We were on one of our regular trips down the Dequindre Cut to the Detroit River the other day when we noticed three beautiful paintings installed on the cement bridge foundations that are usually just covered with graffiti. It was a new experiment by the Detroit Institute of Arts's Inside|Out program, which installs ornately-framed facsimiles of some of the DIA's masterpieces outdoors in various locations in the city and its suburbs. I wrote about what is still (in my opinion) the best-executed Inside|Out piece a year or so ago, but these are pretty cool in their location, and connect the pieces installed at Eastern Market with those installed at the riverfront. I run down the cut every day, and it's been a pleasure seeing all the people stopped and staring at the paintings.

[above, Sir William Bereton, artist unknown]


[Selene and Endymion, by Nicolas Poussin]


[Konigsee, by Willibald Wex]

Previous Inspiration
 

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

I think it was during those heady days of sleep deprivation right after Gram was born that we received a package in the mail from Greg Allen (of daddytypes fame) containing a Muji "Detroit in a Bag" and the bag was made so well and the buildings so accurate (including a Renaissance Center) I thought it was REAL. I wrote him a quick thank you that said something like "I can't believe Muji made a Detroit set!" and then fell asleep for six minutes before the next crying kid woke me up.

A few weeks later, I took a closer look at it and realized Greg had hacked some of his Muji cities in a bag by charring some of the buildings and painting tiny versions of the graffiti he'd seen in my photostream or in the urban graffiti alphabet book I'd created around that time. He even crafted the Renaissance Center by hot-gluing some dowel rods together to resemble the most iconic part of our modern skyline.

Some of the cars are even burned out. So damn accurate!

Now that the kids are older and the boy doesn't want to put the cars in his mouth, they want to play with it all the time. But honestly, there's a part of me that wants to say, "Hey be careful with that, Greg is an artist, and that's an extremely limited edition." 

Previous Inspiration

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.

SOURCE: Sameli's Flickr [via fffound]

Previous Entry

This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.