Projects and Projects

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!

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)

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

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

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

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

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.