Note: to read Part 1 of this story, click here.The theory underlying the
Deluxe Inn Art graffiti art project: “If you take the arts and wed them to a place, you’ll create a space where people want to be,” says
Accelerate Lansing’s Joe Manzella, 24, one of the project’s key organizers.
The vision for the Deluxe Inn was shared by both local individuals and empowered leaders; a perfect storm necessary to make it happen.
And Lansing’s willingness to broaden its definition of “the arts” by embracing urban painters and graffiti writers has opened the door to larger conversations about what happens next.
Learning From LondonUrban painting (a.k.a graffiti) is a larger and more complicated world than you probably know. It’s got superstars (think
Banksy’s recent Detroit visit) and dilettantes, purists and innovators.
And it’s got a lot of practitioners—professional and amateur, legal and illegal.
Effectively channeling the best of this movement to help reinvent older industrial cities becomes an experiment in melding community values with economic opportunity, municipal expediency with creative authenticity.
At the Deluxe Inn, for example, big-name graffiti writers with their own web pages and avid fans joined forces with first-time graffiti writers.
MSU professor and former information graphics director for Newsweek,
Karl Gude, put up a mural there;
Geno’s Pizzeria got graffiti-style kudos for supplying calzones to the weary painters.
Attempting this kind of artistic urban alchemy puts Lansing in impressive global company.
Lansing’s
Tremaine Phillips, 24, was recently visiting London, England—a city known for its vibrant street art scene—and heard about a graffiti art event called
Meeting of Styles (MOS), which featured 60 homegrown and international painters and graffiti artists.
When he and his family arrived, “there were probably several hundred people there,” he says. “They were taking pictures, assisting the artists, drinking (of course) and dancing to the DJ who was playing in the courtyard.”
Phillips, who is also the president of Accelerate Lansing and co-chairs the Lansing Economic Area Partnership's
Greater Lansing Next Talent Infusion Strategy Team, saw the London MOS event as a “validation of what Joe, Sam and Eric pulled together" at the Deluxe Inn.
“Lansing inadvertently is now connected into a truly global movement,” he says.
Sanctioned SpacesThere’s already something inherently transitory about graffiti art—a writer never knows when a mural will get painted over by another artist, the building demolished, or—closer to the form’s New York origins—when the newly tagged freight car will move on to its next rail yard.
So using soon-to-be-demolished buildings as temporary canvases is fitting. We’ve got a few to spare, and more events like the Deluxe Inn would likely catalyze creativity.
But legalized graffiti of a more permanent nature has worked here before, too. Both project organizer
Sam deBourbon and another Deluxe Inn artist, East Lansing’s King Beach, 24, remember with fondness a time when it was legal—or at least tolerated—to paint select underpasses near
the Rock on the campus of
Michigan State University.
“We could do what we wanted without worrying,” says Beach, an MSU graduate who was born in New York. “I remember painting down there when I was in eighth grade,” he says.
But could Lansing, like London, extend legalized graffiti beyond hidden bridges and doomed buildings? It's worked elsewhere.
“We were all stunned when we got to the actual MOS location,” says Phillips, who expected to have to trek into rough London neighborhoods or a sketchy factory district to find the graffiti event.
“The artists were painting on the lower level of a fairly high-end, mixed-use apartment complex,” he says. “The art was clearly being used as a way to attract people to that community—and the art was permanent!”
Embracing Urban Painting“If you give someone a space to paint and tell them the rules, most likely the rules will be followed,” says deBourbon.
He also acknowledges that some individuals will also always be tempted to push the limits. He actively encourages his fellow graffiti artists to “stay within the guidelines or you’ll ruin it for everybody.”
“Honestly, an element of spray painting that many people enjoy is that it isn’t legal,” admits Beach. “But there’s also a large part of the community that doesn’t care about that aspect, especially when they can’t really be dealing with that.”
He says that, if the city allotted some space to it, “there’s a lot more people that are into urban art in general, beyond spray paint—wheat-pasting and stenciling and other things—that I’m sure it would get a lot of use.
“It’s nice to have a place to take your time,” he says.
City of Opportunity “The Deluxe Inn was an experiment,” says Phillips. “It shed light on the immense talent in this region, and the pent-up demand for space where they can express, share and educate the community about their craft.”
But what does the next step look like?
Manzella says he would like to build an art wall in REO Town, and says Ingham County land bank director Eric Schertzing is interested in more art projects on land bank properties “if the neighbors are amenable.”
Touring the central Lansing area on one of the
Metro Marina cruises—traveling from REO Town through Downtown to near Old Town— it’s easy to envision a host of sites that could potentially benefit from a splash of artistic color.
Consider the expansive I-496 overpass that crosses the Grand River near
The Grand Fish. A gray expanse of rip-rap and concrete, the site’s got size and proximity to the river and Downtown. It’s been discussed as a potential covered site for concerts, festivals and shows.
Or maybe the aging silos towering over the Grand River near the
Brenke Fish Ladder in Old Town? Of some of the warehouses, factories and other working buildings along the river?
What happens if we open up a few spots to events for artists who could bring activity in the short term, and in the long run, make the river a kind of urban art gallery, framed with trees, city and sky?
The Deluxe Inn project was both authentic urban art and managed chaos. The opportunity cost was low, as was the bar of expectation.
“There was no way we could really fail at this,” says Manzella. ”If five artists showed up and had fun,” it would have been a success, he says.
It’s probably a difficult synthesis to repeat on a larger, more formalized and systematic level—blending the boundary-breakers of urban graffiti art with the bureaucratic innovators of urban redevelopment.
But if any city is well-positioned to give it a try on a larger canvas, isn’t it Lansing?
Editor's Note: If you're looking for a way to get involved in Lansing's community-based mural art movement, check out the Genesee Neighborhood Mural project. They're looking for volunteers to help paint this weekend, Sept. 25-28. Learn more here.
Brad Garmon lives in Lansing and is the Editor-In-Chief of Capital Gains.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Graffiti under Farm Lane on MSU's campus
A London graffiti project, photo by Tremaine Phillips
Graffiti from the Deluxe Inn project
Sanctioned graffiti in London, photo by Tremaine Phillips
Possible sanctioned graffiti spots in Lansing including the 496 Cedar/Larch overpass and the silos in Old Town
Lansing Area Photographs © Dave Trumpie