The Heidelberg Project, Detroit–Art Is The City
by rebecca ~ April 11th, 2006. Filed under: Poems & art.
Scanned postcard: photo by Donna Terek
The Dottie Wottie House: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,
“We are all the same color on the inside.”
On the east-side of Detroit there is a street unlike any other you’ll probably ever see, called Heidelberg, and its array of polka dots, riots of blue, purple, pink, red, and yellow, all shapes and sizes of shoes, high heels to summer flip-flops to tuxedo spats line the walkways and the tree branches. Baby dolls painted black with colorful crosses and broken limbs lie next to old suitcases and vacuum cleaners, and then numerous boards and car hoods painted with bold faces called the ‘Faces of God.’ This neighborhood is a living, continuous artspace called the Heidelberg Project started by the artist Tyree Guyton. It’s famous and infamous, depending on your attitude toward public and spontaneous art, yet personally as a lover of both rebellious spirits and of outsider art, I am a believer in this magical place.
I worked for a few times with the Heidelberg Project’s sponsored local elementary school, Bunche, teaching Japanese calligraphy and painting rocks for their art garden–very sweet and talented group of kids. They had no art education at the school due to funding cuts, which is such a sad thing. I am not sure if that is still the case, but my guess is, yes….
No child left behind ? Yeah, right. Go to any school in a poor neighborhood and try to say that with a straight face.
You can find out a lot more about Guyton’s Heidelberg Project and vision here.
“We are all the faces of God.
He said he made us in his image and likeness…and that says to me that God has a lot of faces.”
–Tyree Guyton
His artwork can be seen on his website here:
The Heidelberg Project is now trying to create a House That Makes Sense, an artist’s residence and children’s art workshop, and covering a house with something like 875,000 pennies. Send them your pennies, people!