A lot of the photographers I feature on Michigan in Pictures as well as many readers are from the Detroit area. If you are and are interested in growing your skills and/or your network of photographers, I encourage you to check out the “Click & Create: Detroit Photography Meetup” this Saturday, Jan 24th 10:00 AM at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
They write: “Join us for a photography meet-up designed to spark creativity across all ages and skill levels. We’ll explore the space together, work from shared shot lists, compare styles, and trade inspiration as we capture fresh perspectives in the heart of the city …. Meet inside the Woodward Entrance. Bring your camera or phone. No flash photography. No tripods or extra equipment. Just your eye, your curiosity, and your creative energy.”
Coretta Billy shared the event with me. She specializes in portraits & events, and is of the photographers who will be in attendance. You can follow her on Facebook and view & purchase her work at corettabillyiecphotography.com.
I’m old enough to remember the Bicentennial craze of 1976 from Sam the Eagle to Michigan’s iconic bicentennial license plates. Get ready drivers, because Bridge Magazine shares that Michigan is bringing back the red, white and blue retro license plate next month in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary: Beginning Jan. 2, Michiganders will be able to order a new red, white and blue semiquincentennial plate that is modeled after the 1976 bicentennial design. The plate features updated patriotic elements, including stars and stripes, and will be available through the end of 2026.
The photos that David of Design Turnpike shared years ago of his original license plate artwork were so perfect for this post, so I was happy to see that he’s still in business! Follow Design Turnpike on Facebook and view & purchase his work on his website.
“This Arctic air outbreak can be attributed to a displacement of the polar vortex,” AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said. “The outbreak this week will be the first of probably three such rounds with it. Another cold blast is likely next week and a third the week after that,” Pastelok explained. “The waves of Arctic air will lead to significant surges in energy demands.”
I originally shared this photo way back on April 1, 2010 along with a pretty funny spoof, and I am very happy to bring it back along with several more that Jill shared from The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, a truly astonishing work of activist art. See many more in her excellent Detroit gallery on Flickr & stay warm people!!
9 years ago I started a Michigan in Pictures Patreon page to allow folks to throw me a few bucks in support of michpics. A big thank you to all who have done so – it means a lot to know you care.
My best friend Ken who has since passed on & I took these photos way back in August of 2007 after an honestly incredible rock stacking event on the Lake Michigan shoreline just north of the village of Frankfort. I still have no idea who did this, but I know that I will never forget it!! I hope you enjoy these photos & the video and also that you’re able to make or discover magic in your corner of the Great Lakes State.
The Detroit Free Press shares that the Stevie Wonder mural in downtown Detroit was finished in 2019 by London-based artist Richard Wilson who paid for the mural out of his own pocket!
Visible from Brush Street on the south-facing wall of the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Wilson’s portrait spans roughly 8,000 square feet and is large enough to be seen by an airplane passing overhead. “For me, he’s the greatest living singer, songwriter and musician,” said the 45-year-old Wilson. “In 300 years, I’m sure he’ll be looked (at) as a Beethoven, Mozart, Bach — that kind of epic influence on humanity.
The Detroit Lions kicked off their highly anticipated 2024 season with a 26-20 overtime victory over former QB Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams! In honor of this, I decided to share one of my own photos, a picture of the Dodge Fountain on Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit lit up in Honolulu Blue.
I knew that the Dodge Fountain had been designed by artist Isamu Noguchi, but I just learned that he designed Philip A. Hart Plaza as well:
Noguchi’s most ambitious effort at the time, the Philip A. Hart Plaza project, began with a commission for a fountain and spanned almost a decade as the artist expanded his scope to create the surrounding plaza along with facilities below surface level. Envisioned as a place for the community to gather, the plaza layout emphasized flexibility to accommodate large groups. Dotting the eight-acre site are various stepped areas for both seating and play; an outdoor amphitheater built into a hollow below-surface grade; and a 120-foot-tall stainless steel, torqued pylon marking one entrance. Its central feature is the Horace E. Dodge Fountain, a horizontal ring of stainless steel suspended by legs above a massive granite pool and animated by the results of Noguchi’s ongoing experiments with programmed spray patterns (as well complex lighting schemes for nighttime).
“Aretha is a gift from God. When it comes to expressing yourself through song, there is no one who can touch her. She is the reason why women want to sing. Aretha has everything – the power, the technique. She is honest with everything she says.” -Mary J. Blige
I almost never feature photos from outside Michigan here, and I’ve never gone this far for one but please hang with me here!! Jeanne took this photo of a mural by Citra Arm Crew on rue Ordener in Paris just two weeks after the August 16, 2018 passing of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. It’s such an incredible testament to the powerful legacy of one of Michigan and the entire nation’s most famous ambassadors.
One of the most popular petroglyphs in the park is a figure of an archer, known in Anishinaabemowin as ebmodaakowet. The figure’s body is an arrow, as is his hat, and he holds a bow and arrow in his hands.
“Early on, when archeologists who were not consulting with tribes, you know, saw that, they thought, oh, surely this must be a hunting magic. They took it very literally. ” explained Tchorzynski. “But actually, this ebmodaakowet is actually shooting the arrow of knowledge seven generations into the future. And this was a carving that was left with great love and great affection for descendants in the future, to remind people of our responsibilities to be good ancestors, to preserve and remember, and our obligation to shoot the arrow of knowledge into the future as well. We all must be good ancestors.”
The fragile carvings are easily affected by natural forces. The Marshall sandstone is a very soft rock, and so many of the petroglyphs have faded naturally throughout the centuries. Over the years, the petroglyphs have also been damaged by human hands. Parts of them have been vandalized, and pieces of the stone have been chipped away and taken. In order to protect the carvings from degrading over time, a wooden pavilion was erected over the site. A rope now separates visitors from the rock.
Mack-A-Tron is a 30 foot tall robot sculpture that was assembled right here in Michigan & now resides in Mackinaw City at the Mackinaw Crossings shopping center. The mLive article on Mack-a-tron features Aaron’s photo and says in part:
“We were looking for something that said Mackinaw City and Michigan,” Mackinaw Crossing owner Joe Lieghio said of the piece designed by Kalifano. “This particular piece of art is made with auto parts – and Michigan is all about the auto industry and tourism. There is even some Mackinac Bridge steel in it,” he said, adding the bridge pieces are from the old steel grating that the Michigan Department of Transportation sells when it replaces the bridge road sections.
Aaron has some great shots of this Transformers on his Facebook page – check them out!!
Hiawatha & Minnehaha Sculptures by Edmonia Lewis from the Detroit Institute of Arts
WARNING: Novella incoming ;)
The Northern Express shares that the Interlochen Center for the Arts is getting ready for the May 3-4 world premier of Edmonia, the story of 19th-century Black and Ojibwe sculptor Edmonia Lewis who carved out an artistic identity against all odds (click for tickets!). Here are a few highlights but read the whole because WOW this is a huge deal for Interlochen and the whole state of Michigan:
The two-act opera was originally commissioned in 2000 by prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and composed by acclaimed musician and education Dr. Bill Banfield. The tale follows Lewis’ life, travel, and career at Oberlin College, Boston, Florence, Italy, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia at a time when travel, a career, and life itself was difficult for many women.
The driving force behind the Edmonia opera is Dr. Bill Banfield, a native Detroiter, whose wide-ranging resume includes musician, composer, guitarist, professor, educator, author, and record company owner.
…Banfield has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American Music (2010 and 2016). He’s an award-winning composer whose symphonies, operas, and chamber works have been performed and recorded by major symphonies across the nation. Dr. Cornel West has called him “one of the last grand Renaissance men in our time, a towering artist, exemplary educator, rigorous scholar, courageous freedom fighter.”
With all those impressive credentials, what was it like working with the young people at the academy? “Young people jump into the music and they make the music jump,” he says with a smile. “They bring the soul, the imagination, and energy.”
…Patrice Rushen, Broadway actor Sydney James Harcourt of Hamilton fame, and emerging opera performer Amber Merritt star alongside Arts Academy students in the production.
Auditions began in December under co-directors Laura Osgood Brown and Justin Lee Miller. In a nutshell, Brown deems the cast “an explosion of talent. There are 65 in the cast, the largest cast ever on campus,” says Brown. “The first few days were overwhelming. And we were practicing from 4:00 to 6:30 [pm], four or five days a week, in three different locations.”
…One of the highlights of Edmonia is a high-tech rotating stage that carries a $70,000 price tag.
“We received a generous donation which allowed us to purchase a motor-controlled scenery system,” explains Wrobel. “This system moves scenery ‘magically’ on the stage. For the production of Edmonia, we are using the system in two ways. We will have a 20-foot diameter turntable that is in the middle of the stage. This allows us to move other pieces of scenery or performers magically during the show.”
…So why should a northern Michigan audience come to see Edmonia? Wrobel is quick to offer three reasons.
“First, the story is important,” he says. “Edmonia Lewis was an African American and Native American marble sculptor in the late 1800s. The story spans Lewis’ courageous life from her birth in upstate New York through her turbulent days at Oberlin College and formative studio days in Boston, to her astonishing move to Rome, Italy. In 1876, at the age of 32, Lewis captivated the world with her larger-than-life marble statue The Death of Cleopatra that now stands in the Smithsonian.
The photographer of this pair of marble busts is me (Andy McFarlane). I went looking at the Detroit Institute of Arts that is an actual city block from my apartment & F-R-E-E for all Wayne, Oakland & Macomb county residents. It wasn’t in the African American section as it says on the DIA website, but in the much more appropriate American Art before 1950 section. There I found a bonus – Hiawatha! Both sculptures are about a foot tall and STUNNING.
The credit for Minnehaha is: Mary Edmonia Lewis, Minnehaha, 1868, marble. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of the Centennial Planning Committee for Sharing Traditions and Romare Bearden Exhibitions with a major contribution from Founders Junior Council, 1986.33.
I have emailed the DIA asking them for information about Hiawatha. They may think it’s still at the MET because the MET does!! And while the website is out of date, the card indicates Hiawatha is on loan from the Detroit-based Manoogian Collection which must have loaned it the the MET.
Here’s a bonus pic of Hiawatha & Minnehaha by Edmonia Lewis on display at the DIA by yours truly.
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