Detroit // Recycle Here!

A friend of mine quickly hand rendered a comprehensive guide to help motivate his roommates to become better recyclers, and to be more conscious of what can be recycled in the first place. I took his sketch and challenged myself to turned it into something a bit more visually appealing with the help of Adobe InDesign.

If you're living in the Detroit area and not quite sure about recycling, do your part and start out by looking into their website > Recycle Here!

Original sketch under the cut!

Letterpress Workshop // Prove Your Love

My friend Tom and I are both currently interning at Salt and Cedar letterpress, and today we helped prep for the Valentine workshop event, Prove Your Love. After fresh cups of Great Lakes coffee, both he and I got to work by setting up a variety of paper goods for the class. 

To start the morning off, Megan O'Connell lead the group by explaining the letterpress and movable type printing process via hands-on demonstration. Each couple then had the opportunity to create their own customized valentine notes. Everyone was encouraged to take sporadic breaks to indulge in fresh sliced baguettes spread with a triple-cream brie, and topped with choice of raspberry jam, raw honey, salami and/or a balsamic vinegar. The students were really wonderful, and great times were had!

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upcoming salt and cedar events:

- advance base concert, february 15 @ 8 p.m. (purchase tickets here)

- book & bread, february 23 @ 6 p.m.

Rob Roy Kelly // American Wood Type

Rob Roy Kelly: American Wood Type Exhibition @ Salt and Cedar, Detroit.

Detroit Methods Book

Last semester I took a special topics in sculpture studio class entitled Detroit Methods, which I've blogged about here, here and here. As students, we were responsible for the creation and execution of events that involved the surrounding community and worked alongside an engaged community artist collective within the city of Detroit.

As a final project our class had the privilege of exhibiting of our semesters work at  The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MoCAD). We then collaborated on a 253-page class book that closely examines our individual events + the work we completed throughout the course of the term under artist and architect Fritz Haeg. Although the book was a collaborative effort, those involved with the overall design + layout aspect were: Bianca Ibarlucea, Julie Howells and Renee Sandoval. 

Interesting in purchasing one for yourself? Buy it here!

More about the book:

Detroit Methods is a studio for exploring the particularly innovative ways in which some contemporary artists are working in Detroit today, while developing student projects with similar strategies and approaches. The projects done by students in this class are reactions to real issues that Detroit is currently facing. Projects in this class involve food, transit, lighting, communications, parks and public spaces.

This book is a compilation of all of the work done by students in the class.

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weekend plans around Detroit:

- rob roy kelly: american wood type exhibit @ salt and cedar

- neat places around detroit: 

          + great lakes coffee (for coffee + studying)

          + sugar house (for craft cocktails + intimate atmosphere) 

          + green dot stables (for cheap sliders + drinks)

          + le petit zinc (french cafe + creperie)

          + supino pizzeria (arguably the best pizza in detroit) 

- MoCAD: when attitude becomes form becomes attitude, showcasing over 80 international contemporary artists who follow.

Around the Studio

A few school friends and I have been hanging around Salt and Cedar/Market Studio Kitchen, a non-profit artist collective ran by Leon Johnson and Megan O'Connell, and wanted to document our time spent in the studio that afternoon. I absolutely love the space and positive energy instantly felt upon entering. They have such a great collection of artwork displayed and fascinating books to browse through, it's just the kind of place you could hangout in for hours and never get bored.

L + M arrange for many different monthly events that I've been helping out with in my spare time. If you're at all interested, come by tomorrow night (Thursday, December 13th) for an event called Healthy or Hungover. The night will entail a cooking demo lead by Nimai Larson of the Brooklyn based band, Prince Rama.

(december events calendar + more photos below the cut)

Final Exhibition at MoCAD

The exhibition of my Home, Commons & Collective

 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit:

Since my projects were all centered around food, I served homemade French onion soup (topped with muenster and all!). I set up a coal grill outside as Part 2 of my communal bread toasting event, originally held on Noel Night, December 1st.

Detroit Methods began setting up installations this past Saturday and held the event Sunday from 11am-5pm. We had prepared for this final event so heavily throughout the past month. I couldn't believe how quickly the exhibition came and past. With the exception of the middle section entitled 'Final Exhibition', the above images were taken by me.

When I first found out that my class was to publicly exhibit at The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit it seemed to be this very illusive concept to me, and very intimidating. This was a real credible museum that has showcased many prestigious locally, nationally and internationally acclaimed artists in the past. All-in-all the event was very well received and the staff at MoCAD was impressed with the end results. All of the hard work we poured into our projects that addressed different issues currently facing the city of Detroit paid off during this final exhibition.

Upon arrival of the exhibition, the text below was presented to the public:

DETROIT METHODS

At Home, in the Commons

A collective map of the city is taped out on the floor serving as a stage for the presentation of student projects with responses and contributions by visitors. The everyday spaces of private domesticity and public urbanity are reconsidered with activities such as communal street bread baking, vacant building film projections, bedroom spirit conjuring, backyard feral cat accommodating, community garden water harvesting, urban meadow mowing, people shepherding, public gardening dialoging, mass transit monitoring and various forms of story telling.

The projects were developed during a Wayne State studio lead by visiting artist Fritz Haeg and WSU art faculty member Eric Troffkin - exploring the particularly innovative ways in which some contemporary artists are working in Detroit today, while developing student projects with similar strategies and approaches. Student projects by Leah DiPace, Julie Howells, Bianca Ibarlucea, Rebecca Love, Joseph Culver, Daniel Presley, William Sabbagh, Renee Sandoval and Jessica Wildman react to real issues the city is facing, involving food, transit, lighting, communications, parks and public spaces.

Type a story of your own experience at home or in the commons of Detroit, 

attach it to a brick, and locate it on the map.

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A few extras:

-A few mentioned that they enjoyed the playlist I created for our MoCAD event and asked about some of the artists - I created a shortened version on 8tracks.

-To read more in depth about our individual projects, visit our class blog at DetroitMethods.wordpress.com.

Creating The Slipcover

Now that the semester is almost over, I finally have time to post about what I've been up to the past couple of weeks. In my Detroit Methods class we've all been quite busy preparing for our final event that took place at MoCAD on Sunday, December 9th. In addition, we've been keeping documentation of all of our projects and events throughout the past few months and decided to put a class book together, which is still currently in the works.

Last week the "graphics team" of the class — Julie, Bianca and I — got together with Megan O'Connell of Salt and Cedar Letterpress to design and create the slip cover for the book. Prior to heading over, we picked up a couple of baguettes, brie, mascarpone, honey and a bottle of Chilean wine to sustain ourselves, which worked out well since we were there from noon till about 10pm.

For the Love of Bread, Part II

Last weekend I held my communal event in Downtown Detroit and was beyond trilled with the turn out. In addition to all of my classmates and friends who came out to delight in the bread toasting, many passersby had happily joined as well. The act of gathering around a warm fire within the community is such a fundamental concept; and the fact that we were dipping our freshly toasted bread sticks into homemade rosemary, or cinnamon and sugar butter, made the evening that much more special.

If you came out last weekend and would like the opportunity to partake in part II of this event, join the rest of my class and I at our final class presentation and installation taking place tomorrow, December 9, 2012, from 11am - 5pm at MoCAD in Detroit.

For the Love of Bread

(image credit)
Join me tomorrow evening, during Detroit's annual Noel Night, 

to delight in freshly toasted bread twists!

P R E F A C E /

Looking back on a trip to Europe, I vividly remember residing at a small hostel situated alongside a cobblestone road and waking up the morning (or afternoon, was it?), following New Years Eve to find that breakfast would be served around a large communal table. At first, I found it a bit strange to have to literally break bread with a table full of people I barely knew, if at all. Especially memorable was the way the baguettes were passed around and broken off with bare hands, yet in a way it made me feel more connected with those around me. Not only did we share the bread, but also an array of cheeses, ripe avocado, jams and unsalted butter, which we salted anyway. I remember feeling more of a connection with these new strangers whose language I barely grasped than most friendly acquaintances I sat around a table with back home, where there was no need to share since we always had our own plate of individually ordered food. Let us allude to the former.

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and a few more links:

- view final proposal pdf, here

- check out our class blog

- watch: a video by tiger in a jar

(photo/recipe source)