After a Week in the National Forest, I Foray into Detroit on a Saturday Night
Just What Does One Do with Their Lives After Writing for the Metro Times?
Friday, February 23rd, 2024 at 7:03 PM
Trinosophes
Eastern Market District
Detroit Michigan
After resting at home this morning, I bought a new weekly bus pass and set off on a Detroit adventure. I had time to buy two Big Macs, BOGO, at the transfer to the Groovy Gratiot Bus 6. I promptly gave one to a fellow passenger, standing at the stop with two flimsy dollars for fare ready in his hand. I stopped in the courtyard to la Ventana Cafe to eat the one remaining. I almost gave the burger to any one of the hungry passengers who sat on the 6 with me.
The 6. That’s the number of the Groovy Gratiot Bus 6, not the bus route from Iceware Vezzo’s album, “Live from the 6”. That’s the Mythic McNichols Bus 32. The McNichols is the second name of Six Mile Road.
I even knocked on the door of the florist who teaches disadvantaged youth how to make floral arrangements. It’s a franchise, believe it or not, of Flowers for Dreams. The florist came to the door, but had closed early for the day. I apologized for not knowing what hour it was when I knocked. The shop had just closed at 6 PM. The shop delivers by hand at any address in Detroit. That promised written on a chalk sign charmed me. Found in the courtyard, I noticed that the property shut the gates to the courtyard when the coffee cafe closed. I was in Detroit, but that courtyard transported me to New Orleans briefly.
La Ventana Cafe lured me in and I ordered a drip brew and an apple tart. I still feel like celebrating my nearing transition to retirement. I also finally heard an update from the cancer center. The blood test, designed to detect a reoccurrence of my kind of cancer, came back “None detected”. That doesn't mean no cancer but undetectable works for me. And so I had another reason to splurge for an evening.
I'm at the first of three art openings this evening. I won't say that I'm unimpressed by the art. I will say that I am missing why these two artists have a show tonight at this art space. I find pleasure in looking at the art, almost thirty silkscreens pinned up with tacks. I'm just not in tune with the abstractions presented by the artists. The show brought out a steady stream of friends, but I have yet to talk to anyone. I only recognize one person, so it's entirely a conversational gambit if I need to be chatty.
I did talk with Rebecca, a lithe spirit dressed in grey and black but mostly black, the curator who put the show up on the walls. Rebecca and partner, life partner, created Trinosophes. I wanted to thank Rebecca for all the cool people who worked at Trinosophes. I meet these artists and musicians all the time. But I asked more about the two artists who created the art on display. Rebecca and team make recordings of shows at the art space. She had chosen the artists to execute an album cover. I pondered that as I finally read the artist biographies. Finally, I found a way to love the art.
Wow! I read Rebecca Mazzei in the Metro Times for years.
The biography notes are shared here.
Ancient Prayerz
M. Saffell Gardner and Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts February 23 through April 7, 2024
In the late 1980s, M, Saffell Gardner and Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts initiated their first of many collaborations that would occur over the course of four decades. Ancient Prayerz is a series of monoprints dating from 1991-92, made from a woodcut they hand-carved in Pitts Hamilton Street studio in Detroit, and printed at Robert Blackburn's legendary Printmaking Workshop, a seminal open studio on 17th Street in Manhattan since its establishment in 1947. Run on Rives and Arches archival paper, each work in this vintage series represents a unique variation featuring inked stencils of self-referenced icons related to West African deities.
Known as an activist, artist and poet, Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts (September 16, 1941 August 13, 2022) founded the Ogun artist collective more than 40 years ago, as well as the local press Black Graphics International, Kcalb Gniw Spirit and Band Unit #10. He was a member of the Detroit radical labor group League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Pitts exhibited and performed internationally. M. Saffell Gardner (February 7, 1954) is a multi-disciplinary artist, art historian, curator, educator and mentor, whose drawings, paintings and sculpture have been exhibited internationally. His work is in the permanent collections of Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit Medical Center, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Renaissance High School, Southeastern High School, Detroit School of the Arts, Detroit rePatched, and Michigan Legacy Art Park, among others.
Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 10am-3pm and by appointment