Lifestyle : Buzz

"Starting Over," a new exhibition from the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, requests submissions for a gallery show to open in January.

Artists over the age of 18 from Metro Detroit are encouraged to submit no more than two two-dimensional pieces to the DC3 Accelerator Gallery by Nov. 25. The gallery is housed at the Taubman Center for Design Education building at CCS's New Center campus, located at 460 W. Baltimore. There is a $10 fee for entry.

"The concept for our first open-call exhibition is about the idea that, sometimes, you have to start anew," said Katherine Maurer, curator, DC3 Accelerator Gallery. "We want to receive submissions related to starting over, work that does reinvent the wheel. A product redesign, fine art, and anything in between will be considered as long as it relates to the concept of starting over."

Find out more here.

This LA Times' trip to Detroit found an "artistic haven" of old structures, committed art dealers and vibrant examples of how community and culture intersect.

From the DIA, which the writer calls "America's most overlooked major museum," to the sculpture park outside the College for Creative Studies, and even a stop at Heidelberg, this travelogue details a city teeming with creativity. Russell St. Deli, Cafe D'Mongo's, Cass Cafe, and yes, Slows, were a few of the destinations the LA Times raved about.

Excerpt:

When I asked his inspiration, Guyton responded with questions of his own: "What is art today?" "Does it have to be in a museum?" "How do you revitalize a neighborhood?" "How do you get people to come to Detroit despite what they've heard?"

One of Guyton's motifs is New York taxis, painted on plywood boards. "A lot of people think you have to go to New York to make it," he said. "I'm saying I can make it right here, and I will. Watch me. I'm just getting started."

Find out more here.

There's just no stopping Detroit Restaurant Week.

Event producers Paxahau reported that the 10-evening dining promotion lured 36,046 gourmands to 21 restaurants across the city of Detroit, an 18.4 percent increase over 2010. It's the second-largest tally ever for the $28 prix fixe dining bonanza, which has counted 150,000 customers since launching five years ago.


"We are pleased the enthusiasm Metro Detroiters have for Detroit Restaurant Week has continued to grow over the years," said Jason Huvaere, Director of Detroit Restaurant Week. "It has been a terrific way for our community to experience the tremendous fine dining restaurants Detroit has to offer. With each campaign we hope we’re developing a new crop of customers who will frequent the restaurants all year long."

Stay tuned for the announcement for a Spring 2012 Detroit Restaurant Week date and more here.

Across Midtown, a new appreciation for the humble alleyway is resulting in creative re-adaptations as entryways, pedestrian corridors and outdoor spaces all their own.

The Detroit Idea Factory examines three varied uses for the alley around Midtown. Outside Motor City Brewing Works, the Canfield Green Alley beautifully connects Second Ave. and Canfield without sacrificing the tenets of sustainability. Over in the Sugar Hill Arts District, new restaurant Seva will open an outdoor patio in the alley, dismissing the typical exterior seating outside of the storefront. And Hatch finalists Alley Wine say they hope to open their future vino bar in a Cass Corridor alley.

Excerpt:

The master plan for Sugar Hill links up walkable alleys with the Midtown Loop, a pedestrian greenway. The culture of a walking city is part of our history, and our urban bones still support it. The intricate network of alleyways and narrow sidestreets are waiting to happen.

Are alleys the next big thing? Click here for more.

Some skeptics questioned the logic of Detroit's new Public Dock and Terminal, which opened at a $21.5 million cost this summer on the banks of the Detroit River. According to this new story in the Freep, the new dock is already paying off in an influx of well-heeled tourists. The number of cruise ships planning stops at the Dock in 2012 is 13 -- a massive increase from the two ships who anchored in Detroit in 2011. At least 2,500 luxury tourists bound for the Great Lakes will set foot in the city next year.

Excerpt:

"What's terrific about the new dock and Detroit is the proximity to the upper part of the Great Lakes," said Chris Conlin, president of Great Lakes Cruise Company in Ann Arbor, which markets the cruises. "I believe the new port in Detroit is the reason the Yorktown is sailing out of Detroit and not Windsor or Toronto."

Anchors away here!

Signal-Return, Detroit's first retail store dedicated to fhe fine art of letterprint press, will host its premier workshop, with a holiday theme, on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 10-11. Hosted with AIGA Detroit, the Holiday Style workshop will offer only 12 registrants the opportunity to produce holiday-themed cards on vintage equipment with custom envelopes and paper. The workshop will focus on hand-compositing movable wood and metal type, locking-up, and printing.

The cost is $180 for AIGA members and $220 for the rest of us.

Find out more here.

What can one do with a loft at Willy's Overland? The Detroit News peeks inside the living spaces of two new residents of Midtown. Jeff Antaya's two-story loft features 20-foot ceilings, while the second bedroom offers views all the way to the Ford River Rouge plant. A few floors down, DIA textile conservator Howard Sutliffe integrates mahogany-stained concrete floors and Amish quilts into a warm take on the gritty urban feel of the loft. It's a rare peek at two design-influenced personalities, and a study on how creative thinking can subvert the stereotypical influences of an "urban loft."

Excerpt:

Best of all, with its tall white walls and open space, the loft is a perfect showcase for Antaya's extensive art collection, which, for the most part, is either Detroit-based or by Detroit artists. "Art helps my creativity, and it has helped my creative thinking skills, too," says Antaya, who is a board member at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Step inside here.

It's been a wonderful three years for Detroit's art scene, thanks to the work of Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit -- and its curator, Luis Croquer, was the visionary at the helm.

Under Croquer's direction, MOCAD became more than a new museum helping define the city's emerging reputation for art around the world. It became a can't miss tourist destination, a center for the city's own creatives, and the home of can't-miss parties for kids of all ages. We'll miss him.

Excerpt:

Well, I'm here for a while, but yes. I will be curious to see how things evolve. You know, when I came here, New Yorkers said, "What are you doing?" And now it's like, "Oh, you're in the coolest town in America." I've gone from being an idiot to being a visionary.

Read the farewell here.

There was so much to see at our Oct. 21 event, The Next Big Thing, that we didn't even see the photographers grabbing shots. Between the Detroit-themed expo, tasty food, music, Hatch-off and video, it was pretty hard to focus.

So we're loving this slideshow of the event, posted by WDIV. The David Whitney building is the star of the show, and these images really convey the excitement and Detroit love we felt that evening.

Click here to see if you made the cut.

Art-world darlings like Chido Johnson and Matthew Barney are just two of the creators giving rise to the continued comparisons between Berlin and Detroit. W Magazine's five-page spread goes beyond the big names to capture the industry of art -- from the hunt for buildings to the scene's connectivity -- now rivaling the automobile as this city's signature export.

Excerpt:

"It’s all about reinvention now," said Oren Goldenberg, the film’s director. Like many artists here, he returned to the city from the suburbs in 2007. With him was Sterling Toles, the composer building the film’s sound track from a mixture of angry rap and more delicate sounds. "I think of Detroit as illumination training school," he said, pointing to a bumper sticker in the room that read f**k cool cities. "It was so dark. Here, you become the light."

Read it here.

A pop-up ping-pong parlour invites paddle-wielding assassins to bring their best games to Hamtramck every Tuesday evening.

Each Tuesday at 8 p.m., SMASH! will invade Skipper's bar in Hamtramck (get there early to put your name up on the board for a match). Paddles, balls, sweatbands (natch), and plenty of food for veggies and carnivores alike are on the menu -- just bring your game face and a few dollars for the drink specials.

SMASH! is sponsored by Re:New Detroit, a sports therapy studio located at 155 W. Congress in the Murphy Telegraph building, suite #400. If you pick up a mean case of tennis elbow at SMASH, you'll be all covered.

Get the spin here.

While the dine-and-dash is the ultimate gastronomic faux pas, a new event from our friends at MOVE Detroit will bring some class to the act. MOVE Detroit, a group of city-dwellers working to bring more young professionals to the D this year through fun networking events designed to show suburbanites what fun we have living down here.

They have quite an evening planned, teaming with GM for the Dine & Dash Wednesday, Oct. 26 at 4:30 p.m. Head to the Jefferson entrance of the RenCen for the chance to test-drive GM's newest vehicles (like the Volt, Cadillac CTS V Coupe and Camaro) on a short jaunt through the city. Attendees will then discover the newly-opened Joe Muer's Seafood Restaurant inside the RenCen for a networking tasting, featuring a Detroit trivia game with prizes provided by Somerset Collection's Detroit Shoppe.

Are you moving to Detroit? Of course, you are. Plan your move and more at movedetroit.org.

How does it feel, friends, to be a redemption tale, a sports film montage and the trendiest city in America, all in one week?

While the last few days weren't kind to either the Tigers (bless you, boys) or the Lions, newspapers across America were high on the Detroit redemption theme, with sports serving as the engine for our latest renaissance.

We here at Model D know that progress in the city is, to pborrow from our upcoming Next Big Thing event, really the mean result of a million little things -- the hard work, goodwill and dedication of thousands of Detroiters that often go unnoticed. It's the community development organizers, the small business owners, the neighborhood watchdogs, and countless more of you every day that make this city special -- not a scoreboard result or an advertisement for a car commercial. 

Still, the recognition is nice. We're glad everyone's coming to understand what we love about this place.

Excerpt:

"We're a tough town," said Emmett Moten, a partner in the redeveloped Doubletree Fort Shelby hotel and former development czar for then-Mayor Coleman Young. "If you look back where we were in the '60s and where we are today, there were a lot of, not bumps in the road, but major, major catastrophes. But because the town was strong, they've been able to overcome that. ... "It's picking up," he said. "We have our problems, but we're willing to fight."

Click here to read the article.

In a widely-circulated article from Yahoo! Sports on the Detroit Lions' improbable start, Kid Rock and Ford Field's new reputation as a stadium to fear around the NFL, we found a few thoughts on urban land use and downtown space that fit pretty well in Model D.

Author Dan Wetzel contends that there's more for opposing teams to fear when visiting Detroit than the defensive line. Ford Field bucks the nationwide trend of cocooning stadiums -- that is, placing them far from city life and downtown chaos. The stadium's defiant location creates a crowd boiling over with enthusiasm before streaming through its doors -- and the crowd factor, no doubt, that contributed to the Bears' nine false starts against the Lions during Monday night's game. Wetzel's logic? Smart planning and cooperation between the Lions and city officials have re-defined the notion of the home field advantage in sports. And visiting teams should beware.

Excerpt:

It brought a hot team and the first Monday night game in a decade. So the people were everywhere, drinking in parking garages and cooking on dirty sidewalks and even tapping kegs right by the police headquarters. They wouldn’t have it any other way. It produced a throng of fans who would later bring the soul of the city inside and rain it right down on the Bears.

Read more here.

LiveWorkDetroit! showcases Detroit as the place for Michigan's college graduates and young professionals to live and work. The group says Detroit is one of the hottest and hippest places in the country (thank you, we appreciate that) and LiveWorkDetroit! gives participants the opportunity to see it in person and to hear it directly from employers eager to hire the best and brightest.

LiveWorkDetroit will take place Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Max M. Fisher Music Center, 3711 Woodward Ave., in Midtown Detroit.

There is a $15 registration at www.michiganadvantage.org/LWD. Click here to check out the event flyer.