Buzz

We have supported the restlessly energetic endeavors of Jerry Paffendorf ever since he moved to Detroit a few years and joined (nay, helped start) the local social innovation revolution.

HuffPost Detroit has also taken notice, like this piece last week on an update to Paffendorf's website.

An excerpt:  

Loveland Technologies, the firm that mapped the city of Detroit's foreclosure crisis in stunning detail as thousands of land parcels were auctioned off by Wayne County, introduced a sophisticated update to the WhyDon'tWeOwnThis? website on Friday.

WDWOT 2.0 is the result of four months of development, design time, "soul-searching and talking," said Loveland's founder, Jerry Paffendorf.

See more here.

Every six to eight weeks we can't help but say something nice about Hamtramck's Public Pool. The storefront art space has too many damn fine shows by Detroit (and soon to showcase out-of-town) artists.

The blog ArtHopper recently popped in to see Contorted, an all female show curated by Jessica Frelinghuysen.

An excerpt: 

Having peeked at what I guessed I was not meant to see, I realized all the work in Contorted keeps the inner workings under wraps. Experiencing women retreating into mystery with a humorous wink, demands that the viewer look closer for the kernel of conflict. In Nicola Kuperus’ photographs, all titled Fools, uncomfortably tight cropping cutting off portions of extremities, and nightmarish crimson bags covering the figures’ heads quickly counter the somewhat clownish poses of the unitard-wearing ballerinas. The work echoes documentary photographs of prisoners of war, as well as Picasso’s eyeless woman husks.

Read on here.

Spring cannot be far behind once Paxahau begins teasing electronic dance music fans by announcing the first third of the program. The three-day event during Memorial Day weekend is May 25-27. 

Tickets are now on sale at the Movement.us website. Three-day weekend passes are $79. VIP passes are $199. Single-day tickets are available, although daily schedules for the Movement's five stages have not been released.

Last year, Movement notched its top attendance since becoming a paid festival in 2005, drawing 107,000 over three days.
Some of our top picks from the list of artists announced thus far:

Ben Klock b2b Marcel Dettmann, Brendon Moeller aka Ecologist, Carl Craig, Dave Clarke, Dennis Ferrer, Derrick May & Kevin Saunderson, Drumcell, George Fitzgerald, Mala, Richie Hawtin, Ryan Elliott, Silent Servant, Tensnake, Terrence Parker and the first ever Detroit appearance by The Bug.

Check out more here.

Fat Tuesday is big, we mean huge, in New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro and ... Hamtramck? That's right, except here it is properly known as Paczki Day, the day before Lent begins in the Polish Catholic religious calendar.

It's become so wildly popular (bands, DJs, food, drink) that organizers thought a run would be a nice addition to the schedule -- four days before Paczki Day. Get ready to burn some calories before Fat Tuesday by participating in the inaugural PaczKi Run in Hamtramck this Saturday, Feb. 9. The 5K run begins at 10 a.m. at the corner of Holbrook and Joseph Campau. Each person finishing the race fittingly receives a paczek and a beer. The PaczKi Run is presented by Tour-De-Troit in partnership with the Hamtramck Downtown Development Authority.            
 
Several Hamtramck businesses will be offering runners a “bib discount” after they cross the finish line on this Saturday, they include:
 
$1 domestic draft beers @ New Dodge Lounge, 8850 Joseph Campau
$1 beer specials @ Whiskey in the Jar, 2741 Yemens St.
35 percent off the regular retail price of clothing @ Chiipss, 10229 Joseph Campau
10 percent all items @ Detroit Threads, 10238 Joseph Campau

And: Free samples @ Srodek’s Campau Quality Sausage, 9601 Joseph Campau
Free Prince Polish candy bar @ Polish Art Center, 9539 Joseph Campau
$1 off records @ Record Graveyard, 2610 Carpenter St.
$5 off any purchase of $15 or more @ Amici’s, 9842 Joseph Campau     
 
Advance registration only costs $25 and is available through Tuesday, Feb. 5. That's today, runners. Sign-up early here. 

All proceeds will benefit City of Hamtramck’s non-motorized trail plan.

Impressive group of sponsors, too: Detroit Threads, Talmer Bank, McClure's Pickles, Jurkiewicz & Wilk Funeral Home, Whiskey in the Jar, The Belmont Bar, Polish-American Chamber of Commerce-Michigan, Simply Suzanne Granola, New Dodge Lounge, Record Graveyard, Polish Art Center, New Palace Bakery, New Martha Washington Bakery, Sam's Market, Alexis G. Krot, P.C., Plante Moran, Glory Supermarket, Miller Canfield and Giffels Webster Engineers.

We found this dandy report on the Michigan Radio site, and thought "it's about time that Hostel Detroit and its general manager, Michel Soucisse, some more love.

An excerpt:

One of (Soucisse's) guests is Chloe Dietz, a student who goes to school in Portland, Oregon who grew up in Brooklyn, Michigan. She’s on a cross country tour by train. Another guest is Jonathan Dowdall who is an artist from Canada.
Dowdall says Detroit’s art scene drew him to the city.

“Detroit has always had a mythical presence in my mind and I’ve always imagined it a certain way. I really wanted to come here and see on the ground what it was like, in particular street art,” Dowdall says.

Our first stop on the trip is an outdoor street art project on the East Side of Detroit called the Heidelberg project created by artist Tyree Guyton.

Read on here.

Those of us who grew up in print media are thrilled to see the return of the letterpress and real, non-virtual graphic design in a physical form. Like what's being produced in Eastern Maket at Signal-Return and Salt & Cedar, or 44FortyFour Studio in the Green Garage, or at Ponyride's Stukenborg Press.

An excerpt from the Detroit News: 

The first new letterpress to set up in Detroit was Signal-Return in Eastern Market, a combination print shop and retail store founded in November 2011 by a group associated with Team Detroit, the Dearborn-based ad agency. Team Detroit chief creative officer Toby Barlow says the memory of letterpress is still deeply embedded in advertising's DNA.

"I've been in advertising 20 years," Barlow says, "and have seen the transition from mechanical marketing to the digital age of marketing. To remind us of our roots, Signal-Return seemed like a good idea. The passion of the craftsman is something I think advertising really needs to hold onto."

Read more here.

Model D contributor Francis Grunow, a consultant with the New Solutions Group, recently took part in a Q&A with Next City, talking about the book Detroit City is the Place to Be. 

An excerpt: 

Francis Grunow: The place to start with discussing (the book) is the idea that people and policymakers in Detroit are looking for something prescriptive. Detroit’s problems are so big that it’s really hard to put your mind around them. I get why (author Binelli) sort of punts, but it also bothered me. I think the city and its people are used to being told what our problems are, and I think there is a tendency to feel like these problems have a single answer.

Right on, tiger. Go get 'em.

Read on here.

Late in 2012, we featured a news item on an intriguing business idea in Corktown -- the city's first nano-brewery. Like most cool indie commercial projects, it could use some seed money.

An excerpt: 

Turns out, opening a brewery is pretty effing expensive. And while banks are tripping over themselves to lend money to startups like this, we thought we'd take our efforts right to the people: our friends, family, and community.

We feel you. Read more here.

Social entrepreneurial whiz kid Andy Didorosi, founder of the Detroit Bus Company, has a dandy new renant for a foreclosed gas station he bought at auction. It's Lisa Waud, an Ann Arbor-based biz whiz in the process of relocation to Detroit. Sounds like a groovy collab in the works. 

Excerpt:

Lisa's goal is to get Pot & Box open near the end of the year, though patrons looking for a taste of what's to come are very much in luck. She's teaming up with Andy to host venders from all across Detroit for a Valentine's Day Market at the gas station. Pot & Box will be selling flowers (Lisa mentions an old ice cream truck she's repurposing for the task) while merchants like City Bird will set up under a giant tent out front.

Read more in Curbed Detroit here.

Our favorite extravagant but hardly reckless spender Dan Gilbert is ahead of the pack again, hinting that once the M-1 is fully developed (by 2016) more Woodward corridor retail will be waiting for it.

Excerpt from the Detroit News:

And Gilbert, one of downtown's major employers and private land owners, said his group has "definitely gotten commitments" from retailers who will be ready for business when the M-1 debuts.

"That's the goal as we work behind the scene, versus just taking a rough shot of opening one (retail store) at a time here and there," Gilbert said. He would not specify which retailers have made commitments.

Since August 2010, Gilbert's portfolio of companies has moved 7,000 workers downtown.

Rock Ventures owns 15 properties and is working on buying its 16th at 1001 Woodward, across the street from Campus Martius and Quicken Loans' headquarters in the Compuware Building.

For more, go here.

It's always nice to see smart, new businesses get a nod in the dailies. We were happy to see the Freep catch up to three of our faves last week. 

An excerpt:

Up this week? Three independent stores in Detroit.

Two are located in Midtown and the other is in Eastern Market.

Among them you can find Stormy Kromer wool hats, fabulous notecards and wrapping paper, cuff links made from Tiger baseballs, vintage Playboy magazines and barware, tablecloths and linens, and home accessories with a Scandinavian flair.

Read on here.

Chicago art dealer and collector David Lusenhop, who has been working and now living in a studio space belonging to former Hamtramck mayor Gary Zych, has been hunting down notable works of revolutionary African-American Americana for the past 12 years.

The coveted collection -- 44 works by 26 artists -- was just acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, reports the New York Times:

When the curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum began work on an exhibition to coincide with next year’s anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, she happened on a trove of works from the Black Arts Movement, the cultural arm of the black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This was an area of the art market long neglected but recently attracting attention. Great stuff.

Read more here.

We've been all over the growing companies', startup and gazelle scene centered around downtown's M@dison building. It's a thrill all the same to see it reported from afar, this time in the UK's Guardian.

An excerpt: 

"It is pretty exciting," said Jim Xiao, a financial analyst for Detroit Venture Partners, the driving force behind the M@dison and an investor in new tech firms in the city.

Xiao, a 24-year-old who evaluates tech firms for DVP to finance, has trouble concealing his enthusiasm. He lives in one of the converted buildings nearby, socialises at the new downtown bars and has a keen sense of mission about tech's role in the city's future. "Where else in the country can you make an actual impact on a whole city when you are in your 20s?" he said.

Read more here.

Three years ago, California art mag Juxtapoz hooked up with the Power House Productions team in NoHam to re-do some homes in need on Moran St. This month's edition of the magazine includes a sweet overview of the project.

An excerpt:

Juxtapoz invited Swoon, Retna, Ben Wolf, Richard Colman, Monica Canilao, and Saelee Oh to paint and reimagine the residences.
 
Three years later, the neighborhood is beginning to take shape, and this past summer, the Ride It Sculpture Skate Park was built on four vacant commercial lots along East Davison Freeway, another creative endeavor that fuses art and community.

Lots more to see and read here.

Creative Capital recently announced its 2013 project grants in the categories of Emerging Fields, Literature and the Performing Arts, representing a total of 46 funded projects by 66 artists hailing from 17 states and Puerto Rico.

Among the grantees were Gina Reichert and Mitch Cope of Design 99. Creative Capital’s investment in each project includes up to $50,000 in direct financial support (disbursed at key points over the life of each project), plus more than $40,000 in advisory services, making the total 2013 investment more than $4,140,000. Wow.

To check out Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert's project, go here.