OK so maybe I'm not committing retail suicide by clearing out all the inventory at The Heritage Company II that doesn't cleave to my vision of what I find artful in the salvage of industrial Detroit. I just read in this Sunday's New York Times Style section that design leader Andy Spade has a new spot in Manhattan called Partners&Spade that is doing the very same thing: marrying gallery and shop with "oddball" items like old work gloves (have you seen my collection?) and "art objects" (look for a future posting of the tree growing through a bike we just sold) embraced as the "relics of our time." Despite a disappointing response to the 2009 Michigan Modernism show, the booth I "curated" did what I haven't been able to do (to my satisfaction) in the store. So I'm going to quit being a chicken and cluttering up my store and recreate the feeling I had in that booth. I'm newly focused on collecting and designing objects that specifically say, "isn't industry beautiful?" and "wow, was that designed/found/made in Detroit?" and displaying it with a curatorial eye instead of a flea market mishmash. Not that I don't love flea markets, just that the one 4 blocks away does it so well why would I want to compete? The dust is just now starting to clear, in the store that is, so come see our spring 2009 collection of Detroit cool and take pride in being a Detroiter. While you're at it, bargain shop upstairs where everything is atleast half off.
We know the future will look very different with a severly diminshed automotive industry, but for heaven's sake, take a little pride in the artistry, genius and glory of it's past, and help me save it, make that, flaunt it.
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