Industrious Detroit

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.

March 14, 2009

Aren't you so sick and tired of all the negativity in the world? Even though the president said we can shop again, people are still reluctant to go. I don't get it. I know you lost your job and all, but just take your extended unemployment benefits and, like he said, be a saver. Not to the banks, you lemmings, he's talking about saving with Costco! I know, I know, some blogs ago I said the big box stores are the enemy of towns and small businesses like mine, but that was before this financial bomb dropped on me. Oh I went through all the stages of grief, but I'm a problem-solving American after all. So that's why I've decided to cut bait on all my debts. I mean what fools have we been for trusting those suits at the bank and their full-priced mortgages? We should have been getting kick-backs like those money-grubbing execs. Costco has kick-backs for all its members you know, and that's after they've discounted everything to save you money. The president should have asked Costco to save the financial system. He likely did, but I bet Costco brass said, "Forget about it, what do we want with you losers? This is a member's only club and we're helping our customers who know how to save real money!" And, so after practical consideration, I've decided to move out of my house and into my neighborhood Costco. Goodbye corporate thieves, politicians, famine, war and darkness, hello bargains and bright lights!

I know it sounds like I've lost my mind. But before you write me off, hear me out. This journey from skeptic, to closet membership, to lifetime Costconian is one you would do well to undertake. Like my fellow community activist-types, I too was snooty about Costco in the beginning. After all, the openings of all these big box stores were homogenizing America and forcing small businesses like mine out of business while killing towns. But, quietly like many of you, I found myself buying the mondo bags of toilet paper I had no place to store and the 5# bags of breaded chicken my son lives on. And then, I moved on to other bargains at Costco. I would eventually learn what a novice I still was to the serious shopping I've since uncovered. There I was stocking up on wine and liquor in the far back corner, when I spied mattresses on the back wall. Lo and behold Sealy mattresses and at such a good price! It just so happened that my client was in the market for mattresses for her kids' beds. I made the call and switched out for the flatbed cart. Maybe you found the mattresses too, but did you know that further down that far back wall they sell caskets? That's right, caskets and a selection at that.

It was like God himself sent a thunderbolt down (or maybe one of those giant bulbs blew out over my head), Of course, independent stores everywhere are closing! But I ask you, do you really want to go to some dreary old victorian furneral home with the smiling Lurch ready to steal your meager savings? Drag yorself through the scene with your sobbing family all itchiing to get to the will reading? I say skip the grief, get to a brightly lit Costco and order one up while you are already there for tires and tampons. Why shop for anything anywhere else? It's so much easier, cheaper and morally superior to simply shop under one roof. Then there's the percentage you can earn back at the end of a year of shopping if you sign on for the Executive Membership. The smiling attendant walking around with her computer scanner winked knowingly at me when she saw the mattresses, "Just think how many points you can earn on an Executive Membership!" Of course I signed right up for that. Sure it costs extra, but with all this money I'm spending and saving, I'll quickly get it back and maybe more. It's like money in the bank without the cheating banks! And so as I stood in the mile-long line for what would be the last time, I realized I could live my whole life out in costco, exiting only to go to that final resting place and resplendant in the casket of my choosing: pearl greay with lavender lining, please.

Yep, it's womb to tomb at Costco for you and me. You come in all pink and tiny, snuggled in the car seat pre-purchased, the one that clips out and onto the shopping cart, while you await easy assembly of your crib. The diapers, wipes and baby formula will be wheeled over momentarily while dad fetches that nice genuine oak rocker, a cozy fleece blanket and some nursery rhymes to read to you. The noise of Saturday shoppers and bright lights will become like white noise and soon enough, you'll be blowing ou the candles yourself on the big sheet cake with lots of that thick frosting you love. everyone will be gathered at the lunchroom tables, dad blowing up the hellium balloons himself from the little throwaway tank. You're a big boy now. No more crib for you ! That huge box is the kidddie car bed from the movie you love and now when you wake up, you can toddle by yourself over to the toy setion. Still too little to make it to the back of the store where the backyard playsets are? You'll have to thumb a ride in one of those battey-operated kiddie cars. Some day you'll be able to ride over on a big bike like the older kids. Moms says keep eating those dinosaur nuggets and you'll be a big boy before long. Well you are big actually, for the kids' clothes that is, but mom's says that's just because you're big-boned. Beg mom for a trip down junk food aisle and ride, don't walk. Head next to the coolers for the gallon tub of ice cream and mix some candy in it. Glide back over to that comfy Sealy mattress. Sack out with yor snack while you stare bug-eyed at the sea of televisions going constantly. This is the life! Pick from the miles of DVD's and complain when mom insists on the occasional educational one.

Is she still talking? Turn up the Ipod you scored in electronics and drown that nag out. Get to some serious chillaxin with your buddies on the sectionals that just came in. Maybe later, you and your homies can get a band together on those imported keyboards, guitars and drum sets. But just now, your growing body is starved. It's such a drag waiting for the cheesy pizza bites and buffalo wings to come out of those easy-bake sampler's ovens. If it wasn't for the gestapo attendants controlling them, you could really throw some chow down. Meanwhile, when no one's looking, scale the fence to snatch some smokes while sizing up the suckers over 21 to score you and your pals some liquor. Ouch, maybe the Jagerbombs don't really go with the 80-pack of mini cream puffs with real whipping cream. Better get a quick cart-ride to the johns. So what if the whole store heard you hurling? Let's just hope you didn't get anything on that ladies' magazine you stashed, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of the ladies? Bro you look fly in those high-end designer sunglasses from optometry (good thing because all your clothes are that lame store-brand). Never mind, wait till she sees you pour that Dom Perignon into the crystal champagne flutes (you're sure stealth with that knock-off pocketknife and the locked display cabinet). Now for a selection of hors d'ouevers before you fire up the grill for a lobster and filet dinner, all candlelit on the trellis-covered patio set.

Where has the time gone? Strolling the aisles arm and arm, you and the Mrs. have landed. There you are working with the in-house design pros on some custom blinds, carpeting and setting up your home office. With all the money you are saving, living and working out of your well-appointed digs, some day you'll be able to take one of those vacations you've read about over by Membership Services. It doesn't get better than this! That is until your eyes start to go. At first, you think fatigue from all that metal hallide lighting. Nevermind, just get over to optometry for some glasses. Now you're feeling achy? Maybe you just over did it demoing the treadmills. Lie down and take a pill. There's plenty over in the pharmacy. Wash it down with some fine, single malt scotch from the back. You'll feel better in no time. Wow that stuff is smooth, pour yourself another. It's not like you have anywhere to go.

Is it your fault that you're hooked and can't get around anymore without the motorized wheel chair? In fact why get out of bed at all? All the wife does is nag and complain anyway. Just get one of those young stock boys to bring some snacks by, that and your pills, booze and the big bag of adult diapers. When you come to , there will be some more television to enjoy. The days all look alike anyway.

Only the terrible smell will clue the staff that in fact, a little light did go out, but they won't need the big ladder for this one. It's a job for the pine flakes from maintenance and a forklift to get the casket down. Thank goodness for the stock boys. The wife's too distraught to take care of you herself (well that and your terrible timing in the middle of Oprah). Even though there's no nice suit to dress you in, everyone said how you looked at peace, dressed in the store-brand clothes you always favored. Your wife will wail about the vacation you always talked about but could never get around to taking, so comfortable were you at Costco. The staff did such a nice job of printing and assembling the hundreds of photo albums they diligently put together all those years. Everyone balled at the slide show of pictures streaming across all those televisions. You can tell how loved you were by the amazing nmber of roses surrounding you. They're two dozen for the price of one in the outside world. Of course, you never priced them yourself, because you couldn't get past the guards at the door demanding the receipt you could never produce. It's only in death, waiting on the forklift at the loading dock for the trucks to pull in and haul your cost-saved carcass out, that you will see the light of day. Just in time to enjoy a strange phenomenon, the sun setting.

February 26, 2009

Perhaps I was born guilty. But doesn't it give you a start when a "uniform" comes to the door? The last time the railroad officials came into the shop some genius had parked 3 feet from the tracks out front. The train cars however are significantly wider than the tracks (duh) so when the mile long train came a-hauling cars and coals, KABOOM!!! It struck this jeep AND THE PASSENGER SITTING IN IT and drug it about 30 feet before they could stop the train. The freaked out rider walked away from the heap, but what a feeling!!! It sounded like a bomb went off and I was glad it wasn't one of my customers. I was pleasantly surprised that today's visit was simply about salvage. How nice is this? They are taking down all the telephone poles in town and the CN guys had carefully selected the unblemished insulators for me. I came out with a bucket, and looked up at the HUNDREDS of insulators still to come and made two trips to bring the ones they had taken down in. I spied the long lengths of 2 inch cable wrapped with copper wire and strapping which was going into a dumpster, and grabbed my bolt cutters. At 6# per foot, it was a back breaker unspooling it and lugging it to my backyard. I love how the strapping looks all jumbled up and thought how cool it would be in a giant bowl. I have an idea to take the cable and insulators and make some kind of light fixture with it. I also thought to design a very simple steel holder to stick into the ground and hold an insulator upside down with a votive candle in it for a pretty garden light. The teal glass is beautiful illuminated. Got a better idea? Let me know or come on in and get some of your own to play with. I just love roadside, or in this case, railroadside, junk....

February 3, 2009

Did the ground hog see his shadow? Seems like everyday around here lately is ground hog day. All January I thought, the yesterdays looked like the tomorrows and wore the same clothes everyday. Damn but it was cold, my heating bills look like mortgages. But hey the sun was shining today and it was over 20 so I washed the car and in Detroit, that's a good day. Took a drive through the country and picked up "eddie" (name he came with),this 1920's Ambercrombie and Fitch rhino that looks strangely like my dog. Hey it's a crisis, and Eddie needs a good home. Word from Washington is we've got to shop a little, just don't spend the fund under the mattress. I say Eddie is as solid an investment as Citigroup and he'll look good in the living room. Funny thing, I'm actually doing some business in Detroit and our fabulous former mayor may get hired away to Texas, things are looking up. The industrial stuff is looking hot and I've hunted up some choice pieces. I sold giant foundry bellows to my favorite forward thinking designer Ron Rea, he's got it hanging in a restaurant. A handsome young couple is gutting an old house in upscale Birmingham and boldly going industrial with it. And well everyday people are just out and buying interesting things to feather their nests since it looks like they're going to be in the same ones for awhile. I'm cutting back on over-priced martinis to fund my purchases, you give up the french manicures and I'll see you at the flea market.

January 2009

By now you are on a budget and thinking what else can you put on ebay to get through this winter. Well maybe that’s just me talking out loud. Christmas was a financial bust and as they say, baby needs new shoes. Too panicked to sit at a computer and do something easy, I loaded up my truck and a borrowed trailer after New Year’s and I hauled Detroit to Atlanta. Turns out the recession beat me there. But, the show must go on and antique dealers on the road put carnies to shame. Let’s just say it’s a work hard, play hard group and do we know how to have a good time. First there was the boon doggle of a free four-night’s stay in the presidential suite my gal pal won in the hotel’s drawing. Instant party, just add roadies. I am forever mentally compiling footage for a documentary, and this scenario was no exception. The people drawn to this business are usually somehow unfit for the office. Smart, crazy, definitely not conventional, these are fascinating characters that may look rough, but know more about some obscure era of craft than you do. Put them with other people just like them and you cannot imagine the cinema that ensues. It’s always Homer’s Odyssey. First there’s the trip there, always harrowing, if not equipment malfunctions then it’s freak weather, everybody’s sleep deprived and on edge by the time they pull in. Then there’s the set-up, sketchy porters, some sober some not, with no sense of urgency to unpack but manage to break your things anyway. There’s the hot item everyone is hovering around that you wish you had 10 of. And the heavy stuff no one is looking at that you wish you’d left behind. Next it’s time for the pricing game, more mystical than practical. Oh sure you paid x for it, there may be some precedent, but there’s always some nuance of condition, a round not square nail, a questionable signature and so on. You’re either over zealous and price it too high or you aim low and the hawks are circling for the kill. You then spend the rest of the show holding that once hot item that’s now garbage you can’t give away or you’re calculating a growing pile of money that would have been yours if you’d only stuck to your guns. At the end of the day you count your spoils and maybe some treasure you think you stole. Coming from Detroit, it was just nice to shed a few layers and enjoy the sun when it finally came. Luckily, I sold some things, I bought some things, packed it up and got back on the road.

Naturally there was an ice storm on the way but rather than do a 360 (last year’s trick) I wisely pulled off and called it a night. I arrived home in time to unload between snow storms and before a severe temperature drop. I don’t know what it is, but somehow people know when you have just arrived with something fresh. The bigger the mess, the more they love it and if it’s a day you are normally closed, here they come. I’ll get it organized and display it just so, but the aura will have dimmed somehow and chances are they will have preferred to shop when and where it got dropped. Always, it’s the thrill of the hunt and the thirst for a fresh kill.

Christmas 2008

Now don’t think I’m boasting, but it is true that times like these are made for salvagers like me. It’s not like my salvage/antiques/alternative collections are exactly on everyone’s holiday shopping list anyway. So if you are feeling blue about the new austerity, maybe I can cheer you up. Of course I wallowed in self-pity and boo-hooed around about having no reason to celebrate. Feeling broke and unloved, I committed the cardinal sin of retail and ordered no holiday merchandise. Call me the anti-Christ, I just didn’t feel like it. Like your old Aunt Mary, I stuck what money I had under the mattress and called in my scrappy band of pickers and artists and said dream something up with what we’ve got.

First there was the jump-start from Holly, my funny, razor-sharp friend/artist and vintage clothing dealer who took one look at my lifeless body and organized a holiday “bailout ball.” With cursor on send, there it was: an invitation to hundreds for a now annual party. Like a grungier, back-alley quilting bee, there I sat at the ninth hour with my street-genius artist friend Jon and his crazy garbage-picked collection and together we made “holiday wreaths.” Every sentence to describe these wreaths started with, “nothing says Christmas like…” and off we went. First it was the car accident wreath; vintage photos of car accidents, a broken car, then on to nudie pin-up girls and bondage Santa. A feverish trip to the dollar store yielded bright green plastic dissecting frogs with see-through organs that became biology wreath, festive with old hemostats and bows. 1940’s bow ties became the best-dressed man’s dream wreath. The film enthusiast got a wreath with popcorn boxes, old theater photos and film strip bows and the fisherman got a wreath of lures and tangled lines. We were on our way.

My painter friend David took all the scrap wood I had laying around and made urban-fresh wall pockets that looked up country. To hang on doors, walls or fences, stuffed with greens or dried flowers, these he painted with simple stencils of snowflakes, birds and initials. The result is clean and elegant and will continue looking good long after the ornaments get put away. Lisa, she with the most treasures wins, took her collection of architectural fragments and made ornaments with bits of crystal, charms and upholstery tacks. She cleverly dismantled old silverware and made window-mounted bud vases with their handles. Irreverent holiday cards with vintage photos, sewn on with buttons, are loved by those who share her devilish streak. A last minute entry by our partners at Richard Gage Design Studio kept us all smirking with disembodied Santa heads in homemade snow globes and an x-rated wreath I had to hang behind the counter.

All this is to say that the holidays aren’t just for kids or the beautiful people. Santa may not come in the way you had hoped or expected, but maybe that wasn’t all that satisfying anyway. He came for me, not under the tree or in my cashbox, but with true friends to my messy studio and store by the tracks.

November 10
2008

Why, you ask, am I a slave to salvage and salvaging? Look no further than your nearest economic crisis. If ever there were an industry, and a city for that matter, armed for crisis it would be salvage and Detroit. Creative and resourceful to the corners of our crumbled infrastructure (don’t let the rough edges fool you, Detroit is more resilient than you think. Look how long the train station has been gutted and still stands as one of the top urban illegal sites to crawl around). Finally, here’s an opportunity to talk about something else other than the usual Detroit hard luck stories. I think we might just be coming into our own and who’s going to lead us there? Creative people that’s who. International creative economy gurus recently chose Detroit for their 2008 Creative Cities Summit (http://www.creativecitiessummit.com/ check out all the cool things people are doing around the globe). So, it’s not just us native diehard creative types betting on the underdog. We are poised to lead the nation by example, cause salvaging useful matter on a dime is what we in the D are all about. Take my little shop the Heritage Company for example. When the going get’s rough, we dig deep for cool material to design with. And then we reach out to our core clientele of creative designers and artists. We inspire them, they inspire us back.

Take our long-time supporter Jolie Schiller Altman for instance. A Native Chicagoan living in a conservative Detroit ‘burb with her 3 kids. That’s where average housewife ends. She’s an artist with a sophisticated eye for way out there outsider and folk art. When she has “me time,” she heads to a national antique show to search for something wilder than the last thing she bought. Prisoner-made art, children’s art, it could be $10 or …well add more zeroes, Jolie is bold. Detroit is the perfect backdrop for a woman who lists “offensive” as one of her buying criteria. We love her courage to seek “beauty” beyond the confines of convention. Her house is a modern/contemporary/folk-art museum. A beautiful historic Spanish Mission home she added onto with a modern metal-clad wing (it raised a few eyebrows in her hood). Her idea of a party is to host a “salon,” invite an artist they love to speak and a group of interesting people they know to listen and discuss..so intelligent. My favorite thing? Put it this way, I nearly hyper-ventilated and had to lie on the floor over there, it was so good. Well, I’ll take a deep breath and list a few things: a “table cloth” made out of neckties. They aren’t completely sewn together at the center so Jolie wired the ends to stick up like snakes. An embroidered x-ray she clipped to a photographic light box hanging on the living room wall. But, nothing beats the effect of a specially built two-story tunnel with skylight that houses a giant spider made of industrial parts. Now that’s inspiration for you.

I’ve been saying for years that there is such a rich pool of design talent in Detroit and so little attention paid to it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of the design magazines we have in Detroit, but they can’t possibly cover all the talent I see producing below the radar. Take clothing/space/everything designer and creative gypsy Danielle Kencik for instance. She got her legs at 15 working for pioneer clothing retailer Patty Smith in Royal Oak. Here’s a girl that can make something out of nothing, and prefers it. She recently called me on fire about a sculpture she wanted to make out of day-old bread. She’s outrageous, should be dressing Madonna and does it all out of her cavernous “garage”studio in an ancient brick outbuilding. Everything is used, garbage picked, dragged down an alley, recovered, repurposed something and when she’s done, it’s stunningly elegant. Prepare to be surprised when you look behind the proverbial curtains. She and a friend recently moved to a lower flat on the outskirts of Wayne State University, a cool block full of artists. Her living room started with a ½ gallon of someone’s leftover green ceiling paint and the dregs of some dried gold leaf paint she managed to scrape into a paste. That, and a wheat stencil she’d made for a custom job transformed the dreary plaster walls. Artwork? She restored a ripped and crumpled poster with masking tape, applied a hot iron and upholstery-tacked it to the wall. Her bedroom is a jewel box of vintage finds with deep red walls she sloppy painted to look old and faded. Her tall upholstered bed frame? A stack of mattresses left behind by the last tenants covered with a fabric remnant she hand-pleated. The effect is all Paris apartment and true to her gypsy roots, completed under $100. I’m afraid of what she and a typical suburban-design budget might do if they ever met.