thedetroiter.com

Remembering Woody Miller

Anthony Hepp — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 07:34:54 +0000

Our faithful readers have surely noticed the decrease in material flowing across TheDetroiter.com these past few weeks. It is with a very heavy heart that we share that Managing Editor Woody Miller, the heart and soul of the site for the last several years since founders Nick and John Sousanis handed Y-Arts Detroit the keys in 2008, passed away after a mercifully swift battle with cancer. His passing on not only leaves a great hole in the capacity of TheDetroiter.com to deliver arts news, but also, our city has lost a strident advocate for healthy, positive living and the building of the creative class in Detroit.

We would like to invite you to share in a celebration of his life on Belle Isle Beach on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 9:30 am. Cyclists are invited to share in one last lap around Belle Isle, Woody’s favorite ride.

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

Woody, in full cycling regalia, arrived on our doorstep and announced that Ron Allen, a Detroit playwright living in LA, had sent him to help with TheDetroiter.com. Y-Arts was about to assume the reins of TheDetroiter, and Gillian Eaton, Vice President of Arts and Humanities for the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit, had put out some feelers looking for help. Gillian was also friends with Mr. Allen, and he called to let her know Woody was coming. We were thrilled. None of us had met him before, but Woody had been in the publishing business for years and was connected in various ways to the creative community around the city. It seemed a natural fit, and so, immediately on his arrival, we began the work of running TheDetroiter.com.

“It’s what I’ve been saying for years,” Woody said. “Plan your work and work your plan. It’s about systems.” Conversations with him regularly began with, “It’s what I’ve been saying for years ,” followed by an axiomatic gem of wisdom (or perhaps an appropriate cliché), and then a good long talk. Woody was a tall man who could easily command a room with just his physicality, but he had a gentle way about him and I never once saw him use his presence to be anything other than kind. His demeanor was always calm and confident; nothing much seemed to bother him.

In the beginning, I questioned whether the “newspaper-days” wisdom he had amassed still applied to this new fangled internet stuff; newspapers were failing right and left, and the old ways weren’t translating. But Woody was convinced that papers had, generally speaking, panicked and had overcomplicated the work at hand. “There’s one, there’s two, and there’s many,” I heard him say almost weekly. We can do one or two things really well, and after that, the list becomes a pile that’s going to be a trick to manage. So, we created a list of one or two things to get done at a time, and when those things were done, we created the next list. It seemed to be a slow way to get things started, but Woody assured me that creating a plan in this methodical way and then executing the plan would ultimately make it all work.

Almost immediately, the project of taking over the site hit some bumps. A grant we had been counting on to get things going did not come through, and also, Woody wanted to see a number of elements of his plan more firmly in place before reaching out to advertisers for support. Y-Arts programming was expanding quickly, and fewer resources were immediately available to him than when he first walked through the door, so the bulk of the job of making everything work came to rest on his shoulders. He accepted the situation with little complaint, despite the fact that things were going to happen much slower than he liked.

Before long, Woody was a permanent fixture in our office. In the early afternoon, he would appear and set up his laptop to sift through the virtual mountain of press releases and announcements in his inbox that are the source of the site’s mostly event-centric posts. He invoiced us for the time he spent on the site originally, but eventually, as he became more aware of the frailty of Y-Arts’ financial support, the invoices stopped. His efforts, which totaled several dozen hours each week, were done out of his personal, stubborn commitment to making the site successful. It was not uncommon to see posts going out at two or three in the morning. It was his new baby, and he was its devoted caregiver literally for the rest of his life. In 2009, Woody was recognized by the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit, the association that manages the 15 or so Ys around Detroit, for his outstanding commitment as a volunteer.

Running Around Like a Chicken Cut His Head Off

TheDetroiter.com was just one project in a growing list of programs that Y-Arts, which had only existed for a couple of years by the time Woody arrived, began offering in and around the city. Woody engaged with most all of them, involving himself in one way or another, and always as a volunteer. He made regular appearances in the Marlene Boll Theatre’s box office taking tickets. He arranged to have bicycles donated by The Hub to Y-Arts to help with bicycle safety. He took breaks from editing posts on TheDetroiter to visit with the refugees from Freedom House who visit Y-Arts daily.

Playing with words and telling stories happened a lot in those afternoons, too. We were packing it in one evening after a long day, shutting down computers and putting on coats. Papa John, one of the Freedom House residents who started the t-shirt screen printing program at Y-Arts, attempted to repeat one of Woody’s expressions as we were leaving.

“Yes,” John said, following us out. “Let’s blow up this pop stand.” Woody and I exchanged a quick glance before we both cracked up. Woody’s laugh, that wonderful deep belly laugh, made those moments with him. It was hard not to laugh when he was laughing. He explained to John that “blowing the pop stand” was altogether different than blowing it up. The mistake reminded him of being a kid in Newnan, Georgia. He had an aunt there, who, like Woody, used a lot of expressions when she spoke, but she always got them somehow wrong. When asked if she had been busy, she replied, “Oh, Lord, yes. I’ve been running around like a chicken cut my head off.” Again that belly laugh, that infectious fun.

Quick stories like this were how we got to know Woody, but he rarely shared the deeper details. I was probably closer than anyone at Y-Arts to Woody, working directly with him for several years, but even so, there was a guarded, private side I didn’t have access to. I didn’t know where he lived, how many kids or grandkids he had (though it was clear he was wild about them all), what he did to earn a living outside the Y (I always assumed he was retired, but from what?). I heard through someone else that his son, Yale, had been killed a year or so before he started working with us, and he did eventually mention this to me, but in a very quiet, matter of fact way. It was an emotional thing to talk about, and I knew he did not want to, so I didn’t pry. We quickly changed the subject. As a father, I marveled at this strength he had, to have dealt with the loss of a child and to not only function, but to be actively involved in something like the YMCA, which kept us running around like a chicken had cut our heads off.

…And Bob’s Your Uncle

Woody’s love of cycling was as pure and complete as any love I’d ever encountered. He dressed the part except in the most formal of occasions, and he caught a lot grief over the lycra costume, helmet, and insectoid riding goggles that were his daily uniform. His shoes, made for clicking into his pedals, clicked and scraped along the polished floor of the Y, and no matter how much he assured John Harris, the Executive Director of the Boll Family YMCA, that they would not scratch the floor, you could see John cringe with every step Woody took. Of course, Woody was right, they didn’t leave a mark.

Woody rode rain or shine, day or night. Only the snowiest, darkest winter days kept him off his bike, and he talked a lot about enjoying rides from Detroit to Lansing and back. He talked, too, about training young riders for professional competition, and was proud of his accomplishments and theirs in the sport.

So, when the autumn leaves of 2009 began blowing around, it struck me as a little disconcerting when he called one afternoon to tell me he was having a hard time riding and probably wasn’t coming in for a couple of days. He had complained the week before about possible food poisoning, a bad sandwich had kept him in the bathroom most of a night.

“I thought I was over it, but I went for a ride earlier and something still isn’t right,” he said. We talked shop a little, he asked about my kids and the folks around the office and then we said our goodbyes. I bookmarked the moment mentally, but decided that, as Woody himself suggested, everything was OK.

Over the next several months, we saw less and less of Woody, though he called in regularly and the amount of content flowing across TheDetroiter did not decline. He ran into Cedric Tai at some point and asked him if he would be interested in helping out with TheDetroiter. Cedric, who has an able hand in just about everything creative happening in the city, was happy to come in and meet with us, and he brought a Web developer friend, Rodney Drewery, in with him. We all met on a number of occasions to sort out how to advance the site, and if possible, how to attract financial support to keep the project going.

By spring, things were looking up. Woody, who decided the earlier period of stomach problems must have been related to diet, had lost a bit of weight, but we chalked it up to the fact that he had started riding again and perhaps also that he was being more careful about what he was eating. He still wasn’t coming in every afternoon as he once had, but as long as he was posting to the site on at least a weekly basis, I wasn’t overly concerned. Woody was, after all, a volunteer, and any effort he put in was appreciated.

But then one week in perhaps early June, Woody didn’t post anything. I couldn’t send the newsletter because there was nothing new to send out. I couldn’t get him on the phone and he wasn’t replying to emails. After a day or two, a new post appeared, and then finally he called to tell us that he had gone to the emergency room the weekend before. They were running some tests and had scheduled a surgery. The doctors recommended “maybe some chemo” as a precautionary measure, but he didn’t want anyone to worry, he would be putting posts up and we would be running again in no time.

“I’ll be out a couple of weeks dealing with this,” he assured me, “but we’ll get this intestinal thing sorted out and Bob’s your uncle.” Another expression and that wonderful laugh made me almost believe him.

A second week passed with no new posts. Woody, sounding tired, called in to apologize late in the week, but of course it wasn’t necessary to apologize. He had already done so much, a couple of weeks off was deserved. We were more concerned about him getting his health in order.

Another week passed, and then one day David, Woody’s son who now lives in Seattle, called to let us know that Woody’s situation was much more dire than he was letting on. Even David felt he wasn’t getting the whole story from his dad, so he had tracked down the doctor treating Woody.

“It’s a terminal illness,” David reported. In the worst case, meaning he didn’t respond to the chemo, Woody had maybe six weeks.

Six weeks. It seemed unfathomable. Even in the best scenario, Woody didn’t have much time beyond that, according to the doctor.

Tim McGorey, the Y-Arts program manager who was there that first day Woody came in to offer his help, went up to see Woody the next afternoon, followed by another Y-Arts staffer, Nate Mullen, a day or so later. Finally, Tim and I made it up to the hospital to see him together. He had put in a request to Nate for real grapefruit juice, so we took some with us. He appeared a bit weak, had lost more weight, and his hair had grown out a bit.

“The food is awful,” he commented. “I finally got them to bring me just a big plate of fruit. That first bite of watermelon had my eyes just rolling back in my head.” He was excited to see the juice. “Ah, good. No more of that fructose water.” We talked about his view of the trees and the rough old guy he was sharing the room with, a history buff, it seemed, who like to argue about just about anything. Woody rolled his eyes.

We talked about organizing the work of TheDetroiter and how he was having a hard time concentrating at the moment, but he planned to get a system going so that Cedric and I could lend him a hand. I did my best to assure him that it all would be fine. I knew he was more concerned about me and the amount of work I already had on my plate.

And then he mentioned a strange experience he was having, recurring dreams about a sort of symbol, something a bit like a yin and yang, floating atop a distant pyramid on the horizon. The symbol seemed to still be there, even awake, and it was making him confused about his body.

“It’s like I have two bodies,” he said. He had to think hard about which of the two bodies was doing whatever it was he was doing at any given moment. “I don’t know how I’ll get it sorted out,” he said.

He told us that David was flying him out to Seattle, and he was excited about this because David had a bicycle out there that he was looking forward to riding. He was practically falling asleep mid sentence by then, so we said goodbyes.

A couple of weeks later, on July 18, a Sunday, two days after my birthday which I coincidentally share with his son, David, I saw a post on Facebook that seemed to be memorializing Woody. I frantically sent a message to the person who posted it and managed to see a couple more posts by other shared friends.

The following morning, David confirmed that Woody had indeed passed in Seattle in the early morning of July 17. It had been just over a month since, for the first time in almost two years, Woody went a week without posting to TheDetroiter.com.

In thinking about how to write about Woody, I realized he was a good friend of mine that I didn’t know very well. I reached out to David for help in filling in some of the gaps for this story, and in doing so, learned that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. There was a lot David didn’t know, either.

He directed me to his cousin Jessica, who had spent some time with relatives in Georgia. He also thought I should get in touch with Bill Boswell, Woody’s dear friend whom David said Woody talked about often. I did, and they generously provided the following overview of Woody’s life, which I have pieced together from messages from all three. So for those of you out there who learned from and laughed with him but feel that you didn’t really know him, here is what I have come to know about my good friend, Woody Miller:

Elwood “Woody” Drake Miller was born on September 28, 1944 at 66 Macintosh Street (now MLK) in Newnan, Georgia, to Leona and Ellwood Miller. It was the same house his mother had been born in, a house built by her father or grandfather. To this day, relatives still own the house and live there. Located about 35 miles from Atlanta, Newnan was a small agricultural town at the time Woody was born, but has since grown tremendously. His mother attended Clark College and was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Woody, the oldest, had two siblings: Jan, the middle child, and Steve, the youngest (Woody’s children would later call Steve “Uncle Honey”). The Millers moved the family north to Detroit “for the relatively good paying jobs that African American men could find in the auto manufacturing plants.” His father eventually retired from Ford and his mother from Sears and Roebuck in Livonia, where she taught sewing and economics classes. When she was 16, his sister, Jan, died of a brain aneurysm, and the tragedy deeply affected him. He graduated from Mumford High School in about 1962 and immediately entered the Air Force. Stationed in Alaska, he took classes in Literature and Philosophy at the University of Alaska, and eventually got an early discharge as a conscientious objector. On his return to Detroit, he went to work as a supervisor at a dry cleaning concern. He grew more active in the music and theatre scene, eventually doing PR and other work at Music Hall as the Director of Audience Development, and also took classes at Wayne County Community College and later Wayne State. He met and married his first wife, Edna, and they had two sons, David (Davey, born July 16, 1968), his oldest, and Yale (Njoma, born April 9, 1971). Woody was involved in the Peace Movement and wrote a lot of poetry, even taking six months after David was born to be a “house husband” and to write. In 1970, he went to work for Bill Boswell, who hired him as Assistant Manager of the Wayne County Community College Bookstore. Woody and Bill became great friends, staying in touch even after both left the bookstore in 1971. During that same year, he tried his hand at acting at the Detroit Repertory Theatre (in OF MICE AND MEN, in the 1971/72 season). After five years of marriage, Woody and Edna divorced, but remained very close friends for the remainder of Woody’s life. Woody, living in Indian Village, then married his second wife, Merry, who had a son also named David. (Bill Boswell reports that he lived in their attic for a time as he pursued his career in professional theatre). Woody worked as an insurance agent for a short while and then went on to become President and Publisher of the Michigan Healthcare News as well as Midtown Associates, an advertising agency, for the next 12 to 13 years. The offices were housed in the Belcrest Hotel on Cass. Merry and Woody divorced around 1986 at about the same time that Woody sold the Michigan Healthcare News. Merry now lives in Australia with her husband, Bob. It was also during this period in the eighties that he developed his love of cycling. He was a natural, and would later train young men and women for professional competition. For the remainder of his working career, Woody worked mainly as a consultant for nonprofits. In the late nineties, he moved to Ann Arbor, but returned to Detroit in 2005. His son, Yale, had children by then, and Woody’s love for them flourished. He was their Babu, and he was rarely seen without a grandchild on his lap or hanging off his shoulders. He loved to play guitar for them and it is said he was rather good at telling scary stories. On February 24, 2007, shortly after departing the residence of a long time friend, tragedy struck Woody again when Yale’s vehicle caught a barrage of bullets and he was fatally wounded. Yale passed away that same night at the age of 35. As with the passing of his sister all those years before, the loss completely devastated Woody. Not long after, Woody became the Managing Editor of TheDetroiter.com as it passed from founders Nick and John Sousanis to Y-Arts of the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit in 2008. He volunteered a tremendous amount of time to the Y mission and became an almost permanent fixture at the Boll Family YMCA where the Y-Arts offices are found. He also continued his love of cycling, serving on the board of The Hub of Detroit, a nonprofit bicycle reuse and repair shop located in the Cass Corridor of Detroit. In the early summer of 2010, Woody fell ill to symptoms that were diagnosed as colon cancer. He was transported to Seattle, Washington, where David currently lives with his wife and daughter, for treatment. Unfortunately for the city of Detroit, particularly for the cycling and arts communities of Detroit, he didn’t live to see his beloved city again. Woody passed away during the morning hours of July 17, 2010. He was 65 years old. A memorial service was held on August 14, 2010 at Belle Isle at 9:30 am. His son, David, leading a pack of cyclists, carried his ashes for the final lap of his favorite ride.

Woody Miller will be sorely missed.

Woody Miller Memorial Facebook Event Page

The Hub of Detroit

Susan Kristjansson Gallery call for Entries

Ian Swanson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:08:14 +0000

Susan Kristjansson Gallery is currently accepting submission for its 2010 September, October and November exhibits.

Each Exhibit will be a group show featuring two to three artists. Two dimensional work, in any medium, accepted at this time. Each artist must have a large quantity of finished works to choose from, approximately 7 to 10 pieces.

Susan Kristjansson Gallery a privately owned and operated commercial gallery, located in the downtown cultural district of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. We hold ten art exhibits a year, with the summer and holiday months running two months long each. Each exhibit features original artwork for purchase from emerging and established artist from across the globe.

Susan Kristjansson Gallery is also now accepting submission from artists seeking full time representation.

To apply, please state in the heading which you are applying for; either a fall exhibit and/or full representation.

Attach link to website or jpeg images, prices, CV and contact information, as well as which month(s) you are available to show your work in the fall (if applicable)

skristjansson@gmail.com

North2 Gallery Call for Entries

Ian Swanson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:04:50 +0000

North2 Gallery is located on the second floor of Team Detroit building
is committed to providing a venue for contemporary art and exposure of
artists residing in the Detroit area.

Call for Artist Post:

North2 Gallery invites submissions and proposals of works in all
mediums including but not limited to, installation, video, photography
and painting, but we are most interested in site specific work that
fills the wall spaces. The two wall spaces are 20′ x 9′ and 33’ x 9’.
Video work will be shown on a 42” flat screen mounted on the wall in
the gallery space.

Upon acceptance funding for installation cost will be available. The
works will be shown at Team Detroit for four months. There will be an
opening reception with the Team Detroit employees and family/friends
of the artist.

For submissions of pre-existing work please include the title, date
completed, size and a brief
description of the work. Also, please include at least one high
resolution photo of the work.
For proposals of sight specific work please include a clear project description
Film submissions should include the title, date, length and brief
description of the work. They can
be submitted either electronically in H.264 or Quicktime mov. format
or by mailing in a DVD.

Deadline : August 20th, 2010

Accepted entries will be notified at end of August.

Co-curators: Dorota Coy, Brian Merkel

Submissions should be emailed to North2gallery@gmail.com
or mailed to:
C/O Dorota Coy
and
Brian Merkel
Team Detroit
550 Town Center Drive
Dearborn, MI 48126

Film Review: Inception

Nicole Rupersburg — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:14:34 +0000

The term “auteur” has historically been thrown around a lot a bit haphazardly, preemptively. Auteur theory was popularized by the likes of Francois Truffaut (a film critic who made films that examined the constructedness of filmmaking) in his Cahiers du Cinema, with cinematic juggernauts like Hitchcock and Welles regarded worshipfully as the de facto examples. Since then the term has been co-opted, hung on the name of every fledgling director who showed a bit of vision and promise. Christopher Nolan is the real thing.

His first film was Following, an extremely low-budget (damn near guerrilla) film that made the festival circuit but never broke the mainstream. Then came Memento; it was unlike anything audiences had ever seen before. Insomnia, the Prestige, Batman Begins and the Dark Knight…Nolan is one of the most celebrated and accomplished contemporary filmmakers working today. His films are dark and sophisticated, complex and intense. He gets huge box office draw working with themes and structures that in any other hands would be considered too esoteric, too abstruse for the common (American) audience. His work is consistently critically and commercially successful, and yet he has succeeded in retaining his own unique voice in his films, his auteurism, despite the fact that he is now working from deeply within the Hollywood machine. Not unlike Hitchcock himself, really.

Inception is Nolan’s latest achievement, and in many ways it is almost an homage to his earlier work. Written, produced and directed by Nolan himself (as he has done with the majority of his films, save for the script for the adapted Insomnia), Inception is the latest entrant into Nolan’s spiraling world of colliding realities, multi-layered and ever-shifting. Here Nolan goes back to his basics: delving deep into the fractured minds of damaged men to explore their own delicate and imbalanced realities.

Inception is the bigger, glossier, more sci-fi oriented brother of Memento, which was more of a straightforwardly (though non-linear) psycho-drama film noir. But Inception echoes of Memento at every turn: a man whose entire sense of reality is in question, whose own memories can’t be trusted, who has lost a wife and is desperate to bring her back, even though he knows he cannot. Sci-fi action thriller or psychological mindfuck, the question Nolan is ultimately asking is this: how much do we lie to ourselves to preserve our own fragile psyches? Or, in a pedantic theoretical sense, if we construct our own realities how can we ever really know what’s real…and is there even such a thing?

It would be a mistake to compare this film to emotionally void yet visually stunning action flicks like The Matrix, though the multi-tiered layers of so-called reality make the comparison inevitable (Cronenberg’s eXistenZ also comes to mind, as does Sergei Lukyanenko’s concept of the Gloom in his Day Watch novels, in which each layer is increasingly more dangerous and unstable, threatening to claim its victims and make them forget their own realities). But what could have been just another frivolous summer blockbuster, a sci-fi companion to Ocean’s Eleven, is instead a fairly intricate character study.

Cobb – the name itself taken straight from the duplicitous main character in Nolan’s own Following – is an Extractor: he steals people’s dreams. Or, rather, he breaks into people’s dreams in order to steal information, a kind of high-stakes cerebral heist. For reasons that are revealed as the plot unfolds, Cobb (played coolly by Leonardo DiCaprio, with a hint at the inner turmoil about to bubble over) decides to take on a very risky assignment, one which promises to free him once and for all so he can return to his children: an inception, planting an idea rather than stealing one. He enlists the help of other professional thieves and scientists (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and Nolan regular Michael Caine), and together they contrive a plan for inception which ultimately requires multiple layers of dreams-within-dreams, numerous faux-realities to construct, and increased levels of danger with every dream level traversed. But during the course of the planning and implementation of the inception, Cobb’s own destructive past is slowly revealed, making him a threat to himself and his team.

And this is where Inception fails: in all of Nolan’s films, each character is given a level of depth too little seen in mainstream films. Here, the characters simply are not developed enough for the audience to feel true empathy. The lack of development could have been salvaged by strong performances, but auxiliary cast members were forgettable (except perhaps Murphy, as the inception target), and our lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio – a fierce talent in certain roles – lacked the intensity necessary to carry the film. The audience does not feel the same self-deluding desperation that Guy Pearce gave us in Memento, or the same torturous obsession Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale exhibited in The Prestige, or even just the internal conflict of Bale as Batman. Nolan’s films are by trademark psychologically probing character studies, regardless of what kind of genre they’re packaged in; here it felt as if Inception tried to be both fully a mind-bending sci-fi thriller AND a quiet descent into the darkest depths of men’s minds…without ever really succeeding at being either.

The one exception here is Marion Cotillard, who plays Cobb’s deceased wife Mal (“evil”) who remains very much alive in his subconscious. Cotillard (whose delightfully wicked turn in Love Me If You Dare should not be missed) is exactly what she needs to be, playing the haunted memory of a troubled wife whose death Cobb is somehow responsible for. She is not a fully-developed character, nor is she supposed to be. Instead, she is a fully-developed obsession, a culmination of all of Cobb’s desires and regrets. She is angry, vengeful, and destructive. She is love and revenge. Her eyes are wild, a feral foil to Cobb’s attempted placidity, betraying his own turmoil roiling beneath the quiet surface. DiCaprio plays Cobb’s secrets discreetly, losing control only when at his most vulnerable – in his dreams, with Mal.

Another issue lies with the development of the Cobb character: his motivations are never really clear – or just don’t entirely make sense. By the end of Memento, it was clear that Leonard Shelby had actively made the decision to continue believing the story he himself created – that his wife had been killed when he was attacked and lost his short-term memory and he was trying to avenge her death – when it reality it was HE who killed her, he was Sammy Jankis, and he conscious mind could not accept what he had done so he continued perpetuating his own false reality in which he plays the avenging hero with a conveniently unreliable memory, leaving himself planted clues to the “killer’s” identity. Inception unravels here (SPOILER ALERT: SKIP TO NEXT PARAGRAPH): if Cobb were indeed still in a dream at the end, what is his motivation for staying there? In this dream world Mal is dead and his children are lost to him; if he could make the decision to descend to another dream level in which they were all together why wouldn’t he do so, if he were already choosing to stay in a dream as it was? A true Memento-era Nolan twist would have been that Cobb became convinced their world wasn’t real, killed his wife to prove it only to find out he was wrong, and decided to escape to a dream world in which she committed suicide instead. This begs the question: has Hollywood softened Nolan?

Nolan’s trademark devices are all in place: an eerily epic score that conveys as much emotion as the actors’ faces; softly-lit flashbacks of tender moments tinged with longing and regret; repeated refrains and images which seem innocuous enough at first until they gain a heavy significance as the plot progresses. But with his newly developed skills as an action film director, Nolan pulls out a gorgeously orchestrated piece of cinematic choreography as characters in a second-tier dream fight inside a rolling hallway, where all sense of orientation is lost and they leap from ceiling to floor to wall. Visuals such as the city of Paris rolling over onto itself are stunning, yet also oddly deemphasized. This visceral film is less about manipulating dream cities and walking on walls and more about navigating the realms of subconscious desires.

Though not quite as non-linear as its precursor Memento, Inception’s resolution is less clear, and less satisfying. No doubt this will benefit from a second viewing, but despite its flaws Inception is another solid example of Nolan’s quiet character studies delving into the darkest natures of man packaged in all the pretty Hollywood glitz to get popcorn audiences in the door and keep academics referencing it in film journals for years to come. A weak film from an auteur of this caliber is still a towering achievement over most others, and even if Hollywood has softened Nolan (or, more likely, forced him to soften himself), a film like Inception is still more daring than most other big-budget blockbusters. You may not get the emotional investment you’ve come to expect from Nolan, but he still does not disappoint the intellect.

Now playing in theatres everywhere.

Saturday July 17, 2010

Cedric Tai — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:31:45 +0000

Lauren Rice – Breakin Out the Good China

“Swim Lane”

A group show featuring the artists

George Rahme, Lauren Rice, Ian Swanson and Graem Whyte

17 July – 14 August, 2010

Exhibition Public Reception: Saturday 17 July from 6 to 10pm
Artists’ talk and gallery tour 6-8pm Saturday August 7

Gallery: 2739 Edwin, Floor 2, Hamtramck, Mi 48212
Regular Hours: 12noon – 5pm Saturday
Other hours by appointment, please contact edwin2739@airpost.net

Background

The term “Swim Lane” can be used to describe parallel paths (through a body
of water) or as a visual metaphor for mapping the complexity of modern life.

This show includes four highly individualistic Detroit area artists whose combined
work could be seen as weaving in and out of both of these descriptions, sometimes
seeming to originate from a common place, but rarely following recognizably similar
routes, and speaking clearly of the present without ever resolving to a simple narrative.

Directions: 2739 Edwin is just West of Joseph Campau, and 4 blocks North of Holbrook.
There is public parking on Joseph Campau, and various other locations including 2 lots
just North of the building.

Detroit and Issues art exhibition at Cass Cafe
(July 17 – September 18, 2010)

* Reception with the artists:
Saturday July 17, 7 – 10 pm

Gwen Joy above

“Detroit with Issues”

A group show featuring the Detroit artists

Jason Clark, Gwen Joy, Aaron Zorn and Karpov The Wrecked Train

17 July – 8 September, 2010

Exhibition Public Reception: Saturday 17 July from 7 to 10pm
Performances by local rockers “The Wrong Numbers” featuring Jason Clark on vocals and special guests TBA begin at 10 p.m.

Gallery: Cass Cafe is located at 4620 Cass Avenue in Detroit’s Midtown.
Regular Hours: Monday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 2 a.m., Sunday 5 p.m. – 12mn.
Contact: 313-831-1400, www.casscafe.com

Background

The artists work is drawn together through
exploration of Detroit in image and issue.

Screenshot from their website

“The Big Inch Blockparty”

Definitely not a block party by usual standards, but without a doubt the biggest block party ever if you’re using inch blocks!

$1 cover at the Synagogue gets you a deed to one square inch of land in Detroit via the LOVELAND project. Everyone leaves a land owner! Wooo!

17 July – 18 July, 2010

Block Party Runs: 9 pm to 12 am
There will be food, drinks, cool peops, immersive video projections by Dan Land (who happens to have worked on Insane Clown Posse’s Miracles video — F’ing inches… how do they work??), music by Lightning Love and the Detroit Party Marching Band, DJing by Greg Baise, a land idea recording booth and other surprises. RSVP and check back for updates!

Location: Downtown Synagogue, 1457 Griswold, Detroit, MI 48226
RSVP: http://biginchblockparty.com/, http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=129884077031058
Contact: If you’re incherested in becoming a sponsor of the party or the LOVELAND project, please call Jerry at 908-343-1981 or email jerry@makeloveland.com.

Background

LOVELAND began in the summer of 2009 with a vision for applying elements from video games, virtual reality, and new fundraising and social ownership models to the development of very real things in very real places. We call the model we’re working on “entertainment fundraising” and we’re figuring a lot of it out as we go along.

Right now you’re inchvited to purchase land and ‘move’ to Detroit. An inchvestment, really, for $1 per square inch. From there you can get creative with your space and your new neighbors, in Detroit or over the Inchernet, and we’ve started a grant program to share with other projects in Detroit.

So far a first 10,000 square inch property named Plymouth has become a tiny home to nearly 600 inchvestors from around the world, and a second 50,000 square inch microhood named Hello World has just opened online along with a Season 2 narrative about building The Bridge To Everywhere: a virtual bridge that grows inch by inch from Detroit to all places as people buy land.

In this way, LOVELAND plans to keep inching forward into a bigger and better future, adding new features and new ideas and new properties in a seasonal leveling-up process.

We aspire to be positive, open, and productively experimental in our operations. Currently incorporated as Why Don’t We Own This? LLC, we’ve applied for L3C hybrid for- and non-profit status (only available in 4 states, including Michigan, and 2 Native American tribes) designed to encourage social entrepreneurship for a Return on Awesome as well as a Return on Investment.

If you’re incherested in joining this inchventure (sorry, we have to) please purchase some inches and see if there’s anything you might like to help with. We want to build a global community of small contributors who collectively create something grand. In other words, Uncle Inchy wants you!

To speak about the project directly, call Jerry at 908-343-1981 or email jerry@makeloveland.com. In addition to inchvestors we’re also seeking sponsors and patrons who want to support our work on a grander scale. Thank you! <3

“thanks to Betaworks http://betaworks.com/ and McClure’s Pickles http://mcclurespickles.com/ for being sponsors.”

Swim Lane at 2739 Edwin

Cedric Tai — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:00:36 +0000

Lauren Rice – Breakin Out the Good China

“Swim Lane”

A group show featuring the artists

George Rahme, Lauren Rice, Ian Swanson and Graem Whyte

17 July – 14 August, 2010

Exhibition Public Reception: Saturday 17 July from 6 to 10pm
Artists’ talk and gallery tour 6-8pm Saturday August 7

Gallery: 2739 Edwin, Floor 2, Hamtramck, Mi 48212
Regular Hours: 12noon – 5pm Saturday
Other hours by appointment, please contact edwin2739@airpost.net

Background

The term “Swim Lane” can be used to describe parallel paths (through a body
of water) or as a visual metaphor for mapping the complexity of modern life.

Luda Tcherniak

Cedric Tai — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:51:12 +0000

Name(s): Luda Tcherniak
Mediums known for: Oil paintings
Years in Detroit: 19 years
Affiliations: Does traditional art for commercial buildings and works out of her studio
Contact: ludaart@hotmail.com

Untitled, Oil on canvas, 30'' x 24''

Untitled, Oil on Canvas, 40'' x 40''

Untitled, Oil on canvas, 66'' x 66''

Untitled, Oil on Canvas, 66'' x 66''

Untitled, Oil on canvas, 48''x 60''

Diane VB Jones recommending Luda Tcherniak from Cedric Tai on Vimeo.

These webpages are courtesy of thedetroiter.com, we asked local artists who their favorite local artists were (who didn’t and may have never had their own webpage), when names popped up more than a few times, they were honored with a page. Each artist gets to choose the next artist. Luda is still deciding on which artist she would like to choose.

Andrew Thompson

Cedric Tai — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:51:14 +0000

Name(s): Andrew Thompson or AndyT
Mediums known for: Using re-purposed materials to make sculptures and installations
Years in Detroit: 6 years
Affiliations: Teach part-time at College for Creative Studies, University of Michigan, Oakland University, Oakland Community College, and Paint Creek Center for the Arts, LEO Union AFT Michigan #6244, Coordinator for the Raw Dog Crit Club
Contact: MCAndyT@gmail.com

''You can see your friend now…'', Studio trash and adhesives, 3ft x 8ft x 10ft, 2009

''Where ya headed, Stranger?'', Studio trash and adhesives, 3ft x 6ft x 10ft, 2006

''Ooo, while you're up…''. Studio trash and adhesives. 5ft x 5ft x 6ft, 2010

''Dream House: Clothes Pit'', donated clothing, furniture, lumber, drywall, 8ft x 8ft x 9ft, 2008

''Dream House: Sculpture'', Entirety of pedestals at Paint Creek Center for the Arts, furniture, books, storage closet, 8ft x 16ft x 12ft, 2008

''Dream House: Box Full of Letters'', donated envelopes and shipping supplies, furniture, lumber, 12ft x 15ft x 5ft, 2009

Call for Enteries at the Russell Gallery!

Janine Surma — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:27:13 +0000

Call For Entries.

The Russell Gallery is currently seeking entries for it’s 2010 Summer in the City Exhibition to run from Saturday, July 24th through Sunday, August 15th.

Applicants are invited to submit up to five high quality .jpg images of original works in any medium. Applicants must include an image list with artist name and contact info, title of work, date of completion and mediums used. All work must be for sale. Submissions can be emailed to gallery@russellbazaar.com with Summer in the City in the subject line or dropped off in cd form at the Russell Bazaar office. The Russell Gallery is located on the first floor of Building 3 in the Russell Industrial Center, 1600 Clay Ave Detroit, MI 48211.

All entries must be received by Thursday, July 15th. Entries will be juried by Russell Gallery staff. Accepted artists will be notified by Saturday, July 17th. Work must be delivered to the gallery by Thursday, July 22nd.

“Erratic Tendencies” @ Burton Theater

thedetroiter.com — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:23:55 +0000

By: Ian Swanson

“Erratic Tendencies”, curated by Cristin Richard (under the House of Raw moniker), is the first in a proposed series of exhibitions at Detroit’s Burton Theatre. Featuring the work of artists Wendy Ross and Frank Synowicz, this show stands as a strong statement on what are certain to be a number of excellent exhibitions in the future. Webster’s dictionary defines erratic as “having no fixed course” or as “deviating from what is ordinary or standard”. While both Ross and Synowicz seem to have followed a “fixed course” in the rules guiding the creation of this work, there is a decidely present deviation from the ordinary. Although with a significant nod to the history of abstract painting, illustration, fiber art, and fashion.

The flier

Ross limits herself to a minimum of materials with results that are refreshing and often surprising. Working with predominately canvas, wax, and thread she creates elaborate, moody, and beautiful sculptures and “drawings”. Her “Boat Coat” series, a set of six small stiched compositions on canvas, are an interesting and novel approach to drawing. They are reminiscent of Tracy Emin’s stitched drawings in her recent show “Only God Knows I’m Good”, though these are of a decidely less bombastic nature. While her choice of materials seem to arise from a feminine or domestic place, she contrasts such a simple read through sheer physicality and weight in her large wall sculptures. “Best Friend Force Fest”, a large slumped form with a set of organic canvas protusions extending from it’s center, recalls a deflated life raft populated with weary survivors. The reference to water and survival in these suspended forms and their titles lends the work an air of surrender and defeat. The diminuitive size of two of Ross’ other works, both small domestic objects (a chair, an ornately framed mirror) held still in blocks of cast wax, enforces this mood. In contrast to these are “George Washington Hair Helmet” and “My Favorite Girl Scout”. The hair helmet is a reconstructed wig of the sort associated with Judges. However, by emptying the wig of it’s contents (a human being and symbol of authority) the wigs historical power is stripped away, usurped by what many may consider the “women’s work” of garment making. “Girl Scout” borrows the form of an Ojo de Dios (or Eye of God), and keeps watch over the rest of the works from the top of the stairs. There is a certain comfort in the summer camp craft of this work, though Ross’ choice to wrap it with vinyl oxygen tubing gives it an uneasy nature. How can the Eye of God watch over us if we can see right through it?

The paintings of Frank Synowicz strike a similar balance between chaos and order. Created through an obsessive webbing of hatched brush strokes with meticulous attention to detail, they feel like what one might expect to see if you asked an engineer at NASA to interpret abstract expressionism…or perhaps Kandinksy in the age of Adderal. The monotone color in the paintings gives them a harmony with Ross’ sculpture that may otherwise not be present. While they are significantly more illustrative and traditionally conceived than Ross’ two dimensional work, the attention to craft and detail bonds the two. The hyperactive energy present in Synowicz’s small canvases is an interesting counterpoint to the solemnity of Ross. Just when you feel like you could be swept up and lulled away in her flowing sculptures, the static vibration of his paintings jars you back to the present time and place. It’s like the paranoiac and the prophet. Erratic, indeed.