DETROIT: DEFINITION

Woodward Windows

2012-02-22T07:36:00.000-08:00

From Street Culture Mash from SCM Sudios in Detroit: WOODWARD WINDOWS, artists working on "sprawl art," filling the commercial vacant shop windows, still so emblematic of Detroit.

SCM Studios is a full service creative agency specializing in experiential marketing. Love what they are doing and how they are using their blog to show their work and direction.

When wandering Woodward, I photographed several windows - this one below published earlier on my blog - that always had seemed to be an artist project. Now realizing that is probably what they were.

Learning about my birth state: The 175th Birthday of Michigan

2012-01-26T09:38:00.000-08:00

From today's Detroit Free Press, a selection of historic photographs of Michigan.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120126/COL32/201260472/Ron-Dzwonkowski-Michigan-175-years-old-vital-ever

Year-end Impressions/DayFIVE: 65 Years from Detroit

2012-01-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Day Five 2012 is my birthday, my 66th. Ironically, I am spending it reviewing LA photos from the '80s for a group show to open soon in Los Angeles. In the '80s, I had no emotional link to Detroit. I was in my '30s and not interested in my roots to a tenuous city where I had no family and spent only one year of non-verbal infancy. It now surprises me how little I knew of my birth city.

But since birthdays are about people, no matter how much I would like to avoid this in my photography, it feels important that this last "anniversary" reflection depicts them, the people of Detroit.

Detroit is a friendly city. Perhaps due to what they call "Mid-west values," but also just in the character of the residents, those whom I have contacted have given me amazing access to their homes, their businesses, their lives. They have shared stories of Detroit and of their trials and their dreams. Those whom I have met while photographing on the streets, at festivals or in neighborhoods have been open and willing to share favorite spots in their city, willing to share their lives as I do my work.

Before my first visit, I was told that as a single woman, carting expensive camera equipment, I could not walk Detroit streets alone. While there is crime in Detroit and a lot of desperation, and while I remain cautious in my work as I do in any urban city, I have encountered only curiosity and welcome from jobless citizens on the streets and have felt free walking all around.

It feels like the people of Detroit want their story to be told, but told from all sides. They know they've become a poster city for not all the right reasons but they also understand how they are not alone. What has been happening in Detroit in the 65 years since I left - perhaps my father one of the first to "go west, young man," but certainly in later decades others for reasons not only of Western opportunity but for escaping civic issues within - is happening elsewhere in the United States. What can save us is also listening to Detroit. Its citizens are aware of the pitfalls of too much "one-industry" focus, of civic governance out of control, of educational opportunity wasted. The right people for Detroit are already there. I am honored to have already met so many of them.

The Faust Family, owners of my original family home who have so graciously welcomed me into their lives.

Eric Jackson from Pinehurst, watching out for the neighborhood.

The many union members who chatted with me at the Labor Day Parade.
Those (including Daryl Howard above) in horticulture, bike repair & leadership programs at Earthworks Farm.
"J," who checks in on the Heidelberg Project when the artist is away.
Isabelle and her mother from further upstate who were having so much fun at the Hoedown.
Richard Harlan who is a fountain of Ford history at his Coneys in Highland Park.
Several of these marvelous kids at the Penrose Art Garden.
At Eastern Market on a market day.

Thanks to all of you (and many others) for making this first year of Detroit exploration - yes "definition" - for me and for Detroit what it has been.

Year-end Impressions/DayFOUR:Abstraction In A Desolate Space

2012-01-18T20:08:00.000-08:00

The fourth day of my first visit to Detroit last year was my birthday and on that day I reported from not only that Thursday but the previous day's journey through the emotional urban landscape - the urban decay and abandonment - for which Detroit has been too well known. It was overwhelming and still is.

That said, one can learn from this landscape if one regards it not as "ruin porn" but, as did the photographer Andrew Moore, as a lesson - one of Ozymandius - that moves us cautiously upward and forward. I cannot deny that I am seduced by this and on my second visit, guided by the Detroit-based photographer, Dan Seybold, was able to capture one or two sights of this decay that horrified me but simultaneously allowed me entry into what was and what could ultimately become. If we recognize the art, then we can recognize what needs to be recovered.

St. Agnes' Catholic Church in New Center was such a visit. Abandoned. The parochial school of Rosa Parks and one I've before commented upon here. Shorn of defining characteristics but replete with emotion and spirit.

Rather than looking at these images with condemnation, today I see them as representing hope.

Update:

I do see the hope but even today, just found this article, originally posted in the Detroit Free Press this past December: http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2012/jan/01/churches-for-sale/

Year-end Impressions/DayTHREE: Notwithstanding, there is always beauty

2012-01-17T21:43:00.000-08:00

Street Scene/Fall in Indian Village

Much of what I have experienced so far in Detroit is the greater downtown area. At times life there seems vacant except for festivals but it is also is where the larger surge for commercial and residential renewal is happening.

Within Downtown and slightly farther out are also the historic Detroit neighborhoods. The suburbs. Still in Detroit although I continue to be amazed by those who do not consider themselves part of "Detroit," when they are. The names are intriguing (NOT in any geographical order here): Indian Village, Grosse Point, Northwest, Southwest, Eastside, NW Goldberg, Corktown. Mexican Town, Hamtramek. Boston Edison, Palmer Woods, Brush Park, Eastern Market, New Center, Midtown and Downtown.

I've traveled many of the above and probably others when I didn't even know where I was. Some sound like a developer's romantic dream. Others representative of an earlier pragmatism.

What I've found so far: there remains character to each community as it evolves over the decades, often into something else. Boston Edison is lovely, a quick left off Woodward just short of Highland Park (also a community but a separate city) on a drive north, with resplendent trees and lovely grounds. Or almost for the hints are there of a future that presently does not foretell as much hope as before. Similar to parts of Manhattan in the '70s: one block is perfect, the next not so safely traveled.

That said, I am in awe of the houses and the communities. In Lafayette Park, Mies Van der Rohe designed the most beautiful townhouses. Cranbrook Academy further out enticed world class architects and designers who left their mark on the city, visible if only one looks for it, mixed in with signs of wealth and culture of an earlier age but, in many districts even still beautifully respected and kept up by new classes and cultures. In Palmer Woods, a mixed racially, culturally and beautiful suburb with community gathering together for music, for support and culture.

Palmer Woods, above Seven Mile

Eastern Market and Midtown are lofts rivaling some of those in New York. In Corktown and elsewhere is energy and life - Slows BBQ! - reminding me of early Soho in the 80s. In Brush Park, many beautiful homes in dis-array BUT many also in renovation where the unattended gardens fight back themselves and demand a beauty uplift.

Brush Park, Spring

In the Northwest, the site of my original family home, there is community and neighborhood.

I feel the pull of an urban/suburban city. A place with a vibrancy yet to discover in anticipated visits. Perhaps even a new home in this mid-west milieu that doesn't yet resonate with me, a child of the Southern California beach, with its reputed "mid-west values" and industrial strangeness. Yet one that all of me wants to further explore.

Year-end Impressions, Day TWO

2012-01-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

Detroit is an old city which means that, notwithstanding the failed industry and abandonment, it is simply old and the infrastructure, without care, cannot last. Detroit is not alone in its deterioration.

Here in Los Angeles, the streets are increasingly rutted, the bridges and tunnels need re-examination and repair. A recent visit to the local Post Office revealed scraps piled on the floor, doors of the trash cubicles pushed off by the mounds of trash not collected.

The signs of decay are increasing, revealing the cracks not just in our streets but in our system.

The good side of the recent focus on Detroit is that it has encouraged many within the city to pay more attention to its buildings and infrastructure, although it would be a mistake to assume that there were not already many who have been working hard for years, if not decades, to preserve this city. That said, the influx of young entrepreneurs, artists mixing with other young residents as well as those already there is exciting. The mix is leading to not only new ways of preservation but also innovative ideas of how to go ahead.

Renovation at the Park Avenue House, Spring 2011

Theatre & Shops On Woodward Downtown

UPDATE: Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Thanks to Facebook, I am accumulating a "six degrees of.... " connection list/"friendship" that recently spanned back over decades, including the fine artist Michele Zalopany, whose artwork I purchased in the early '80s days of NYC's lower Eastside art boom, and former art director/design director/ now photographer Lloyd Ziff, orignally knwon from my music days. They are both from Detroit as well and their renewed interest in their birth city matches mine.

When they post on FB something about Detroit, I go there, as I hope they and others do with my notations. Thus today, thanks to Michele, I have found Historic Detroit.org, a site concerned with the landmark structures of the city, their appearance then and now and what is going on with them. Presently on the site is their 17 December 2011 Year in Review and it illustrates well what I've been writing about this past evening.

One Year

2012-01-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Courtyard of the College For Creative Studies, John R Street, Detroit. Sculpture: Michael Hall,

I arrived in Detroit on Monday, January 17th 2011. One year ago today. Including that first view, after almost 64 years and now three exploratory 2011 visits, Detroit has become the place for me to be.

Each day of that first visit, one of only five days, Detroit yielded a discovery, often of people, of visitations from my personal past, of scenery and sometimes, of sadness and desolation. Detroit is a complex city, one of our nation's most amazing for generations and that legacy is not one that is easily lost, even over a period of 50 years.

For the next few days on this blog, I will post comments and some visual early impressions from these exploratory visits, one each day until Friday, my 66th birthday, 65 years away from Detroit but coming closer.

Today, the arrival anniversary: CITYSCAPE.

There is a city here. One of magnificent culture and architecture. Some of it empty today but with a rolling tide of preservation and reuse that can save it. The ghosts of Detroit's trading and industrial past are still here, not haunting but rather encouraging a renaissance of it all and, yes, it is happening.

Below are several newly printed images, to add to those already on the blog in previous posts.

Two views of the People Mover, the circular downtown metro, the second dedicated to Rosa Parks, of this city and today also, on the legal holiday of the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King, significant.

Inside the Guardian Building.

And yes, I know we're not seeing people but, hey, I don't usually shoot people so why expect any here? .... A little flippant for there is a truth: Many of the structures I see, complete on the outside, are not so in the interior. That is what I'll seek when I return but for now, the knowledge that the city sits, at times dormant yes but slowly awakening, hopefully, is enough.

New Penthouse Renovation, Book Cadillac, Detroit/ Designer: Gary Fried

As an LA person, I've seen finally - and after many years - a vibrant downtown that seems to be sustaining. Lofts are soaring. The night views of downtown avenues no longer take on the noir images we so love but do nothing for the economy. Detroit is getting ready. Cannot wait to see what happens.

Countdown to Year One

2012-01-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

The sequence begins: Eight days until my birthday and the first year of exploring Detroit. I wanted to be back there but too much work and too little funding but I'll be there soon.

I am hearing the familiar sounds of January in Detroit, primarily the Auto Show but also the moment when Detroit was the "wild card" for the SuperBowl. And play they did.

Best, this strong video "Who Is Detroit?" from the Detroit Works Project (thanks for learning about it from Austin Black II, proprietor of City Living Detroit). News is not good from Detroit lately but that doesn't mean that those who are there are not fighting for the good.

The Holidays in Detroit: Part Two

2011-12-23T11:06:00.001-08:00

From the Detroit News:
Shedding light on Hanukkah customs: Jews and others celebrate downtown as holiday begins

From the Huffington Post/Detroit:

Kwanzaa Detroit 2011: Events Celebrate Holiday's 7 Values

With this, narrated by MAYA ANGELOU, one of my favorite authors (and whose poem I used in my first book, LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME):

The Holidays in Detroit

2011-12-19T20:52:00.000-08:00

At this time of year, super sweet music abounds, shoppers cram the stores as economic levels are determined by how may shopped on Black Friday and up until Christmas eve, and we gather together for the many holidays of the season. Family. Friends. Generosity. Community. All present now. From absolute elation to unmitigated depression, the season calls out and so do we.

I am not now in Detroit, my birth city, but home in LA freezing at 60+ degrees. From a call placed today to Detroit, I hear that Detroit today was "mild," a term certainly relative to a Southern Californian.

Although last winter in Detroit at the time of my first visit was startlingly cold for me, it is to that first experience that I have returned as I think about the holidays and prepare my holiday greeting.

I want to share Detroit this year with all of my friends, represented by an image that I love and that I captured last January: a view across Ferry Street in historic midtown, with its older houses now being repurposed and full of the hope and energy that signifies a rebound. I so want to others to know about this complex and beautiful city for there are many and equally as beautiful images if not in the traditional sense but that speak of effort, personality, and determination. Detroit has taught me a lot already and I know it will do far more in the succeeding years.

A good, safe, and fruitful holiday wish for Detroit and for us all.

Sara Jane Boyers

And btw, love this Detroit News article about historic xmas activities in Detroit:
Christmas traditions in Old Detroit: Pigeon pie, horse racing, tapers on trees

Los Angeles/Detroit

2011-11-23T10:59:00.001-08:00

Wilshire Theater, Santa Monica November 2011

It is the end of November and I have not been able to make it back to Detroit yet. Too little money for a major trip at present. Too much to think about before I return. Thankfully, so many images to continue to review and print. I am doing that now.

While working on the photographs and putting them into a context for at least Issues Two and Three of the magcloud musings and thinking of some crowd-source funding, still a photographer, I drive around Los Angeles. And because I keep the ever-present little Leica D-Lux5 in the car for the occasional addition to the GRIDLOCK series, I see and I shoot.

After three trips to Detroit, finding the energy and rebirth but unable to filter out the empty storefronts and boarded up houses, Detroit resonates with me wherever I drive in LA. Even in the more affluent sections, I cannot help but note the changes that our American economy has wrought even upon this most magical and strangest of cities, my home. Permanency has never been LA's strong point - earthquakes and a culture of the new has taken care of that - but with a now better educated eye, the vacancies and cultural changes - perhaps movie theatres are now a thing of the past as industries change - I see portentous signs that it would pay us to notice.

Thus out here it behooves us to also be interested and involved in what is truly happening in Detroit for, even with the still bad economic woes, there is attention being paid to the people, what is being saved and what is being regenerated for the good. Let those lessons be absorbed and applied even out at the beach.

RETHINKING

2011-09-28T09:45:00.001-07:00

I am rethinking the project.

Planning to return to Detroit in October for the Fall, for the leaves, I am not ready. The time of non-focused exploration is at end. I have learned a lot, met inspiring individuals, entered into amazing buildings and made friends. It is time to figure out what Detroit means to me, how it is defining me, how to photograph it and by so doing, how I wish to define Detroit. This to do before I return.

Yesterday at my Italian study, the word arose: "ruminate" ("ruminare?" or "meditare?"). It is time to chew the cud, gather in the stories others have told me, dive into my own photographs and emotions. And yes, I would love to run in for a day or so to photograph my infant home with the leaves around it, the home becoming an iconic image for the project, but there is more to DETROIT: DEFINITION, far more than I anticipated before last January's first visit, and before I return again, perhaps still in fall to meet my seasonal goals, that is what I need to discover.

And for what I will miss, there is already a wonderful truth about the city for there are events - social, art and music-filled, symposia, design-oriented, neighborhood - always happening in Detroit. There are residents and a population always eager to rebuild the city all the while enjoying and working in it as it is now. I regret not returning so quickly for each time I am there, I am filled with hope.

In the interim, within even the devastated Eastside filled with orphaned or abandoned animals that can no longer be afforded good homes, there remains community, even if among the dogs themselves.

And then, when the dogs need more than just community, there is also help...

Detroit Dog Rescue http://www.detroitdogrescue.com/

http://www.thedailytail.com/nonfiction/noodles-stray-dog-detroit-inspires-rescue/

Two Cities

2011-09-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

My parents would speak of Detroit during the war. Of the rations. Of a city where food was scare and they would travel over to Windsor, Canada for meat. Not much conversation and today, I wonder why or wonder what it was not what I was hearing. No one to tell me now.

Nevertheless, with only a few clues, I am curious about the relationship between the two cities. The two countries, touched by a river, a straight. People in Detroit today tell me of times when a small boat would simply land on the other side. Belle Isle is in the middle, easy for access even now

I made a mistake crossing back into the US border from Windsor in May by declaring when asked by US Border Patrol why I had traveled to Canada and responding that I traveled to Canada to "shoot' the Chinatowns. Luckily an agent with a sense of humor who asked how many Canadian Chinese I killed.

I am from a state, California, where the presence of another country, another people is a critical part of our culture. The Spaniards and Mexicans were here first. My parents made this history critical to my upbringing, pointing out the names of our land - Santa Monica. Palos Verdes. Los Angeles. San Bernardino. Our field trips were to the missions and my own elementary school was the third oldest in LAUSD, on historic Spanish land grant property and where we donned homemade mantillas and wide skirts in May to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. How then did the Mid-West, especially Detroit, approach, then and now, their proximity and no doubt symbiotic relationship to another country? And how does that factor into each city's existence today? I was told, unchecked, that Windsor Canada, perhaps because of its proximity and dependence upon Detroit, is one of the poorest regions of Canada.

Urban Gardening

2011-09-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

While going through my "summer" pics, a majority of them about the urban gardening movement in all of its configurations, I noted this article today about the downside: the city at times getting in the way. There is always a balance between individual contribution and legislatation designed to protect citizenry but that can get in the way when something new and innovative is in process.

From what I have seen so far in Detroit, urban gardening while perhaps not the answer for a major economic shift, is at least a strong source for community effort.

From Grist: http://www.grist.org/urban-agriculture/2011-09-20-urban-gardener-memphis
Another urban garden bites the dust.

Oak Park Woman Faces 93-Days in Jail For Planting Vegetable Garden: MyFoxDETROIT.com

Internet Buzz: Concept of Jail Time for Growing a Vegetable Garden : MyFoxDETROIT.com
On July 27th, the homeowner was cleared of all charges but only after the news becoming viral and protests.

Summer In The City

2011-09-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Compuware Downtown Community Garden, designed by Kenneth Weikal & Beth Hagenbuch

or the end of it, Labor Day weekend... and it is cold from the moment I am here, arriving before dawn on the redeye on Sunday morning 4 September. I had not been able to make "summer" before with my exhibition up so Labor Day seemed the time. Labor Day in the midWest and the East has more meaning than for a Southern Californian for it quite truly signals the end of a season of warmth. With its celebration, the city comes alive. And even with a dramatic seasonal announcement - thunderstorms closing down football at the U of Mich on Saturday night for the very first time and trees down with resultant power outages - Detroit in fact was jumping.

Major action was at Hart Plaza, the end of Woodward - the US's first paved boulevard - and the end of the country as well for Detroit is a border town and geographically unique as the only American city where, across the river, Canada is south of the United States. The annual Jazz Fest produced four full days of live music from Hart Plaza to Campus Martius. On Monday, an amazing number of Southeast Michigan union members from the UAW to electrical workers to teachers and government employees marched down Woodward for the well attended annual Labor Day Parade with the added benefit of a rousing address by President Obama. Their message in these troubled times: Jobs. Jobs. And more Jobs. The President heard them loud and clear.
Even without all of the people, Hart Plaza is a draw with its view to the river, the steps to the Riverfront, the fountain and best, public art that is internationally known. This includes Robert Graham's "Joe Louis Fist;" "Transcending," an arch commissioned by the Michigan Labor Legacy Project and funded solely through donations from union members without the aid of public or corporate money,designed to celebrate the history and contributions of labor (http://www.thedetroiter.com/site/laborpage.html); and the Underground Railroad Project, (actually twin sculptures, the second residing across the river in Windsor CAN) to commemorate Detroit's significant participation in helping slaves escape to freedom in the mid-1800s.(more on Ed Dwight's -the sculptor -pages http://www.eddwight.com/public_art/underground_railroads/index.htm ). I was told of an Underground Railroad Museum that I plan to visit on the next trip .

The trip re-adjusted with the weather, seemingly a mid-West condition that reminds my of my husband's memories of Chicago where Spring and Summer come and go so quickly. Thus Saturday before I arrived, the temperature was in the 90s before the thunderstorms and Tuesday, 6th of September, the weatherman advises to "pull out those parkas."

Luckily, even with the oft rainy weather or inclement skies, I wandered through urban gardens bursting with summer fruit and flowers or readying Fall planting. There are many greening programs in the city and I photographed the urban business-sponsored Compuware community garden in the shadow of the Book Cadillac; established non-profits (Earthworks Urban Farm, run by the Capuchin Frères); the Brush Park Community Organic Garden; in midtown, the North Cass Community Garden and the tenant-inspired citizen garden in front of the West Will Apartments, just down the block from the gated North Cass; the block effort by HushHouse Detroit in NorthwestGoldberg; to the Penrose ArtHouse & Art Garden, again designed by land planners/landscape architects Kenneth Weikal & Beth Hagenbuch for their non-profit, Growtown.Org, that created, in collaboration with Sam Thomas of Starr Development, a community space for Penrose Village Detroit, lovely modular homes in a forgotten neighborhood (E of Woodward, W of John R and 7 Mile) that attract and provide place for community youth to gather to create art and invest in agriculture and community effort, perhaps for life.

More on this in a following post.

West Will Apartments Garden

For now, as I start to review my photographs, it was lovely to end the visit with a chat at the Fisher Building with a local preservationist and architectural aficionado, Mark Armitage, who is actively producing and filming a series of public/cable television programs on the buildings and people of Detroit.

There are hidden treasures in Detroit, the people at the very least but certainly as well the buildings, land and energy that depict a city working hard to preserve what is there and create a structure anew. It was a good trip.

Delta Airlines has graciously provided me with an incredible sunset view for my return trip home.

Reality/Reality

2011-09-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

In preparation for my quick Labor Day visit, finally I am going through the May/Spring photos that I have not had time to review in the press of my solo show and other deadlines this summer. So Detroit's deadline is now.

And now in review as I try to document the new, as I hope to preserve the dignity and spirit that I can see is there and that will be the primary factor for Detroit's revival ... I am stopped. Stopped by the visions that I forgot and that I captured. Stopped by the ruin of St. Agnes Church and School. Historic - that of Rosa Parks but now abandoned. Books on the floor. Left.

If I, a visitor only, am left so breathless and shocked how can those in this city live everyday with this? Visually so appealing, I can understand the photographers who want to capture this always for, so do I. A photographer's dream and a city's nightmare. A writer's nightmare as well and that is also what I am.

I know I'll snap out of this and luckily, it is Detroit this coming weekend that will pull me back from this abyss for, in Detroit, I will also see life. I will see the people. I will see new growth. I will understand how things can change. But here alone in the night, with these images, I can only see the despair.

Deconstructing Detroit

2011-08-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

A new video with the premise that for the same cost as demolition, the abandoned houses of Detroit can be deconstructed and saved, earning approximately $40,000 for resale of the salvaged materials and the major benefit of putting people to work.

With experience photographing the unique repurposing of airplane parts into residence (the 747 WING HOUSE, comprised of parts of a deconstructed Boeing 747), how can I not be fascinated by this! Cannot wait to investigate this further.

The video, created by Michigan's Greenovation TV, DECONSTRUCTING DETROIT: PUTTING PEOPLE TO WORK INSTEAD OF BULLDOZERS

Getting Ready for Detroit/Labor Day

2011-08-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

Finding out what's going on and, where to go and... a lot more! Starting a list here (to be added to):

Eat Detroit - chatting about markets (waiting for a Whole Foods but... in the meantime)
Faded Detroit - quick but informative posts about the D
Forgotten Detroit - "musings on ruins and society"... love the August 12th musing on European ruin parks (Kloster Eldena)
The Night Train - a blog about Metro Detroit history

Projects and Projects

2011-08-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

FIRST: starting to get ready to return to Detroit, Labor Day Weekend, my "summer" visit. While it is true that Labor Day is often considered the start of Fall, Detroit friends assure me that the warmth is still there, the flowers should still be up and best yet, there will be people in all of the streets, and not just for the Jazz Festival. This is what I seek: a city that IS vibrant, even while it rebuilds.

And "rebuilds" seems to be the operative word today as papers fill not with stories of decay but with stories of enterprise and community effort. I count myself lucky to be experiencing the city at such a time.

Just this past week: DETROIT COULD BE THE NEXT BIG STARTUP CITY/Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/detroit-could-be-the-next-big-startup-city-2011-8?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29
"Many have written the Motor City off for dead. But three key figures from, of all things, the world of basketball give me hope that the city will reemerge as a powerhouse for innovation and new high-growth startups.

Would be interested in responses from those actually in Detroit to this.

SECOND: Even as I gather these articles, go through, finally, my photographs from May and create the second issue of DETROIT: DEFINITION: THE MAGAZINE, I am immersed in my current exhibition in Los Angeles, FINDING CHINATOWN, and absolutely delighted with the critical recognition this decade-long project is getting! From yesterday's Los Angeles Times, an almost half-page art review.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/08/art-review-sara-jane-boyers-at-craig-krull-gallery.html

From and soon Back to Detroit, finally!

2011-08-05T10:21:00.001-07:00

While still busy with my FINDING CHINATOWN exhibition - two walk-thru's tomorrow - I am back to printing Detroit from Visit TWO in May, creating Issue Two of DETROIT: DEFINITION and planning Visit THREE, now scheduled over Labor Day weekend for a few days (Summer), including Detroit's Annual Jazz Festival, DETROIT JAZZ FEST.

Among the prints are some from those moments when Detroit comes together. Below: from a Saturday at Eastern Market and the Flower Fair in May.

Another major part of Detroit; The music. Music is in my blood and my past from years in the music industry. In Detroit, it also brings everyone together and when I see this, it reaffirms that this IS a city that can join and go forward, contradictory to so much heard outside.

So, thanks to Detroit Nation that often keeps me up to date, here is a terrific musical interlude from Larry Callahan & the Selected Of God Choir, Lose Yourself, expanding the work the choir did in the SuperBowl Chrysler commercial, Eminem's "Imported from Detroit". I've already bought this, sales to benefit three Detroit Charities, – Abayomi Community Development Corporation, the Yunion mentoring service (will find contact here soon), and Robert S. Shumake Scholarship Relays, "a premier class A track and field competition for high school students across the nation. Its unique model is unprecedented in that it has a dual focus. The Shumake Scholarship Relay competition highlights both athletic ability and academic achievement. Prizes are awarded to the athlete on each team with the highest grade point average, teams with the highest score at the end of the meet and athletes who place 1st through 8th."

FINDING CHINATOWN at Craig Krull Gallery (& in Windsor CAN)

2011-07-31T23:17:00.000-07:00

My decade-long photographic project, FINDING CHINATOWN, opened last night at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, CA. The opening was packed and the worked looked terrific, once I was able to get over my anxiety of this, my first solo show.

Working on the project has aided me immeasurably as I photograph in Detroit for FINDING CHINATOWN has honed my eye in how to capture community, and Detroit is definitely comprised of many communities. It is a very different project as well for in the Chinatowns, I so often walked alone, without preparatory research nor many conversations. Detroit requires a different interaction, a different preparation, some that challenges me but then, there is an edge that attracts me and is infiltrating my imagery that I seems to need in this next stage of my work.

Now, with a major deadline for FINDING CHINATOWN almost done - still more "walk-throughs" and press - I look forward to returning to Detroit, not only physically to photograph more, but here, now, in my studio to take the time since I was last there, finally review and reflect upon what I have already photographed and understand where I am and how I will go forward.

Below: several images from May's vist, fittingly, from Windsor's small remaining Chinatown block:

Last Shuttle Launch

2011-07-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

Photo Courtesy of NASA
I grew up in the era of space launch, an achievement and industry that also fed my Southern California existence.

My childhood on the westside of Los Angeles, while now known for it's high-priced living, was that of living among the engineers and scientists working at Douglas, Rand, Lockheed and the myriad of aerospace and flight industries who populated the Southern California landscape. One of my parent's best friends was the inventor of the atomic clock and evenings spent in his presence were always memorable, one time sitting with him on the bench of a Hammond Company organ, shipped to him by Hammond to just "tinker" around.

Los Angeles was then dependant on just two main industries: aerospace and movies. They both offered employment to thousands/millions(?) of residents and brought others to this land. With the loss of aerospace, other business fills part of the gap but it continues to be an adjustment, not dissimilar to that with which my other hometown, Detroit, has struggled in order to evolve from its one-industry mode to an attractive destination for business and jobs.

July 14th - Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study

2011-07-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

I earlier posted about the SUPERFRONT exhibit and conference, DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY, when it was installed in Los Angelers. Curated by Chloë Bass and MitchMcEwen, it is a wonderfully inventive, piercing and thought-provoking look not only at the issues of Detroit but those facing other urban areas.

The exhibition and discussions are finally coming to Detroit. I recommend this heartily!

SUPERFRONT is proud to announce that DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens at Marygrove College Thursday July 14

The exhibit includes works by: Chloë Bass, Dana Bell, Brent Birnbaum, Brennan Buck, Lynn Cazabon, Sara Conde, Philip Dembinski, Jill Desimini, David Freeland, David Karle, Erin Kasimow, Amanda Matles, Juan Alberto Negroni, Paper Tiger TV, Kaleena Quinn, Jon Stevens, Anusha Venkataraman, Margi Weir, Audra Wolowiec and others.

Within this exhibit across art, architecture, and urban documentary, SUPERFRONT also presents the 25 Inch RFP (Request for Proposals) – results from an international call to develop new construction at SUPERFRONT’s micro property in Detroit. Last fall SUPERFRONT invited artists and architects to propose a buildable project for 25 square inches of Detroit, located at 13949 Evergreen Rd, Detroit, Michigan, purchased in partnership with LOVELAND micro real estate. The winning entry, LIGHT UP! by Ellen E. Donnelly and David Karle, will be exhibited for the opening night only, before being installed at Evergreen Rd. The selecting jury for the 25 inch proposals included Paul Amitai (New York), Andrea Bauza Hernandez (San Juan), Christina Heximer (Detroit), Jerry Paffendorf (Detroit), and Craig L. Wilkins, PhD AIA, ARA, (Detroit).

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY opens July 14, with a reception from 5:00 – 7:30 PM. The exhibit will remain on view through August 26, 2011.

DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY | July 14 – August 26, 2011 | 8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 48221

Cool Detroiters

2011-06-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

From a post on Detroit Nation, a terrific group of Detroit ex-Pats who love their city and have been organizing meetings and visits to "give back:"

This cool Flash Mob scene at Detroit River Days by Michigan BlueCrossBlueShield employess, sporting t-shirts with "At home in the D."

Michigan Blue Cross Flash Mob at Detroit River Days

The music "beeKoo Mix" by Laswell http://ccmixter.org/files/lazztunes07/12238

So Many Projects, So Little Time

2011-06-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

It is a month tomorrow since I returned from my second visit to Detroit, the spring trip where I discovered that "spring" in the MidWest is not quite what I expected: cold and rainy with only the beginning - but what a beginning! - of flowers sprouting, alternating with the sense of summer's hot, humid days. Actually liked them both except when I was over in Windsor, Canada photographing for the Finding Chinatowns project and it was 44 degrees, windy and raining. My Southern California thin skin was throbbing with the painful cold and, I've learned, again, that when one returns across a border and is asked what one was doing in a foreign country, NOT to say that I was "shooting!" Luckily a border agent with a sense of humor who asked me how many people I killed. "Photographing," Sara, not "shooting." I remember this in airports but here, hmmmmm....

But it is a month and I've not even had a moment to look through my photographs from the trip for it has been so very - wonderfully - busy on my two other ongoing projects: readying for the solo show this summer on FINDING CHINATOWNS and meeting several deadlines on the continuing project photographing and documenting in part the construction of the incredible 747 Wing House almost finished at the top of Malibu. A lot of what I am learning on that house, especially in terms of the complexity of shooting architecture, is being applied to my work in Detroit for Detroit is about buildings, the environment and those who pass through them. Each time I visit, I find that the challenges of place relate back to what is happening there. In fact, cannot wait until I can get into these spring pics, hopefully this next week now that I have the exhibition and printing in production.

In the interim, this past Thursday, 16 June, Sam Lubell of the Architect's Newspaper has written up and published in the A/N Blog a "Sneak Peek" of the 747 Wing House, using some of my photographs.

The Hub

2011-06-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Detroit is crawling with terrific media. In just these past few months stories from, of course, the venerable Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and best of all, the online news blogs and radio including The Detroit Hub, Model D and WEDT (101.9fm), an active NPR station out of Wayne State University. From a variety of perspectives, catching up with the real news has so changed the view of this city from the caricature depicted outside to that of a vibrant city filled with character, will and strength within.

From just this morning rummaging around The Urban News Hub, both present and past:

25 June 2010 YOU CAN GET FUNDED IN METRO DETROIT: LIVIO RADIO
25 July 2010 WHAT TO GIVE DETROIT FOR ITS 309th BIRTHDAY
and best of all, today
17 June 2011 DEAR WORLD: SMART KIDS LIVE IN DETROIT .... JUST SO YOU KNOW reporting on the number of terrific, "smart" college-going kids who just are graduating from the Detroit Public Schools.

Kunsthalle Detroit

2011-06-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

With a strong background in contemporary art, I absolutely applaud yet another terrific sign of Detroit's ascension again: the opening of the Kunsthalle Detroit http://www.kunsthalle-detroit.org/#!

In a neighborhood west of Wayne State, Kunsthalle Detroit is starting off with a spectacular exhibition of some of the more prominent video artists. Not all from Detroit yet the show is making a statement for this city where so many artists are flocking, listening no doubt to Patti Smith (see Times blog below), as well as their own always avant-garde instincts. Detroit's combination of an easier cost of living for always financially-strapped artists while being a place where the history, amazing and tough, combined with aestheitc perception and expression provides a symbiotic fertile ground for innovation and growth.

In her Times blog, "Go to Detroit, Young People," Detroit writer Karen Dybis quotes David Byrne: "The skies here are bigger than in New York."

I love periodically returning to the city at this time and historically, wasn't this a similar experience in those early days of Ford and others that too provided a growth moment - a long moment - for this city? It's happening again.

Check out the Kunsthalle's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kunsthalle-Detroit/108340745867164

And the video of the opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em3iCTBnol4

some other press on the Kunsthalle:
New museum, Kunsthalle Detroit, to open exhibition space
Video art museum takes shine to Detroit's gritty charm
Art museum to open in rough section of Detroit
A New Cultural Light in Detroit

Reclaiming the industrial waterfront

2011-06-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

The riverview in Detroit is incredibly beautiful with the flowing Detroit River, a bridge to Belle Isle, and the across river view of Windsor, Canada, the only point in the United States where Canada is south. The riverfront was formerly filled with industrial buildings but now a public walkway is developed and even during my rainy Spring visit, while at the Hoedown in Hart Plaza, I looked down on so many on promenade.

So I love this news from the Architect's Newspaper blog:
Now Docking: Detroit's evolving waterfront gets new terminal building.

Detroit is filled with significant architecture and it looks like this little building will add to the mix.

An organization worth checking out, one bringing Detroiters already and hopefully a burgeoning tourism to Detroit: The Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, responsible already for the three-mile walkway. http://www.detroitriverfront.org/ and the Dequindre Cut Greenway, an urban recreational path.

American Pie

2011-05-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

A friend passed along this video made in Grand Rapids in response to those who also call it a "dying city."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPjjZCO67WI&feature=share

My entry into "career" life started with Don McLean's "American Pie," released by United Artists just days after I started work there. It's theme, even after 40 years, is again significant in the narrative of our lives for just back from my second visit to Detroit, I can see the same spirit and joy in this great midwestern city.

From Detroit's Annual Downtown Hoedown 2011, Saturday 14 May 2011.

Magazine Up

2011-05-25T07:26:00.000-07:00

The first issue of DETROIT: DEFINITION, A WORK IN PROGRESS is published and available at the POD site, Magcloud. www.sarajaneboyers.magcloud.com

This is the first in a series of seasonal "reports" about my photographic exploration of Detroit, the city of my birth. I will return each season over the next year and one-half.

I've just returned from the second visit, "Spring," and am sorting through pics, thoughts and experience. Cannot wait for summer!

Back in Detroit

2011-05-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

In Detroit already for 4 1/2 days. So busy I haven't yet posted.

On the first afternoon, last Thursday 12 May after a very early morning flight into unseasonably hot and muggy Detroit, a visit to Belle Isle at dusk seemed the thing to do. I was far from alone in that thought.

On the drive toward the western point: scenes seemingly sprung from Seurat's Grande Jatte. Electric green lawn descending down past the ducks and geese to the river. As the sun lowers, the dual points of Detroit downtown and Windsor, Canada narrow the straight in a lovely gray silhouette.

I drive the Island twice at least, stopping to watch the families headed over the bridge to picnic at the end of the day, then on a known section of the circular drive where are parked rows of cars with trunks open and groups of teens lounging in/leaning against each, their gaze more inward to the other cars than perhaps to the view, reminiscent of my youth cruising Hollywood Boulevard (never telling my parents) with girlfriends in the yellow convertible GTO.

The weather has now turned what I thought was unseaonably cold and rainy and yet all of this is Detroit in May. Notwithstanding, the streets now busier, tulips even in front of the more sketchier home, and on the weekend both at the Eastern Market with its annual flower day/weekend and at the confluence of the annual Hoedown, the largest free country music festival in the nation, and the Tigers at home, a diverse and fun crowd on the streets. More to come...

Just discovered, from last September's Detroit Free Press, a magical series on Belle Isle, its beauty and its concerns and those who are fighting against invasive species while inviting even greater exploration of the wonders of this park, larger than NYC's Central Park:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100905/SPECIAL05/110120001

Mother in Detroit

2011-05-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow photographer, Aline Smithson, asked us to send in a photograph of our mothers to celebrate today, Mother's Day 2011, on her terrific LENSCRATCH blog.

Immersed in my magazine creation, I could only think of this photograph of my mother. I am guessing is from December 1944, only a couple of months after her marriage to my father and her move to Detroit to be with him. The notation looks like it is 1944/45 but I am assuming it was '44 since she looks quite thin and if it were December of '45, I would almost be born and she would be looking very pregnant.

She is wearing my favorite pin, a '40s Alfred Philippe Trifari Jelly Belly Frog, that she gave me decades ago and that I wear to this day.

The window from which she is looking out is not the Pinehurst home. Possibly the address at 3444 Second Avenue? She looks delighted to be in Detroit.

When it comes down to it, Mother's Day reminds us that we are full of hope and thoughts about the future and how we accomplish that to which we aspire. For what is the birth of a child, if not a moment of dreams? The concept of "rebirth" speaks to renewal and a fresh new life. Detroit is in this stage.

I am looking forward to returning there at the end of this coming week.

Great Quote

2011-04-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Working on a magcloud magazine, a progress "report" of sorts with photographs from my first visit to Detroit. It is helping me define the work as I plan my second visit in two weeks! Over HoeDown weekend. Who knew there was a country music festival in Detroit?

Finding more pics that I like but also realizing how much I need to return and focus in depth where I have already been almost before I continue the journey.

Fell in love with Grace Lee Boggs quote from her 14 April 2011 interview on Democracy Now: "I think it’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t live in Detroit to say you can look at a vacant lot and, instead of seeing devastation, see hope ...see the opportunity to grow your own food, see an opportunity to give young people a sense of process, that’s very difficult in the city, that the vacant lot represents the possibilities for a cultural revolution."

At 95 she's got a new book out:

The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

Motor City/Gridlock Wanting

2011-04-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

I've been engaged in a longterm project, GRIDLOCK, stuck in traffic on the freeways and highways primarily of Los Angeles although gridlock is not unique to LA. Shooting from within the car with my little Leica D-Lux 5 (formerly 3) as I ride the clutch, hoping to catch that elusive moment when everyday traffic turns into something wonderful.

Why shouldn't I apply this to Detroit? ... .although it may not be about traffic, of which there is little (and do I mourn this? hmm.... ) is it about moments that perhaps I shouldn't get out of the car, or cannot. A few pics from January, cold and at first forbidding although that did quickly change. I rather like the elusive, grainy slightly out-of-focus/no tripod feeling with light reflecting off the dirty icy car window as I navigate the city streets.

And the highways ...

And even the bikeways...

And then, at times, there is an abstraction of form that gives weight to what I see, leading back to GRIDLOCK.

Finding More

2011-04-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Wandering through my prints with this almost three month perspective.

Above, 3444 Second Avenue, noted in some sort of application I had found among my father's ephemera as the first residence for my parents when first married in the mid '40s, before they bought the Pinehurst home. A brick building on the way to downtown, the only building that remains on the east side of the block.

I was there with Dan Seybold, the photographer/urban explorer who toured me around one day in January. Dan was also the guide for Andrew Moore for his project, DETROIT DISASSEMBLED. No one on the streets around here, except one lone man with his story of bad luck. A former auto worker like so many, reduced to asking for a handout. Dan chatted with him while I caught a couple of shots of the facade of this locked apartment house.

I have to deal with how to photograph with people around me. It makes me self-conscious and conscious as well of the time spent for my style is to wander silent and alone, my senses open to the light, the sound; something that at that moment catches my interest.

This is a different project and the circumstances of the journey - both from safety, from not knowing where to go, from the sometime necessity of company or guide - are making me realize that I cannot expect that I will capture what it is I want for a while. That said, I'll just go on photographing.

And the crash turned into a benefit...

2011-04-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

For had I not had the disk crash, I may not have gone back into my files so quickly. In that process now, several months from January's trip and looking toward May, I am discovering more that I want to print, understanding the city more even from that first quick visit. Yet I am also struck again by the bleakness of a city in the despair of the times. In the despair of the winter.

The emptiness of a declining population and the sparse vistas of a winter environment with a population, especially one with a high rate of poverty, inside combines to raise the level of Detroit's drama.

That said, the year is moving seasonally toward renewal and in my next trip in May, I anticipate flowers and ... more people plus the growing sense that incredibly creative proposals and already working ideas are happening there. I just cannot wait to capture these coming moments of growth and light.

And, just to see how another Detroit native has returned home and sees the city, I absolutely love Allee Willis' blogs about her early April trip to Detroit, her hometown, as part of the 3rd Rust Belt to Artist Belt conference, where Seth Beattie, founder of the conference and program manager at the [Cleveland] Community Partnership for Arts and Culture says:

“In a city like Cleveland or Detroit, what we typically have seen or framed as a real disadvantage or problem in these communities (vacant housing, land and warehouses) actually is affording artists an opportunity to be creative and to go out and do something like the Heidelberg Project. ... An artist living in New York likely will not be able to experiment and open a gallery or launch a community arts project in a vacant parcel because there's such a scarcity of land... . Collectively, we in the industrial Midwest have things in our communities in which artists can carry out there work. There are specific amenities we have compared to newer cities. ...

Industrial cities in the U.S have strong arts and culture sectors because the arts were heavily endowed at the turn of the century, largely by philanthropists who'd made their fortunes in industries. That offers artists employment opportunities and a strong base of arts supporters .... [plus] very affordable access to space that allows artists to be creative and use their imaginations in the ways they live their lives."

Wish I could have gone to this but seeing the upcoming lineup of events in Detroit, know that I'll not be missing out on the opportunity to be there, right at this key time in the next year or so, to watch my home city rise.

Back in Step

2011-04-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I would have started the Detroit project at a better time but it was important to start on my birthday for this is a project that is inspired by my personal history and it felt right to do so.

The timing was however unfortunate in that my birth date was in the middle of an intense period of several ongoing projects; the three photo/art festivals in Los Angeles (I rushed from one, to Detroit, then back to another); the Chinese New Year celebration which I always photograph and thereafter write my quarterly newsletter; two deadlines for the continuing Chinatown project, FINDING CHINATOWNS, that I am preparing to exhibit this summer here in LA; and then, the curation and last evening's exhibition of PACIFIC RESONANCE, a conceptual open-air image-projection project for the Month of Photography LA (MOPLA) showcasing the work of seven noted Los Angeles photographers with original music composed and recorded by the well known LA avant-garde cellist, Michael Intriere.

An incredible evening but today, the day after and one month since my last Detroit post, I am eager to return to DETROIT: DEFINITION. One concern: in the midst of our rains (not Detroit winter weather for sure but for LA, quite extraordinary), an electrical blackout took out several external drives, especially the one with my Detroit work. I have the underlying raw camera files but all of my printed work was destroyed and I have to start and print again. Since I had delayed formal thank you's which were to include some early prints to those in Detroit who were so gracious to allow me into their lives, communities and businesses, and have been deadlining so since then, I was devastated and hope to get most of this out this week. In so doing the time delay does have a small benefit, allowing some sense of perspective from the emotion of that first visit.

Starting to plan the May trip and, in this long interim, Detroit is brimming with news, a lot more positive - a Whole Foods in midtown? - even amid the continuing economic setbacks. Have started to listen to the Craig Fahle Show on WDET. This past Monday, the 11th: a discussion of the return of Detroit's famed Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Although concerns remain about the DSO's longterm financial future, I look forward to hearing them hopefully in May. During the conversation, related to the DSO and other events in downtown Detroit: will those from the suburbs come into the city?

Living in Los Angeles where what is "downtown," and who will go there has been a constant albeit for different reasons - huge traffic gridlock (my other long-term project!) in LA - I am again struck by similarities between my home and my home city and yet how these parallels at the same time can starkly highlight their differences.

In March in LA, I attended SUPERFRONT LA'S Seminar DETROIT: A BROOKLYN CASE STUDY. Curated by Chloë Bass + Mitch McEwen, the exhibition and workshop consider Detroit "both as a specific city and as a set of circumstances." Speakers were urban planners, architects, social engineers speaking to some of the issues and solutions that have arisen in Detroit and that can be applied to other urban areas as well as urban experience elsewhere that may be applied to Detroit as the city itself reforms. While most participants in the project are not from Detroit and in fact, until a few days prior to the workshop both Chloë and Mitch had not been in Detroit (love their introductory video), a sharp and piercing discussion about the need for smaller cities and how to deal with land and infrastructure in one, such as Detroit and others, where the urbanization and sprawl has left bleak areas of fallow land and rusted pipelines, sewers and urban decay. The historic traditional land division (a left over from Civil War times) needs to be reinvented to allow for something other than the squared off blocks, reforming land.

Urban agriculture and green belts where once there was vacancy and decay again is posited as a significant part of any proposals. From the same April 11th Craig Fahle Show, positing the question of a public/private partnership for a vineyard project on Belle Isle.

Superfront has purchased a micro property (25 square inches) in Detroit through the LOVELAND project that seeks to use the vehicle of ownership as a personal reinvestment tool for the city. With this space, they have sought requests for proposals for the project, again adding the creative imaginations of many coming from the arts and architecture, environmental and urban planning factions to continue a discussion that is really about what this 21st century will be. In Los Angeles, models for that RPF are in exhibition at SUPERFRONT LA through May 20th, located at the Pacific Design Center (Blue Building SteB208).
Plans are being made to bring the exhibit to Detroit this summer and I am presently reading SUPERFRONT's book on the project .

EMERGENCY! and emergencies.

2011-03-12T16:23:00.001-08:00

We rally for disaster. We rally for change.

At this moment, a day after one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history with a resultant equally powerful tsunami, the photographic community is rallying and has already created a website with prints for sale to aid Japan. The site is set up on the Wall-Space Gallery site where a print is available for $50, Ed. 10.

Mine is there: a detail in a buddhist temple in Los Angeles.

As a Californian used to fires, earthquakes and cliffs sliding into the ocean, I understand instantaneous disaster. What is more overwhelming from my perspective is the disaster that has been Detroit for the decline has been so slow that perhaps at first nobody noticed. Detroit has required years of failure for the nation and a world finally to see.

Luckily, those within the city have had it and those outside are aware. Both are moving and I am lucky to be there at this moment.

Even amid the stark wintry scenes I photographed this past January, it was clear that there is a vitality in Detroit, dormant under the snow but waiting to burst out in the Spring. This will not be the first time but I am privileged to be able to watch it again.

Finally, after almost a month and one-half of hard work on other ongoing and pressured projects, I am printing work prints of the quick shots taken during my winter visit. They are stark and, while not necessarily portfolio prints, they depict a true sleeping beauty, awaiting a lover's kiss. And that lover is Detroit itself, aided by the attention that it has itself created.

My photographic work has always been about difficult beauty. The way I see is in the detail that others often overlook. So in many ways, Detroit, a city I did not know but one I am learning about quickly, is the optimum place for me to be.

Finding out why I should love Detroit

2011-03-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

More articles. More notes. The next trip: probably in early April. One week this time with again, probably too much to do.

Guess I'll at least have to eat at a Coneys....

By April Rudin
This Is My Detroit: What the Motor City Means to Me

In Between

2011-02-21T10:37:00.001-08:00

In between.... Between the planned exploration visits. Between the conversations. Between the projects.

Noting. Reading. Researching. Facebook postings. Blogs. Newspapers. Videos.

Trying not to be overwhelmed by this city and all that's being written and discussed about it. Knowing that what I need now is to ingest, view, listen. I'll be photographing and talking again in Detroit soon.

But for now, I am in between.

During this time, it may be that the blog itself reflects this period. Passive yet active. Taking it in. Reflection is good.

Thus, in such a time, this blog may be just noting something about Detroit.

One of my favorite from the NBC Local4/Flashpoint.

The status of filming incentives (hey- I'm from LA and this is of interest both from Detroit and LA where I live)

And, the following commentary from Mike Binder, a native Detroit/LA_based film person (in many roles)

From the NYTimes today about the possibility of the first satellite Patent Office opening in Detroit.

Detroit from afar

2011-02-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

I have no claim on the ability to speak to or for Detroit. A photographer with a tenuous link at most to my birth city, who hasn't lived there and until I return more frequently, am in truth like a "photo-tourist."

That said, in my briefest of visits, I found a vibrant city. A surprise to me, yes, for I too had heard only the most negative about Detroit and one, yes, that an urban-archaeologist might have to dig a little to find amid the very real mountain of abandoned and rotted buildings. But underneath and often not far from the surface, there is a vital Detroit filled already with multi-generational residents as well as newcomers with hope and, most importantly, ideas for the future.

An article in this week's Washington Post - "With Detroit in dire straits, mayor invites big thinking" - is informational, not just for its text but for the long list of often haranguing comments. Few are about what to do. Most are about political, economic and racial divide, not atypical of most feedback for anything these days. I wonder when we, as Americans, can live up to our promise and take positive action and not fall back on excuse or incrimination. History is important but it is most vital when considered in terms of effective progress. Those few individuals I have already met in Detroit, from a variety of economic, cultural, political and racial perspectives, for the most part were going forward.

Photo above: View up Woodward from the Penobscot.

Beginning to Feel a Native Pride

2011-02-07T20:05:00.000-08:00

Still going through the photographs I took in Detroit just a couple of weeks ago. Seems so long ago but for a first visit, it seems as if I was just there.

This is a new project and as such competes for now with a schedule that includes my long-term project, FINDING CHINATOWN, photographing in the Chinatowns of the US & Canada, with deadlines for an exhibition looming.

It is a tribute to the complexity and lure of Detroit that, although mentioned in the News Hub blog that I was there to photograph the Chinatowns as well as exploring my own family landmarks, in my first four+ days I never made it to Windsor to photograph their Chinatown and, most significantly I never finished my own personal landmark list for wherever I ventured, there was another story to pursue. The journey is truly just
beginning and I cannot wait to return in the Spring (yes I could return before but hey, I may be native Detroit but in truth I am a Southern Californian and it IS cold there right now).

In the interim, I perked up in the middle of the Super Bowl as I watched the Chrysler commercial and Eminem and that incredible choir to see scenes that are now familiar to me, filled with a pride for a native city that I had not known. There is so much to see.

Family By House

2011-01-27T11:41:00.000-08:00

There are so many ways in which we are connected, whether by six degrees or by place and interest. In this case, it is "by house."

From 1946 to 2011, the Pinehurst House has seen children born, families in life and death.

Below: 20 January 2011, Maurice Faust/January 1946 My father and me, brought home. I posted a version of this before but with Maurice, representing his family home, it seems so much more significant, adding personality and life to this progression.

Over the Wing, 21 January

2011-01-25T05:05:00.001-08:00

On board, waiting to fly home to Los Angeles. My section of the plane is silent so far for I have boarded early in order to get my cameras more safely stowed away

My view: over the wing. As I gaze out in the night, the dark wing obstructing the light and activity of a busy airport, I realize I haven't been on a plane since I started seriously photographing the 747 Wing House, still in construction in the hills of Malibu.

There I walk on the wings, now the roof, and think about how this strange behemoth, an aged Boeing 747, no longer able to serve its initial function, has been deconstructed and repurposed into an iconic symbol of something new, a home. Seen in this new light, it becomes something novel, something contributory to design, to culture. Without the vision on the part of the homeowner, my friend, and the architect, a leader in environmental and repurposing theory, this airplane might have become a few hundred/thousand tin cans.

It took vision and continuing commitment. It took engineers who had to think in a new way, to solve the problems of today - how do we attach an aluminium airplane wing to a structure so that it doesn't quite literally fly away in strong winds? So that it doesn't leak in torrential rain? Other than the building of a log cabin perhaps or the contemporary construction of off-grid structures, most homes require this type of interactive teamwork and a continual stream of invention.

So too Detroit, the home of many.

My "blank slate" is starting to pick up some chalky scribbles. No longer am I that native daughter with no preconception. For the welcoming citizens of Detroit are scratching out for me a design of this city, using their words, their deeds, their memories, their hopes and their mutual love and exasperation. It is there for me to see.

How will Detroit be repurposed, for isn't this what Detroit needs? Vision. Preservation. Encouragement. Investment and commitment.

Sunday, the 23rd, someone walked into a Police precinct house in Detroit and shot four police offiicers. The someone died. The officers survived. Yes, this could have happened in any city today with the violence that is eroding our cities. But violence of this sort so often arrives with questions unanswered. Detroit has enough frustration and anger and disappointment to lay the groundwork for such horror. If those who are there to help and those who will hopefully join in can figure out Detroit, perhaps we can figure out too what we would so like to ascribe only to Detroit but, in truth, is happening all around us.

Last Day. First Visit. 21 January.

2011-01-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

Friday, the 21st of January, cold but sunny. It is a day to photograph with clouds creating ghostly shapes across the landscape, highlighting then hiding.

The day starts at the very top of the Penobscot Building, once one of America's most celebrated skyscrapers and where my father returned in the '60s & '70s to serve on its Board of Directors. From this high, all of Detroit is clean and clear.

From within the Penobscot, the beauty of the details and the glamour of vintage Detroit remains.

On then to peek in at the Guardian Building. The deep and varied reds of this Mayan revival building made of brick, terra cotta and murals is overwhelmingly dramatic and I am not alone in staring.

There is a part of this musing in this first visit that makes me feel as if I am writing a travelogue and in part, I suppose that is exactly what I am doing. From conversation to conversation in just a short 4 day period, with very few photographs taken and even those in a different manner - quick, often in the presence of someone else - I am simply surveying the city with no true understanding of its meaning. It is frustrating in many ways for me as I want to do more yet as I walk or drive - often too cold or, I am cautioned by others, sometimes too dangerous to be alone with my expensive camera equipment - it feels like I am recording. Perhaps this is why as well that I am journaling and that early step is in fact my own little log from which ultimately I'll discover what it is I am hearing; what it is I am seeing.

What is apparent this day from my first visit at the Penobscot and the Guardian and viewing even smaller buildings such as Annis Furs, or the Detroit skyline in general: one can see that Detroit of old was a city of visionaries. The sadness: other buildings constructed with these dreams presently stand empty, many of them of the size and grandeur of the Guardian and the Penobscot.

Beauty needs people to appreciate and explore it and people add their own amendments to beauty when the economy and social system create the right environment to do so. Architecture remains along with an interest to preserve it, but what can preservation do in the stark face of economic disaster? Industrial Detroit remains - a quick peek into the annual Detroit Auto Show presents new ideas from Detroit's main industry - and perhaps finally that industry is taking note of the change it has itself forgotten about for too long.

As I leave Detroit, it is to the hard work already being done as well as the new ideas from individuals, from social interest groups, from neighborhood block clubs and from industry itself that one must look to go forward. This IS happening (see Model D's review of the Ann Arbor Conference that took place today, "Revitalization & Business: Focus Detroit.")

It is inconceivable that Detroit cannot rise again but much as I already am enamoured of the city in this very brief visit, I cannot get Percy Bysshe Shelley's words in Ozymandias out of my mind:

""My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

20 January: Birthday Day Detroit

2011-01-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

On my 65th birthday, today 20 January, after 64 years I am back inside my original family home on Pinehurst Drive in the Northwest section of Detroit. I am here through the graciousness of the Faust Family - sisters Mary Faust Hammons and Veronica Faust and their brother Maurice Faust - whose parents purchased this house in 1973.

A remarkable family, with a heritage of four generations in the auto industry, from farmers in Tennesee coming to work the line to college graduates at GM. A family full of activists, teachers, artists. Hard workers, like so many they say are still left in Detroit and if not working now, are ready to do so.

I am here after two full days of wandering all over Detroit, starting Tuesday morning at the Park Avenue House, formerly the Royal Palms Hotel where my father lived from l939 until he married in 1944. This hotel, home of the famous Town Pump restaurant, and other Park Avenue businesses are readying for a comeback.

Buoyed by the morning, I was unprepared for the afternoon where my guide, a photographer and urban explorer drove me from Highland Park to Corktown, to the Train Station, to the Eastside and then the Packard Plant. I know much of this is Detroit history - some closed in the '50s - but the devastation is overwhelming and I am reminded of a film seen years ago with some German friends, the first film filmed in Germany after WWII. Then, as I viewed the protagonist enter a church with no roof and hardly any walls, my friend who had been a child on the streets during the war, leaned over to me and whispered, "These are not sets."

Neither is Detroit a set and the poignancy of these sights is overpowering. I can understand the relevancy of the books of Andrew Moore and of the Marchand/Meffre team for, not only for the sake of Detroit but for the United States at the very least, this part of Detroit is a call to action, not just for Detroit but for all of us to understand what has been happening to our country, slowly, not just in these times but over the years. It is a call to awareness.

Yet at the same time, I could not post last night as emotion overwhelmed me.

There is a reality to what I saw. There are other realities in this complex city as well and my birthday gift today was a day filled with a variety of experiences that again balance some, not all, of what I had seen. This started with a visit with attorney Dwight Phillips whose firm, PfiferWhite, redeveloped the Annis Furs Building, the workplace of my father and a beautiful architectural piece of Detroit.

This view through the 6th Floor windows with cornice pieces.

From there to John K. King Books, one of the largest collections of used and rare books and a lot of whatever else I have ever seen and where I could have stayed forever.

I ended the day with the Fausts at the bi-monthly block meeting of the Henry Jolly Memorial Pinehurst Block Club where passionate neighbors have come together for safety, beautification, plowing their street, and other community activities such as block parties, yard sales and checking in on elderly neighbors. One cannot but come away encouraged how neighborhoods and the strong reinvention of them are becoming an active and essential key to the reestablishment of this beautiful city.

They speak of neighboring block clubs who have contacted them for association. As they say, they are retaking Detroit "block by block."

Although one day remains on this first visit, I must already thank Detroit for this birthday week. The Detroit Regional News Hub has called me a "blank slate," a "native daughter" returning to Detroit with no preconceptions. In many ways that is true and how Detroit, I and perhaps others are defined in this process of exploration still remains unclear but it continues to be fascinating.

First Real Day

2011-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

Rainy not snowing, today was about Midtown primarily. Meeting with several here working through their business ventures - a real estate brokerage, an indie bookstore and several stores to supply newer AND older residents, with the supplies, housing and hopefully neighborhoods they need.

Especially at this time of year, the streets are not crowded. In fact, while there are many comparisons one can make between the city of my birth, Detroit, and the city of my home, Los Angeles, cars and urban sprawl among them, what distinguishes Detroit for me is the lack of traffic, automotive and foot.

A beautiful city, filled with noted architecture in business and homes and with noted history both pre-industrial and post, but without the appearance of many people. That said, my conversations today show what one doesn't see from the street, from "outside," is more and more being strengthened from within.

With each conversation, I am pointed in another direction, revealing to me that the landmarks of this city as I explore it are not just my own, but that each person has their own definition of what is exciting and worth seeing in Detroit, a possible direction as I work to find my own focus.

A few quick pics from today, including below the historic Annis Furs/LB King building in downtown Detroit where my father worked as Advertising Director for the Annis Fur Company in the 1940s, the reason he was in Detroit. The fur trade, so I've learned is one of the major reasons for Detroit itself.

The upper photo is a northern view of Detroit downtown, a landscape across the fields of vacant land. Among the various proposals for Detroit and in fact now growing (obviously not in the winter... ): urban farming. The land is there and, in the spring and summer, one can see how this can change a city.

In Detroit

2011-01-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

Flew in on a very early flight from LA where it was almost 80 degrees yesterday and supposedly the same today. Here in Detroit the land is covered in snow but sunny and the drive into midtown from DTW is lovely. Loved the huge car tire symbol on the I-94.

Alternating bleak to beautiful on the drive through downtown by an escort from my lodging who stood guard as I quickly captured several quick pics of what remains of what was the Chinatown on Cass Street.

Brush Park as well, but within the glimpses of bleakness are scenics, houses and architecture of startling beauty.

Across the street tonight:

Preparation & Discovery

2011-01-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

With only a few shreds of paper, what is left of my parents during the Detroit years is revealing already a new perspective, the city's story woven especially into that of my father whose bachelor life ended during his nine years in Detroit before marriage, my birth and that of my brother who was born just weeks before we left the city for LA.

That story becomes more entangled with each new document or photo. It punctures family myths such as the fact that my brother was just six weeks old - as he and I had always thought - when we drove away from Detroit, now contradicted by evidence showing us leaving almost a month later. Not a great difference but significant in terms of those small details that had built the foundation of our own personal tales.

Part of this is resulting from boxes opened, disintegrating albums picked through as I prepare scans to accompany the Kickstarter funding proposal I had hoped to have posted before I leave for Detroit this coming Monday. The prep is taking far longer than imagined although with the positive outcome that it is draws me into deeper exploration. The words focus me. The images send me on another path.

And as I finalize what to see and do this first trip, my story too is filling in. Adding landmarks. Finding facts. With every call, I learn more about the city. Perhaps there is an analogy to what characterizes Detroit today, especially by those of us who do not know it and who visit/return without preconceptions: it takes these small individual pieces of data, not always connected, each needing to be discovered, understood and then, experienced, to define a city, almost as these personal ephemera - clippings, photos, my father's pilot's log from the City Airport - are expanding the definition of me.

Home

2011-01-06T08:59:00.001-08:00

Home is key. In researching Detroit these past months and becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the breadth of this city's complexity and concerns, home feels like the natural first focus. It is where I first started and where, again, I will start.

A telling irony: In West Los Angeles where I have lived most of my life, my two childhood homes are now gone, the victims of upscale demolition making way for mini-mansions. Yet in Detroit, so recently notorious for its burned out and empty buildings; the solid home full of hope that my parents purchased a few days before my birth still stands. Even the slanted address sign affixed to the front doorpost remains.

In less than two weeks, on my 65th birthday, I plan to be again in front of my first home. The drawing above was quickly sketched by me in Detroit decades ago while on a music gig at a time when I managed performers.

With luck this trip or next, I will be able to photograph the interior of the house and perhaps the Northwest neighborhood. I have located the owner, a hard-working UAW worker whose work and family generations in the auto industry have been profiled in USA Today in terms of a life characteristic of what is best about Detroit and best about America: Even with economic downturns, the hard work and increasing success and education of each generation. It is a strong story, not dissimilar to mine, and it feels good that this family owns the home.

Thinking of Detroit

2011-01-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

The family myth: Nearly 64 years ago, when the moving van from Detroit delivered our stuff to Los Angeles, my father realized that someone had inadvertently packed the snow shovel. He broke it over his knee.

I am thinking of this as I prepare for this month's first real visit back to Detroit, the city of my birth, to celebrate my 65th birthday there and start a photographic project in this place by which I am defined but of which I know little. Is this to be a quirky memory or a premonition, even of so little as the fact that it is presently 45 degrees at 6am near the Southern California beach where I live; the household heat is set to 70 degrees and I have on four layers of clothing?

I was born on Sunday, January 20, 1946 at Harper Hospital in the city of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan where my father was working and where my mother moved to marry him. I was brought home to my parents' newly purchased house on Pinehurst Avenue. We moved to California in 1947.

Some of the above I have just recently learned: The name of the hospital in which I was born; the fact that Detroit is in Wayne County; and that my family home was in the "Northwest," south of 7 Mile Road. Except for a cross-country family drive while a teen where I sulked in the back seat of the car and one quick work-related visit some 20+ years ago when I again sat in the back seat and sketched the family home, I have not been to Detroit since infancy.

I am a Californian, raised within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean where I have remained, listening at night to the waves pounding the beach and experiencing light filtered through the marine layer. It is where I have spent most of my life since July of l947 when I, at one, and my brother just six weeks were packed into a car by our parents to seek fame and fortune in LA where my father, a former "madman" in fashion advertising yet holding a UAW card, planned to start photo labs catering to the film and advertising industry.

It seems strange to be defined by something of which one has no knowledge but the fact of my birthplace has done just that over these years. When asked if I am a "native" Californian, I answer, "No, I was born in Detroit." It is time to investigate what that means.

So I am coming "home" to Detroit. To Michigan. Starting on my 65th birthday, I plan to photograph the city and surrounding areas in a series of seasonal visits with a planned project completion in early July of 2012, mimicking the time period of my Detroit habitation, exactly 65 years earlier.

This blog will be part of an accompanying journal about the project.