George Seurat is a painter you might well know, though you might not know his name. He’s famous for his work in pointillism, a method of painting that uses small dots to portray a larger picture. His most famous painting perhaps, is Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jette
Now why am I telling you about George Seurat? Surely, I should be writing about Detroit, about my fellowship, about the people I’ve met here and the fun I have had. Well good friends, I am ruthlessly employing simile… I am about to tell you that I think Detroit is like a painting by Seurat.
A painting by Seurat will, from a distance, look like one cohesive portrait. Look, you might say. A lady in a park. A dog in the grass. But on closer inspection, you would realize it is made up of many separate points, that many different elements go into this one image.
In regards to Detroit, I fear that people see only one image when they look from too far away. They see a decaying automobile capital, a city with abandoned buildings. Or, if they look with different eyes, maybe they see Tigers Stadium, maybe they see the vibrancy of downtown. But too often I suspect, they only see the one image… and close their eyes to the rest. They don’t realize that Detroit, like a painting by Seurat, is made up of many, many different points… and that each point contributes to the total.
How more obvious could this be than in the very geography of Detroit? Even those who have never lived in New York know there are distinct boroughs all with their own flavors. But few who even live close to Detroit and almost none of those who are farther away, realize that Detroit’s heritage is mapped into its very structure, that Detroit too has a glorious geo-cultural essence. From Corktown to Bricktown, to Greektown, from Hamtramack and Indian Village to Midtown and Downtown and Southwest as well, there are different flavors that lie within Detroit’s boundaries (well, Hamtramack, kind of). These are points in Detroit’s portrait that you might not get to see unless you bother to get closer. Detroit can’t be just one simple painting, because it isn’t one cohesive idea… it is many things at once, sometimes contradictory (development and decay) and sometimes complimentary (cheap housing and artists).
In art criticism, pointillist paintings are often said to be “brighter” or more vibrant than the traditional methods. This can easily be explained in technical language… that mixing of pigments is by nature a subtractive process that makes each color less strong. That pointillism avoids this by letting each pigment stand true and alone. I think we can stretch my unlikely simile to this too… that in having so many different aspects, Detroit is more vibrant than the initial glance would lead us to believe. We should not be fooled by the onset, by the first sight of the dog in the grass. If we look deeper, there is more to the story of Detroit than just one image.
And that my friends, is an UNBEARABLY cheesy blog post from yours truly.
Sixth Week Freida
