Full circle
Two years ago we came to Detroit for Month of Design as visitors. We had no studio here, no gallery, no reason to be in town other than wanting to see what people were making.
We spent the weekend moving between buildings. Studios with the doors open. Work on the floor instead of behind glass. People explaining what they were building to anyone who stopped. It did not feel like a trade show. It felt like a city letting you walk through its workshop.
We talked about it the whole flight home, and then we kept talking about it.
What stayed with us was not any single object. It was how much room there was. Space to make something large, to get it wrong, to try again without the rent deciding the answer for you. Detroit had that, and it had people who had already chosen to stay and build.
So we moved.
The studio is here now. The kilns are here. Take Me Home opened this year at the Cadillac Arts Centre in Little Village, a gallery and design space in the same building as our studio, a few doors from the neighbors whose work first brought us to town.
On Thursday, September 3, Detroit Month of Design opens again. This time we are not visitors. Cadillac Arts Centre is a stop on the opening night design crawl, and our doors will be open from five to nine. Surface, new ceramic and wood by Jim Schatz and Peter Souza Jr., opens that evening and stays up through October 31.
There will be beverages. There will be music. There will be a lot of people in a room that two years ago we had never seen.
We know exactly what it is to walk into a building during this festival not knowing anyone, and to leave thinking about it for two years. If that is you on Thursday, come in.
Opening night — Thursday, September 3, 5–9 PM
take me home, 1533 Cadillac Blvd, Suite 102, Detroit
Register for the festival opening celebration →
The crawl runs the length of Little Village. The after party is at Father Forgive Me at The Shepherd, 9–11.
Open house — Saturday, September 12, 3–8 PM
If Thursday does not work, come the following Saturday. Cadillac Arts Centre opens the whole building and the courtyard. In Thicket Books hosts a reading by Scott Klinker, Bowerbird Home shows planters by Gray Gardens Plant Studio, and the Amend garden is open next door with Allana Clarke. Free.
Register for the open house →
Full festival program at detroitmonthofdesign.org.
See the exhibition: Surface.