The People of Detroit: G.R. N’namdi, photo by Noah Stephens.
We’ve featured The People of Detroit before on Michigan in Pictures. Noah Stephens started the project in April of 2010 after seeing a Dateline NBC special on Detroit that profiled a man who shot, ate, and sold raccoon meat. Never having eaten a raccoon or indeed knowing someone who had, Noah decided to chronicle the intelligent, attractive, industrious, talented people who enliven the city and make it a place he’s happy to call home.
Right now, he’s started a petition asking General Motors to exhibit portraits from The People of Detroit Photodocumentary in the Renaissance Center during the 2012 North American International Auto Show. You can read about it here and sign the petition right here.
Regarding this photo, he begins:
The G.R. N’namdi Gallery in Detroit’s Cultural Center is one of my favorite places to view contemporary art. Light flows into the 16,000 square foot facility through skylights set in a 30-foot high ceiling held aloft by exposed wooden beams. The space is populated by works from artists such as Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. The collection is sophisticated and abstract but not so obtuse as to defy intelligibility.
George N’namdi founded the gallery 30 years ago. He’s pictured here in front of Angelbert Metoyer’s “Icon Execution.”
Read on and check this out on black and in Noah’s The People of Detroit slideshow.
Michigan in Pictures 
Raccoon? I remember my Grandpa Arthur De La Foret feeding me muskrat sandwiches. They sold it from roadside stops between Detroit and Toledo and it was said the Archdiocise ruled it was fish and so Catholics could eat it on Fridays.
Very good as I remember.
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Andrew:
Thanks so much for sharing this! I really appreciate it.
Louis:
I was out shooting a landscape on Belle Isle at sunset last winter when I saw a muskrat standing on a rock. It then shot into the freezing waters never to be seen again.
I have to admit, when I saw this huge, black, aquatic super-rat, my first thought was NOT, “hmm, I should eat that…”, but hey, maybe looks can be deceiving, eh?!
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You’re welcome Noah – thanks for telling some positive stories about Michigan.
I’ve never thought about eating a muskrat or raccoon either.
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