Where the Wild Things Are

So, for the past 3 weeks, I've been driving the Boy down to Wayne State for a summer day camp program through the Engineering department.  He seems to have enjoyed it, but the back-and-forth has been exhausting me.  I'm spending about 3 hours a day in the car, and I've had lots of time to listen to music (found some new artists that I'm enjoying) and looking at the graffiti.  And Detroit has, in addition to the typical tags on seemingly every other building, some very nice public artwork.

The ones that inspired the title of this post were the ones that got me started really looking:

 This one is on Woodward Avenue, just north of the Davison, and he feels to me like he is kind of guarding the neighborhood.  This area is really struggling, all the buildings along this stretch of road are burned out and falling down, but this creature looks pretty happy and ready to take on the world.




This one is on the side of the building that houses the Russell Bazaar, on the east side of the I-75 service drive.  Someone put a lot of time and love into this beast, and I think he is pretty spectacular.  Can't call him graffiti - he is definitely a mural.  My son really loves him.

 Here is a closer view.

And a few more murals that I always enjoy seeing when I go into the city:

 It's hard to take pictures while I'm driving, so I had the Boy take some of these - he didn't do too badly! 

There are lots more examples in the city - these are just a few that caught my eye.  I love these expressions of the beauty that lies just beneath the surface of the city.  There is some truly lovely architechture in Detroit, but these are ordinary buildings that are elevated to art by someone's vision and effort.

I'll post more as I find them.  But here is one more that the Boy took on our way north out of town on our last day - this place looks really intriguing: 

It's not the best picture, but this is a chiropractic/alternate therapy clinic and vegetarian cafe.  I might need to stop in some time!  Their website is here.