Murals in the Market – Early Stage

Over the years, Detroit’s Historic Eastern Market has been a hot spot of colorful wall murals. Much of their visual content builds on the market theme of fruits, vegetables and meats. Others themes have been created by local and international street artists, and they feature a variety of strong graphic elements, dreamy caricatures and cartoonish looking characters. Also found on the walls are murals featuring highly stylized letters and striking abstract designs and illustrations.

Building on the market’s rich heritage of street art, the Eastern Market Corporation (in conjunction with a local art gallery, various sponsors and partners) has created a week-long street art event called Murals in the Market. Over 45 Detroit, out-of-state and international street artists have been invited to paint murals in a range of styles on many of the buildings throughout the market. The event got under way on September 17^th and runs through the 25^th.

Below are a few early photos I took of some of the incomplete murals while riding throughout the market on my bicycle over the past weekend. Many of the finished wall art pieces will soar 20 to 30 feet, and they’ll be at least that wide. Look for final images of the pieces featured below in an upcoming blog entry.

It was quite interesting to see how the artists worked the walls one small section at a time, and it will be exciting to see how their pieces evolve into the final stage.

Stay tuned!

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Odd Little Additions

There are some unique, interesting old apartments and single-family buildings in Detroit built in a variety of styles.  Many are still occupied and well maintained. A few have unusual little additions on the front of them that contain businesses, restaurants or walkways leading to adjoining residential buildings. I don’t know how the concept of adding to the front of buildings evolved, but they are odd-looking.

Most of the quirky little additions are constructed of brick. A few are made of wood, and all the ones I’ve seen are attached to places that look to be 75 to 100 years old. Some tap into half of the front of the building, while others look to be attached just enough to allow for a standard doorway between the add-on structure and the home or apartment building. Some of the peculiar additions are painted in bright, eye squinting colors that glow in the sunlight.

However they evolved and whatever the reason for attaching them to the front of residential buildings might be, they sure are odd additions to the once beautiful, old residential homes. So odd in fact, that they destroy the architectural character of the buildings that are hooked to.

While looking at these places on my bicycle rides, I think the little square editions are some type of offshoot of the late 1800’s, early 1900’s version of a live/work environment.  It wasn’t unusual back then for a store to be built at ground level with an apartment above.

I see the attached additions scattered about the city, mostly along busy streets on the fringe of good, solid neighborhoods. I wonder what it must be like for the people living in the apartment buildings or homes where these unusual additions are found.

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