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It all started 22 years ago with a red dot.
Artist Tyree Guyton gazed out at a neighboring house, and “it spoke to me and gave me my vision.”
To him, the red circle he painted on the house (which would be later demolished) represented life, and behind every sculpture of seemingly random and whimsical objects, Guyton has assigned meaning. An enormous tree plastered with stuffed animals and upside-down shopping carts titled “Manna from Heaven,” for example, illustrates our constant consumption of animals.
As the last 22 years attest to and as the global attention and the innumerable dots on Heidelberg Street indicate, Guyton has pumped artistic life into an area that holds could have held the unsightly shells of dilapidated houses.
Fitting then, that every two years, Heidelberg Street should serve as the scene of a big party, the Heidelberg Project Summer Festival, which is this Saturday.
“A lot of people here don’t know about the talent that exists in the D,” says Jenenne Whitfield, executive director of the Heidelberg Project and a festival organizer, looking at the Guyton’s famous “Dotty Wotty” house and at the piles of spray-painted shoes and faces and telephones around her.
“Detroit is nationally and internationally known city of creativity. In Amsterdam, people practically bow when you say ‘Detroit.’ The goal is to highlight the city of Detroit — not what’s going on politically but what’s going on with the people. And this is a wonderful backdrop to highlight that talent.”
That talent for the free festival includes a display by the now-iconic Hump the Grinder’s Hair Wars, a performance by “Showtime at the Apollo” winner and spoken-word artist jessica Care moore Poole and Detroit Fashion Week’s “48207’s Rags to International Riches,” which will incorporate green, found and recycled materials into garments being displayed on a 60-foot-long wooden runway being built specifically for the event.
An exhibit, “Containers in the D,” will show off the work of local artists in small storage containers, and a children’s station will run several vintage games like sack races and Double Dutch, as well as arts and crafts and a hip-hop puppet show. There’ll also be free health screenings and free massages.
It all meshes with the goal of the nonprofit Heidelberg Project, whose aim, says Whitfield, “is to draw attention into the community and help people understand that they don’t have to wait for government to come in and rescue them.”
Adds Guyton: “We need to get up and do for self.”
It’s an organic, grassroots notion that a movement starts with something as small as a red dot.
Contact Erin Chan Ding at 313-222-6696 or at echan@freepress.com.
