Sarasota

I landed in Sarasota in the late evening. I had only a backpack by this point and that was mostly art supplies. I checked into the Golden Host Resort, the best little hotel I've ever stayed at. In the morning, I walked to Ringling College of Art and Design Campus, where I checked in, had my photo taken, was issued an ID and given a key to my room, where I dropped off my bag, put my gouache and watercolor paints in the top drawer, and where I set to educating myself.

Detroit

I landed in Detroit in the late evening. I took a city-bus toward Dearborn, where I'd booked a cheap motel. I walked a long ways and went into a tobacco shop. "Things are really spread out here". I said, or something like that. 

"Yeah, where you trying to go?" was the reply. 

"Just down the street a ways", then I said the name of the complex where the hotel was. He didn't know it. I bought a black-and-mild and some rolling papers, thanked him, and went out-front of the store to wait on a city-bus. The sun set, and the tobacco store closed. My friend locked up, and rolled down his car window as he was pulling out of the parking lot. "Hey! Get in, I'll give you a ride."

He was from Lebanon I think. We listened to the radio. He drove me all the way there, into the carport in front of the automatic-sliding-glass doors. I offered him money, but he turned it down. 

I was happy to have a bed again, I watched cable tv for the first time in a few months and slept. 

I ate some hotel breakfast the next morning, and tried to extend my stay with no luck. I had to transfer hotels which took a few hours, but ultimately worked out. After unpacking etc. I took a walk to a bus station, and rode into Downtown Detroit via Michigan Avenue. I saw stretches of abandoned buildings and 'urban prairie' landscapes. I saw graffiti and delinquent factories. It was a beautiful trip, which I was to enjoy daily as a commuter. I'll try to be brief now about my time in Detroit, I documented architecture in my sketchbook, and had some good conversations with local street-goers which were informative and more than half the time ended in a money request. I was happy to give. The air was clean, and the town carried a whole-grain-America-feel. I guess the new mayor is doing a good job fixing the place up, is the word on the street, but I got the creeps when I saw vinyl banners, proclaiming the cities creative resilience and the freshly cut-out-of-the-cement park benches- replaced by 'urban ambassadors' or whatever they're called, who move foldable chairs around. I think actually I may be coming around to the park chairs idea- I mean, it makes sense that you have more control over your landscape by having movable parts, but cutting the benches out of the ground seems wasteful and potentially (in a recession when one cannot afford ambassadors) able to leave one without a seat. 

So the downtown seemed very corporate. The motor companies had a large showing throughout, as well as Quicken Loans, whose Dan Gilbert, it is my understanding, owns a substantial amount of Detroit property- 2010-forth acquisitions. There were many homeless people in the parks, cramping the style of the well-offs and looky-rounds. 

I met Cheri when I was drawing a building outside of the GM showroom downtown. She asked if she could watch and I happily obliged. We talked while I drew. She was on her way to a 'Soul-n'-ribs Festival'. I told her I was too and we took a walk. Cheri was in town for her 40-year high school reunion. She'd run from home with a fervor and hadn't been back since. It was interesting to walk through the park with her and to see her trip-out about what was different and what had remained the same. She gave me the rest of her food from earlier that day, as we drove to a friend-of-her's firework show. We met with some of her former classmates- one was a military ER nurse who lived in the mountains and made organic dog-foods for distribution. Another, whom Cheri worked at a photo-store with, was a local wedding-photographer. Cheri, I'll say, was another mountain-gal, wild about dogs. She now runs a doggie boarding and foster home. The common denominator that night was dog health and we made plans there to meet in the morning to visit Watergait- a hydro-therapy clinic for canines. 

Watergate it turns out was relatively close to my hotel. I had an American breakfast at a corner-diner, and walked to the clinic, where I met Daisy, a thirteen year old pug-dog with inward facing legs and a hanging-out tongue. Cheri and her friend made it to the clinic too, where we chatted up the lab technician and watched Daisy strut her little crooked dog-legs while donning a sporty life-jacket on what can be described as a bathtub with a treadmill at the bottom. The increased buoyancy combined with the energizing 78 degree water inspired Daisy to dog-jog for forty-five minutes.

We all had an appetite after watching Daisy, and drove to Hamtramck for a bowl of pickle soup at a Polish Cafe. It began to rain. Cheri and I split off and drove downtown. She sang Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railroad Trilogy at the top of her lungs on the way. I wish the time would make that memory more endearing, but alas.. 

We went into a chocolates shop and I bought one box for my mother, and another for my sister. From there, we took a walk to a downtown community garden. I saw few edibles in the garden, and there was a large gated fence around the perimeter. We were given a tour by a nice man who works there. It looked heavily funded, but I didn't ask by whom. Cheri by that time, was phone-filming her dogmatic documentary, who's slant was "Detroit's Comeback", which in a way was what I was there to speculate and assess myself, but in a more subtle way I think. We were feeling our growing apart, and went our separate ways from the garden. She gave me a jar with a big dill pickle and its pickle juices as a road-blessing and parting gift. I thanked her and set off. 

I went to the Contemporary Art Center. They were closed for another month for the summer, but were in-house for a de-install of a series of paintings of Obama (a cheap trick from an artist who claims to have painted one portrait of Obama for each day of his presidency- which is not so, his assistants painted most if not all of the portraits, and did so much in advance of the tentative completion of his term). Speaking later to a perturbed art-installer of the aforementioned establishment, I learned this information. Anyway, I met Augusta, who is an education coordinator therein. She invited me that night to an art opening at a place called The Playground. She also gave me a good list of spots to eat, cafe's and bookstores- what a gal!

So I went on my way an visited the Detroit Institute of the Arts, just down the road, where I had a few good hours of drawing before their close. I walked and bussed across town to where the art show was going to be. I was early, so I went to a craft brewery and had a beer and a pretzel for twelve dollars- so much for sustainability. Form there I took a walk to the space, The Playground, which was a Brooklyn trust-fund flipped warehouse space. I could paint it in a more romantic light, truly, but the air was stale with stagnant pretension, Augusta excluded- what a gem. I thought to myself, "maybe it's the beer", or "maybe the.. " I couldn't figure it out. There seemed many skeptics, ready to trip, and I heard disconcerting conversation. I did meet some lovely people, especially later-on as I was leaving. I met Dan and Stephanie, who were on their way out to a bar-b-que. I tagged along and found myself in a beautiful old house west of downtown, in a parlor-room with beautiful young european women- giving one another henna tattoos. A young man named Julian, hammered tunes on an old organ in the corner. After good conversation and cigarettes, and my friends filled with bar-b-qua, we said our goodbyes and drove back toward our terminus for the night, back to the neighborhood of The Playground. 

I walked to a bus stop, and waited for a long time. The sun was set. It took a while to get back to Dearborn that night. 

The next day, I went back to the Detroit Institute, to finish up a study of a sculpture by Paul Manship from his Moods of Time series. 

My time in Detroit was coming to a fast close. For a souvenir and a token of commitment to my impending art school career, I up-and-bought a wrist-watch. It cost half-a-grand, but it still ticks. 

I was playing with fire, concerning making my flight to from Detroit to Sarasota that afternoon. I stopped by the Contemporary Art Center to say goodbye to Augusta. She was not in, but other friends from that night were, and that took some time. I was relying on three or four city-busses to run as smoothly as my new wrist-watch, which again, was risky, so I took a cab. My cabbie was Darryl Lee Cherry, whom I documented in my book as 'Detroit's Best Cabbie'. He was friendly and accommodating to my budget, now feeling broke after the watch. 

I made the flight on time and was off to sunny Sarasota to go to art school. 

Durham to Atlanta

I finished my final days, Body-Mind Centering. Meghan and I enjoyed what was to be our last weekend together (for the summer at least). The plan was the I stay for her final week of classes, minding the homestead and hearth, keeping her company in the evenings, but things rarely go as planned and the day before her classes began, she gave me the (soft) boot. She drove me to the bus station. We shared a small cry and I boarded a bus to Atlanta, because it was one of the few departing that night, and I like like the High Museum therein. It was a real red-eye, with a transfer at 4:30AM in South Carolina or somewhere terrible. When I got to Atlanta, the sun was rising and the bums began to re-animate. I was pretty loaded with expendable gear, and lightened my load considerably on the walk across town to the High by being suggestion-robbed of pens, lighters, road-foods, rolling papers, I saw it as a positive thing- my departure was sudden and I didn't have much time to prioritize and pare-down my gear. Later, I would ditch my unicycle (no joke, I was traveling with a unicycle) and my hiker's backpack after the rusty buckles began to break. After walking for hours, I found a quiet spot downtown where an artist (or team of) had built a series of beautiful rope pavilions, with soft rope benches for weary walkers. I was a weary, sleep deprived walker if nothing else, and the pavilions took a likeness to a desert mirage. I slept until the rantings from a homeless man ramped me back into the waking state. The High was just around the corner, and now open. I did my museum thing, documenting paintings and sculptures into a small sketchbook. I was drawing well because I had made a commitment now to Ringling College, and knew these could be of the last of my undisciplined type. I had lunch in the cafe and found a flight to Detroit on my phone. I bought a ticket and was off to Motor City that afternoon.