FLINT, MI — After showing their creativity at Greater Flint Arts Council's ArtWalk and in galleries around the country, Genesee County artists Candice Stewart and Cinthia Montague are opening an alternative art space to showcase the creative process of other area artists.

On Friday, Jan. 17, Stewart and Montague will host the first of what they plan to be a monthly event at Unusual Operation Operation, located at 605 Stone St. in Carriagetown.

After honing their skills at Clio High School and in Mott Community College's fine arts program, the pair took their first stab at public art with The Flower Tour, a project they began in 2012.

For The Flower Tour, they would use sheets of colored tissue paper to make hats that look like flowers, paint their faces and dance during the 2nd Friday ArtWalk events in downtown Flint. They would wear the hats, paint their faces, and dance to music played by area musicians and marching bands, while handing out hats to passersby.

"We were going to make an installation out of them. We usually like to do something different," said Montague, 23. "We went out dancing in them once, and people saw us wearing them, and asked us where we got them."

"Surprisingly, it does a lot," said Stewart, 22. "Some people just like to stand and watch, but when you start dancing, people want to join. The flower hats, there's some type of magic to them."

After The Flower Tour caught on in Flint, the duo took it, and other projects, around the country: to the Franklin Street Works gallery in Connecticut, Metropolitan Exchange gallery in Brooklyn, and weeks ago, they arrived back from an installation project in Williamsport, Penn..

This month, they plan to open Unusual Operation Operation. The venue is an extra room inside of the Flint Public Art Project's residency house, which they use to house artists who come to Flint from out of town. The Flint Public Art Project allowed them to use the room, which Stewart describes as "quite spacious," based on a relationship they built with the organization from working with other projects.

The Flint Public Art Project isn't working directly with Stewart and Montague on the projects — it's only providing the space.

"We wanted to take it over, and they were all for it," Stewart said.

Stewart and Montague plan to use Unusual Operation Operation as an alternative art space that will showcase installation art, and focus on the process that that artists use to arrive at their final creations.

"Our goal for this is to show the beauty of the process in the work artists do that people don't see," Stewart said. "There's a lot of work that people do that goes into the final product."

For the opening night on Friday, Jan. 17, Stewart and Montague will showcase their own project first to raise awareness for the night and give other artists the space. The show, titled BLACKANDLINE, will be making its Flint debut that night after previously being shown in Pennsylvania.

For the installation, they painted large cardboard tubes white and drilled holes through them. They string strands of lights through the tubes so the light shines through, and they hang the tubes on the walls and from the ceilings.

They have a trio of musicians — Hannah Kovalcheck, Ryan Gregory, and one other musician — performing with handmade instruments, and line drawings by artist Tamra Klaty hanging on the walls. Chris Reynolds will serve handcrafted foods for the event as well.

Admission to the show will be free, but donations will be accepted.

After the first show, they plan to reach out to other artists in the area and put out a call for applications on their web site, http://UnusualOperation.blogspot.com.

"We have some people we've seen around in Flint, but we've never had a chance to collaborate or work with them before," Stewart said. "This is a chance to get to know them."