaller condo in this building or elsewhere in downtown GR. And if you are curious, we invite you to take a look at our condo’s info page, with the realtor’s link at the bottom.

How is your work working these days?

Dana’s role as Director/CEO of the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) changed considerably with the pandemic, protests, and economic shifts. Working mostly from home, his leadership focus shifted to crisis management and moving the institution and its staff into new modes in response to regulations, public safety, and deeply reduced budgets. The “GRAM from Home” website was set up to provide access to virtual tours, artist interviews, behind-the-scenes experiences, and hands-on artmaking to keep our community engaged and entertained.

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, May 30 was a very confounding, and painful day for our country, our city, and for GRAM. What started in the early evening as a peaceful silent protest bringing together people of different backgrounds to address racial injustice and inequity in American society ignited into violence, chaos, and destruction. Across the night, protesters attacked GRAM and many other downtown buildings, shattering windows, smashing furniture, and defacing buildings with graffiti. Thankfully, at no time was the Museum ever entered from outside. Dana spent a harrowing “night at the museum,” in the security booth, watching live TV news streams and security video feeds and taking periodic tours to check the damage. The next morning volunteers came to help clean up the glass, board up the windows, and soon artists were painting dramatic murals with messages of social justice.

These experiences are re-shaping how museums serve our audiences. While art alone can’t fight systemic racism, we acknowledge that museums have long privileged white Western narratives while leaving other histories untold. We have an obligation to do better and have made a commitment to listening, and will continue to take action through diversifying GRAM’s permanent collection, exhibitions, and future programming.

05/31/20 Smashed front windows at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

05/31/20 Smashed front windows at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

As for Mark’s work, Tiny World Tours (TWT) started in 2015, continues to make the world feel smaller by bringing people together in meaningful ways in dramatic places around the world. By opening doors to an inside track of special people, places, opportunities and transformative ideas, he creates understanding, appreciation, and community. TWT led two successful tours within Mexico in February before international travel shut down, one tour focused on the lively art scene of Mexico City, and a second tour was self-descriptively entitled “Walking Mexico: Surrealist Garden Los Pozas.” In the summer and fall, Mark “pivoted” the business model by creating and leading COVID-aware self-driving tours to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Looking ahead, he has initiated research to develop future TWT tours within the U.S. around themes including African American history and culture, such as the summer colony at Idlewild, MI, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Gee’s Bend quilt makers, Muscle Shoals and Sun Records studios, and more. This fall, Mark launched a Tiny World Treasures “Marketplace,” web page e-commerce store to showcase and sell unique global cultural goods, including face masks, napkins, and custom clothing made traditional Bhutanese textile designs and more.

The Plant at Kyle, the historic Lake|Flato Architects-designed landmark property we own in the Texas Hill Country, is a key part of our life’s activities. This year, despite COVID, our wonderful co-hosts/collaborators/next door neighbors Martha and Jamie Kinscherff coordinated multiple significant maintenance projects there including a fresh coat of paint on the steel structures and inside the pool that makes the place sparkle. The Plant is an ideal “distancing” destination with thoughtful COVID protocols in place. Although many guests were unexpectedly forced to cancel or downsize their planned events such as weddings, the canceled calendar dates rebooked quickly. Our beloved Rude Mechs collective theatre company continues to actively run their Rude Mechs Artist Residency at The Plant. Dana and I look forward to continuing our stewardship of this inspiring place as we enter the new decade.

07/11/20 TPAK Butterfly Garden

07/11/20 TPAK Butterfly Garden

What are your hopes for next year?

We envision participating in an ever-increasingly collaborative, agreeably interdependent and connected global community. We hope that medical experts are heeded and politics are minimized to decrease death and suffering as the global COVID threat quickly subsides in the year ahead.

In case you don’t have it handy, here’s our contact info:

Mark Holzbach & Dana Friis-Hansen

Mailing address: 335 Bridge St NW, Unit #3301, Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Mark’s personal email: mholzbach@alum.mit.edu

Dana’s personal email: danafh@gmail.com

Mark’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-689-6777

Dana’s personal cell for voice & text: 512-653-8188

Please leave comments below and/or communicate with us privately via mail / email, or schedule a phone / live video catch-up call with us!

WE LOVE YOU!!

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Version 2020-12-13-6:30 PM DFH

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Mark and Dana's Pandemic Reach Out Project

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Mark and Dana's Pandemic Reach Out Project

We created this web page as as news update about our activities during this unprecedented and global historic moment, offer a few thoughts, photos, links, and writings that we hope you might find interesting and helpful, and to stimulate a renewed lifelong-learning dialog connecting you back to us.

55 Comments