Now What?

I do like this blog title and dealing w/ artistic matters around this city Detroit. So I think Im gonna keep it and update news from Detroit artists and artistic items I think would be interesting.

Done

so the class is over and the tasks are done. what do I have to say about all this? I think it's a good course to have, but I wish I more of a creative role in all this. However I met good people and learned about some amazing non profit orgs in the city.

Place Makers

this semester we were asked whether we were actual placemakers in the community. Creating a space in the are that was dedicated to art's role in improving the environment and the overall moral of the people. While I do believe that placemaking is an important aspect of urban living, I did not consider myself as a placemaker. My role in the hospital was logistical. I helped to collect, and display others' art works. I would say that the artists themselves are placemakers. Working to realize an artistic vision is the ultimate goal of an artist.  To have an art piece displayed in a permanent space takes on so many different meanings as time goes on.

The Redford Theatre

It took me a long time to figure out what I was going to choose for the final project. Two weeks ago while sitting in my Video Editing class, I found inspiration. We screened a project titled Detroit J'taime. The project involved finding an aspect about the city that we liked and create a short 3 minute documentary on it.

One groupchose The Redford Theater, which is the headquarters of The Motor City Theatre Organ Society. The MCTOS is committed to the preservation and restoration of pipe organs. The MCTOS is a 501 (c) (3) organization. The Redford Theatre itself commits to showing classic movies in a classic movie house design. Twice a month the theatre shows films for low ticket prices. Located in Detroit, the theatre has volunteer staff that keeps everything running smoothly.

The Reford continually undergoes restoration and is in need of funding to complete its' theatre seating restorations. The Redford received a grant for half of the restorations. The staff has a continuing fund raising drive to complete the project.
The thetre is well worth restoring as a rare but needed institution in the city and I hope to be of help in The Rredford's mission

Art Show

Part of my project was to help install the art for the National Arts Program. The exhibit is located within Children's Hospital. Art featured is donated by patients, staff, family , and volunteers. I really enjoyed seeing the art people brought in. Everyone is so happy to show what they or a family member has done. The one thing about this process is that I see how well everyone responded to seeing art installed in the hospital hallways. I never feel like I'm in a hospital when I walk around picking up artwork. Of course this hospital deals with all types of illness and accidents like other hospitals. But what I see from everyone is that they are there for the children and their families. In future I wouldn't mind volunteering  to work with producing work or helping patients produce work. I'm posting some pictures from the show.

The Project

I finally found out what I will be doing for the project. Our last class I was really interested in what everyone had to do for the class. It sounds like we'll all be very very busy. As for me, I'm helping with the art exhibition/competition for the hospital. Helping to find artists, accept their work, help categorize and hand the work, and help to find guest juror(s). I have some ideas so I'm just going to start from scratch.

On another note I think most of us were caught off guard as far as what we expected to do for our assignments. I think most of us are happy with our assignment. So we will see how everything works out.

Perspectives

I will receive my official duties tomorrow. But last week we played an interesting game that dealt with automatic assumptions and prejudices. We were to rate on a 1 to 10 scale which types of people we would like to trade lives with for one year. There were three rounds and each round we were given one fact about the ten people. At the end of the game. I felt the game was a very entertaining way to learn about personal prejudices and vales. I would love to play that game in other situations to see how people would react to their selections.