This may be one of the great things about Detroit: The ability to work on what you love and still afford a life. You can be a musician and make a life of it. You can be an artist, have a studio, and still make it all work with a part-time job. Or not. In New York, that's impossible. Bethany Shorb, founder of Eastern Market's
Cyberoptix, talks about the advantages of starting up and building a company here in
Crain's Detroit Business.
Excerpt from
Crain's Detroit Business:
Eleven years ago on a thick, sweaty east coast summer night, I packed
all of my worldly possessions into the back of a tiny red pickup truck
and headed off to graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art. I had no
idea I was not only moving my home for good, but that I would quickly
throw away the snobbish, trite misconception that artists can only "make
it" in New York.
I won't lie. I cried the whole 14-hour drive
here. What have I done? My friends incessantly ribbed me for leaving
just as my photo career was starting to take off, just as I set up a
studio and had a regular exhibition schedule. Conversely, I also had a
regular job (or three) that didn't allow me to focus wholly on my
art-making. I wanted to change that.
Shortly after finishing my
graduate work, I moved to a loft space in Detroit where I was able to
balance part-time employment at Cranbrook and full-time work in my
studio - a veritable luxury compared to many recent graduates who headed
off to New York or Los Angeles working upwards of six jobs just to
afford rent. I had just a few hours left over for actually making work.
Read the entire article
here.
And let's not forget Johnny Damon's decision to stay in Detroit. It's
different, but he passed up Boston and a chance at the playoffs to stay
here in the Motor City.
Read the story in the
Freep about Johnny Damon picking Detroit over Boston
here.
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