Chene Street Mural Project

Chene Street, between Palmer & Hendrie on the east side.

During the summer of 2010, I created a mural on the original Zarembsky's building, an old supermarket style store. Now abandoned, this Chene Street relic sits lonely and delapidated, surrounded on all sides by other deteriorating buildings. When I saw that one day someone had boarded it up, I decided to paint it. (It later turned out that those that had boarded it were none other than the Black Bottom Social Club, and later they invited me to paint their sign.)

The building, prior to being boarded up and painted, was a big mess.

I gathered my paints and brushes and parked in front of the spot. I had invited all my friends to show up, because this was going to be a collaborative peformance piece- rather than painting what I wanted, I asked all participants to tell me what they wanted to see on that wall, where they wanted it, how big, etc. I was merely the medium which made their visions into a painting. Though my age group was present, they hung back in the crowd; most participants turned out to be between the ages of 6 and 12.

The participants crowd around the canvas.
(photo credit: django)

After drawing it with marker I went back the next few days to paint it. Community members approached me. Some wanted to talk about "Art". Some wanted to talk about the history of the area. Some, though, were disgusted by the content of the mural, saying "why is it so violent? isn't this area violent enough?" I explained the project, trying to emphasize how this was created by the imaginations of the neighborhood children- chillingly telling, no?

After drawing it, I went back to paint in the colors.
(photo credit: Garrett MacLean)

...met some of the neighborhood.
(photo credit: Garrett MacLean)

(photo credit: Garrett MacLean)

I thought it was extremely interesting the story that ended up taking place within the mural, without any previous plans or structure. This mural was built character by character, line by line. Animals fighting make-believe animal creatures fighting animals. There is a ketchup bottle "gangsta'." There is a rhino with a missile launcher, a rat with a pistol (shooting a peaceful tomato), an angry cheeseburger dropping pink bombs from the sky. A large cat (carrying a monkey, smoking, on its back) is trying to eat an armed chameleon, who is simultaneously attacking. A guarded castle sits in the background, watching the violence take place on a delapidated porch stoop. To the right a dark skinned, smoking, Superhero comes to save the day while a light skinned farmer on a bike retreats; all the while, a "Pig" (with a sheriff's badge) sits comfortably in the corner eating a cockroach. If one wanted to look deeper into this, be my guest: it's implications can be seen as astounding.

An interesting thread on the project:
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?5840-Small-guerrilla-art-project-on-Chene-near-Ferry.

Rising Pheasant Farms

Farnsworth Community. Detroit, MI
Permanent Fabric markers, Silk screening ink and canvas. 6' x 2'

A few weeks ago I was asked to do a sign for my neighbor's farm stand. I was thrilled to be painting again, and this time on canvas! Carolyn and Jack (my neighbors) grow foodstuffs at their Rising Pheasant Farm and sell them at Eastern Market, the local Detroit farmers market. They sell sunflower shoots (which I, as a result of this job, learned are super delicious! Put them in a sandwich and call me in the morning!), tomatoes, lettuce, garlic, etc... and will soon be making cut flower arrangements, with pheasant feathers.

Both Jack and Carolyn believe in bicycles, so they wanted me to incorporate that into the design, hence the cog in the background. They also had recently bought an abandoned house and are renovating it into their new farmhouse, so I wanted to put a face to their Rising Pheasant Farms. We wanted the sign to have an old-timey feel but with contemporary aspects, so I tried to add some elements of etching in the drawing and used a font that had no real basis in anything historical, and was handwritten. I used permanent fabric markers and screen printing ink to paint it, then ironed it and threw it through the dryer to set the paint.

It was a fun project, and I was very excited to see it among the other farm stand signs (almost all digitally printed on vinyl) the next Friday when I picked up my sunflower shoots.

Here is the banner on my work desk, almost completed. (I have no idea why the coat hanger was there. I think my dog may have been chewing it...)

Cafe 1515 Broadway

1515 Broadway. Detroit, MI 48226
Chalk and board w/ blackboard paint. 6 signs, each 4' x 2', approx.

Just some of the signs... there are 2 more cut off by the frame.

I got the opportunity to redesign the menu boards for a wonderful coffeeshop downtown Detroit, Cafe 1515 Broadway. In the back is a black box theatre, and they have all sorts of great shows- poetry readings, theatre, jazz ensembles. The signs were more difficult to do because of the nature of home-made chalkboards: no pencil could be used because erasers made a mess, and any corrections made with wet rags often resulted in a haze of wet chalk residue. So these were free-handed... Everyone seemed to be happy with the way things turned out.

The first panel is the welcome mat, so to speak. The quote comes from
an anonymous source;some say it was the owner's words. I enjoyed the
idea of the drama masks being made into coffeecups in the top center,
to relate the theatre and the coffeeshop. I also really enjoy the quote.

The boards, a little blurry, with (left to right) Dan,
the top of Jane's head, and Sam's profile.

Cafe 1515 Broadway, according to Googlemaps. This must have been taken a
little while ago, because the building next door, to the left, now has
scaffolding around its entrance because of falling stone moulding.
A piece of stone actually fell through the Cafe's upper story.
Luckily, no one was hurt.