Arts in Detention

It’s a drizzily April night for Art Walk, but I’m out for just one stop: Buckham Gallery and the opening of the annual “Arts in Detention: GVRC Share Art Exhibit.”  

“Arts in Detention” presents the work of kids ages 10 to 17 living in the Genesee Valley Regional Detention Center (GRVC), on Pasadena Avenue in Flint.  A short-term residential facility (capacity 60), GVRC currently houses 45 to 50 young people; their charges range from truancy to murder. Three nights a week girls and boys participate in writing and spoken word, visual arts, theatre and dance workshops. The GVRC Share Art program partners with Buckham Gallery to bring art to youth in detention and then share their work with the public in this annual spring exhibit.

Artwork as large as a mural or an automobile hood, and as small as a standard sheet of paper for a T-shirt logo, hangs on the gallery walls.  Video screens show kids involved in movement, dance, and dramatic arts exercises. The young artists are unnamed, but for each group of art pieces instructors and assistants have provided statements about the process and goals of the work. “It’s more about the process than the products,” says Shelley Spivack, Flint attorney, juvenile court referee, and co-founder of “Arts in Detention.”  

The Genesee Valley Regional Center Share Art program began in the fall of 2011 as a pilot project.   Spivack, who also teaches a Juvenile Justice and Law class at UM-Flint, responded to the Ruth Mott Foundation’s “Share Art” call for project ideas. Awarded a mini grant to re-establish an art workshop at GRVC (a previous one had lapsed), Shelley and Steven Hull (a Mott Community College art graduate studying Criminal Justice at UM-Flint), co-founded “Arts in Detention.”  

Instructors in the Share Art program are either members of Buckham Gallery or other creative groups in Flint or teach at one of the colleges.  UM-Flint lecturer Tracy Currie (in spoken word), and Todd Onweller, Steven Hull, and J.T. Thigpen (all artists) formed the initial core of instructors. Currently seven artists, one student assistant, and two interns teach in the arts workshops. 

Boys and girls live in separate wings at GVRC, but according to Shelley and Steve, the workshops only became gender geared as it emerged that girls had unmet needs and felt more at home in spoken word, while boys tended toward the visual arts.  Shelley emphasizes that during sessions there is no talk about charges or cases; instructors strive for an atmosphere of freedom to work in the arts.  “In seven years,” Steve says, “only one student was removed from class and that was for mental health issues.”  Overall, the workshops relax the kids and they look forward to them. The instructors have developed a relationship with staff and now work unguided in the facility.   

As I walk the gallery, a stack of books grabs my eye with its day-glo lime cover (artwork by Grand Blanc artist Julie Abbott) of four girls stretching their arms upward to the book title: “HerStory: Unlocked.” The books are the 2016/2017 collection of girls’ poetry and short prose interspersed with photos of the actual products in the workshops led by Traci Currie, Emma Davis, and assistant Jia Ireland.  A grant from Michigan Humanities Council helped make the volume possible.  

Another eye-catcher is a display of sculpted commedia dell’arte theatre masks done jointly by workshops in Boys Theatre and Visual Arts.  Titled “Shakesmedia,” the project involved study of stock character types and creating a visual image of characters.  A video shows the boys acting in guided improv scenes. 

Reflecting on her experience with “Arts in Detention,” Shelley says, “It’s done as much for us as it has for the kids; we see ourselves and our own place in the world differently.”  Asked how he feels about the GVRC Share Art program, Steve says, “It’s making a mark.” Then Steve glances down at his phone; he works for state Child Protective Services and both he and Shelley are “on call” tonight. The needs of the kids are never far away.  Shelley comments that of those currently in short term detention, 16 are facing adult sentences; juvenile crime is declining, but sentencing as adults is rising.

 

Tonight, however, sharing the kids’ art at the annual exhibit is always fun.  Besides the Art Walk public, court officials, probation officers, and judges often show up. Surprisingly, Shelley adds with a laugh, “In all our years with this community exhibit, no one has done a story done about [the show].”

I chat with Corinne Nuzum and Casey Hamann, former volunteers and now interns in visual arts with girls at GVRC.  They would like to develop a program specifically for interns.  They want to get a grant that help interns with supplies---participants in their art group fluctuate from 9 to 12 and they never have enough materials.  “We need continuing education too, training to develop our teaching skills in all media,” says Corinne.  Casey’s dream is to develop a cooking program.  She has worked at Crust in Fenton and cooking skills are practical for both boys and girls, both for employment and for life. “How long is your term as interns?” I ask.  Corinne and Casey laugh and respond in unison, “As long as Shelley and Steve will have us!”http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2018/04/18/arts-in-detention-program-unlocks-creativity-from-the-inside-for-gvrc-youth/

“Arts in Detention” is growing beyond the walls of Genesee Valley Regional Center.  In response to kids leaving GVRC who want to have something on the “outside,” a 12-week pilot project (in partnership with Genesee County Family Court) began September 25, 2017.  With help from Gear UP Academy students, a workshop titled “Arts on Probation” is held weekly at the Juvenile Probation Office in the McCree Building.

Current funders of GVRC Share Art Project include: the Hagerman Foundation, the Flint Women and Girls Fund of the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, United Way of Genesee County, and Greater Flint Sunrise Rotary International. 

“Arts in Detention: GVRC Share Art Exhibit” runs until May 5 at Buckham Gallery, 134 ½ W. Second Street.  Gallery Hours: Th-Sat: 12-5:30. See http://www.buckham-gvrc-share-art-project.org/ “HerStory: Unlocked” is available as a free e-book at http://www.buckham-gvrc-share-art-project.org/project-staff/

This essay originally appeared in East Village Magazine, April 2018. 

http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/2018/04/18/arts-in-detention-program-unlocks-creativity-from-the-inside-for-gvrc-youth/

Jazz Night

Tuesday night in downtown Flint and that means jazz at Soggy Bottom.  On this cool April evening a gust of wind propels several people through the front door just as the smiling drummer John Hill grabs the mic and announces over his drum set, “We’re going to do some spring songs!” Together with Pat Cronley on the keyboard and Jack McDonald on the bass, John opens the first set.  The sticks go down and John looks radiantly happy.  I think he is the happiest jazz drummer I’ve ever seen.

Jazz Night at Soggy Bottom has been going for nearly three years. It was the brainchild of Andy Sartwell, the Soggy Bottom’s premier bartender.  Andy was good friends with Jack McDonald (a Linden High School grad now studying music at Western).  Good friends, they played indie music around Flint.  Andy pitched the idea for jazz night to Soggy Bottom’s bar manager Ken Laatz and he agreed.  Andy called Pat Cronley and Jack contacted John.  

The Jack McDonald Jazz Trio was a go.    

According to John, the first couple of jazz nights the audience was thin; when he looked over to the raised seating area, he says, rolling his eyes in untypical distress, hardly anyone was there.  But attendance grew.

You’d never know there’d ever been a sparse attendance night now.  

By the second set the bar is packed, clusters of standees clumped behind the stools; newcomers enter, heads pivoting in search of a place to sit.  Sidling along the bar to the back they glance into the backroom pool table.   Barely visible through a glass door is a patio where hardy smokers sit under the umbrella tables, overlooked by a Kevin Burdick mural on the building’s back wall.  Climbing a couple of steps to the raised seating area that overlooks the bar and band area, the newcomers poke their heads round to the side room. Tables with club chairs (and a second pool table)---all full.   

Soggy Bottom is packed.   Some sigh and leave, but mostly they make another standing cluster and eye the bar for departures.   

Various trumpet and sax players join the trio for Tuesday jazz.  Two frequent crowd pleasers are trumpeters Walter White and Dwight Adams.  A surprise one night was Ukrainian trumpeter Yakiv Tsvietinskyi, who had met Jack McDonald in Kalamazoo at  Western Michigan University.  A new foreign music student at Western, Yakiv showed up at the WMU Union jazz jams and met Jack.  Jack invited Yakiv to come to Flint (new to Michigan, Yakiv had no idea how far away Flint was from Kalamazoo).

I talked to Yakiv, a veteran of European jazz fests with his own modern jazz trio, “LLT”.   Between sets we chatted about Ukraine (Yakiv is from Dnipropetrovsk) and his coming marriage to his love, Marianna, an opera singer, who will join him in Kalamazoo.  

Some nights Nick Calandro is on the bass. Nick once took a class from me at UM-Flint (he remembers this better than I do). That’s how Soggy Bottom Jazz Night goes---you never know who you’ll run into. Former Mott Park neighbors who’ve moved to peaceful glades of Flushing or Fenton return to the city for jazz.  
The repertoire varies with the soloist, but “Caravan,” “In a sentimental mood,” “Song for my father” are frequent.  John introduces the musicians and the numbers---“We’re going to do a ballad,” he says. Or we’ll get some education about composers and styles. Or jazz trivia: “This was the only piece Charlie Parker ever wrote in a minor key.  Do we know that?” he implishly queries Pat Cronley.   Pre-break signature is a jazzy version of “The Flintstones” theme song.

Late on a full night, local singers like Gwen Hemphill take to the mic---here Gwen sings "At Last." Later, people take to the floor to dance.

John is a music educator with 23 years experience in public schools. He taught percussion for 6 years at UM-Flint and he’s also taught 10 years at Mott. Now he teaches music at Oxford high school, and all instruments---piano, guitar, theory, jazz.  But not band.  

Maybe that’s why John started the bi-monthly blast known as Big Band night.  The idea for Big Band night grew out of a jam session music teachers do for their students on Honors Band Day. Each year in January under the auspices of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association, music educators and their students gather for Honors Band Day.  The tradition began about eight years ago.  The students practice all morning and then the teachers (20 different band directors) get together in the afternoon and play for them.

For Big Band night John turns to his music educator colleagues to serve as section leaders (trumpet, sax, trombone) and the section leaders pull together their players.  John organizes the music and gets it ready.  If John can get another drummer, he’s free to conduct and you’ll hear instructions to the players, something about the measures or the coda.  

Musicians drive in from a twenty-mile radius and form 20-piece band.  It’s all pretty spontaneous after that; ninety percent of the time they have no rehearsals.  Different musicians will take a solo.  

By 5pm the place is packed.  Cars fill the adjacent lots---the Local Grocer and the former Jag the Haberdasher area.  The trio will play a first set, allowing time for all the brass musicians to arrive.  They gather in the side pool room where John has laid out music sheets on the pool table.

It’s all fun for John.  He comes in smiling, even late or rushed, and heaves his drums around chatting with people the whole time.  Music fans cluster at the front end of the bar and friends hang over the railing from the table area to talk.  John radiates optimism, and a good thing too. He has a non-stop schedule with teaching and his family of four kids---one entering college, two teenagers, and a four-year old.  All except the youngest are involved with music.  Along with his three eldest, John played in church at Holy Redeemer on Easter.

Big Band night takes place the last Tuesday every other month. Check the Events list on Soggy Bottom’s Facebook page---other nights and special events are listed there.

Support jazz---celebrate International Jazz Day, Sunday, April 30, with the Soggy Bottom musicians and many others from around Michigan. The music takes place 1 to 5 pm at the Atwood Stadium Parking lot. Hear some of Michigan’s finest musicians and vocalists at this free concert.  More information on this Flint celebration go to  
http://jazzonwheels.org and its background at http://jazzday.com

For more essays go to East Village Magazine online at http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org

Water

We sit in a rectangle of tables, old manila file folders halved and then creased so we can write our names and prop them up in front of us.

I’ve found my way to the basement of the Unitarian Universalist church for the meeting of a group called Communication/Publication. It’s something to do with water and print media.

Jan has asked me to find out what’s going on.  Is there a role for East Village Magazine here?

I am clueless, but diligent.  Ready for an hour and a half meeting on a cold Monday afternoon in late March.  

Around the table are some 25 people from non-profits, grass-roots organizations, churches; many greet each other and chat---it’s clear that they’ve been working together for some time.

Jamie-Lee, tall and strong-voiced, in a Live United tee shirt convenes what I now understand is the Communication Workgroup, one of six workgroups that together form Flint Water Crisis Community Partners.  All around the table people introduce themselves, say whether they represent an organization. In fact, just being a Flint resident or concerned citizen suffices----the group is open to all.  Every meeting begins this way, I learn later.  Every meeting someone new comes.

I’ve styled myself as an observer from East Village Magazine, glad to seem useful. And I live in the city of Flint.

Scanning the manila cards scrawled with first names and organizations, I decipher the initials:  EPA, HHS, ARC/LWV, and AARP are clear to me.  Some I am learning:  CBOP (Community Based Organization Partners) and CAC (Communication Access Center)---services for the Deaf. Two signers are here.

Present too are Salvation Army, Genesee County Health Department, Michigan Works, the Genesee County Medical Society, Save the Children (they target the over 5000 children not in Head Start), Valley Area Agency on Aging, and two uniformed National Guard officers---presumably from the Mayor’s office.  They listen, sometimes answer questions. 

The Unitarian minister, Deane, contributes her pastoral insight and experience with clergy who advocate for the people of Flint. 

A few people strike me as old hands at community organizing: Joe King from Flint Neighborhoods United, Jane Richardson from Salem Housing and the paper, Flint Our Community Our Voice, and Jane O’Dell from the Flint’s Community Resolution Center.

A regional organization, Crossing Water, is here in the person of Michael Hood, acerbic and outspoken.  Devoted to disaster relief for vulnerable communities, Crossing Water coordinates with social services and mobilizes teams of volunteers who go house to house, install, fix or change filters. Check if young children (under 6 years) or pregnant or nursing mothers are in the home.  The reports from the front is discouraging.

But after a winter of blaming and castigation, suspicion and aspersion, MSNBC exposés, presidential candidate slogans, and Congressional hearings, I am cheered to sit in a group where local staff from EPA, Health and Human Services, and the Genesee County Health Department respond supportively to questions, text queries to their superiors, and take notes to get more information from their offices.

And it’s clear from the discussion that answers do come back. These folks see one another every Monday; they evince the ease of people going at a common problem for a couple of months together.   

As a veteran of decades of academic committees, I can see the picture emerging.  First order of business is a review of “open issues.”  Who has answers for the list from last time?

The Communication group works steadily  through questions about organ and blood donation (various reasons why lead transmission through blood transfusions would be low; organs also low since majority of lead is stored in blood and bone rather than organs), the effect of heat on plastic water bottles (EPA doesn’t anticipate problems since the kind of plastic is stable), getting a flow chart that shows the official entities involved in Flint water recovery efforts (Jamie-Lee is getting this; word is that a unified document is in the works but will take months).  The community needs a single source of information; this is a traumatized population.

Discussion moves to today’s concerns. First voice at the table comes from the Genesee County Medical Society about problems with calling 2-1-1 to report skin rash issues and get to free screening with dermatologists; why is there a 40-60% no show rate? 

The deaf community representative notes that those using the “relay” ID complain that they are often denied service (a problem in general with doctors). Someone mentions that a lead screening program was also put in place right away and it’s not being used. 

Then there’s the media and conflicting information. Water Defense (Mark Ruffalo’s group) hasn’t shared their data on why not to bathe in the water with EPA.  The EPA stance remains the same: except for young children bathing is ok.  Both EPA and CDC continue to test.

What about people with pacemakers and metal implants?  It goes on the list.

Back to the media and how to hold them responsible for accuracy? Corrections after the fact are useless.  What about a press conference with media? (This is voted down). Sometimes the headline is inflammatory while the whole article body not. Local radio does the same.  Media expand the context of misinformation while the real news is that there is conflicting information.

Then there’s the issue of uniformed National Guard at the points of distribution for water---the PODs.  Some populations (such as the undocumented) are wary of uniformed presence.  Fire stations are phasing out in favor of community PODs, C-Pods, one in every ward in the city.  More education---verbal information and flyers---can take place at C-PODS.

I check the time; the hour and a half is nearly up and the group has not yet broken out into its two task groups to work on the website and print publication.  The issues that have come forth today have swamped the meeting.  

Although it’s too late to work today, the two task groups report:  website people have made progress  and a shell is ready. It’s a measure of our computerized society that the website seems an easier task than the print challenge---up-to-date material in simple language for a range of different groups unlikely to use the internet (senior citizens, homebound, illiterate, vision impaired, homeless, undocumented, and non-English speaking are some of the 19 categories).

The print people also have a list of 50 trusted sources to communicate print information. How to cover printing costs, especially high because color graphics are needed. EPA has produced an effective flyer with simple language and graphics, but it bears the EPA logo.  So the next question is who are the people whom will these populations trust?  Who are the individuals and organizations who can get reliable information to people on the other side of the digital divide, mistrustful, wary of endless conflicting information, worn down by changing conditions?  

I am a print person, happy to find myself among those struggling with paper and text and distribution. It’s 5 pm and people are packing up.  The publications task group is frustrated. They assure me that today’s meeting was a exception; next Monday the break out into the two groups will happen first. 

For me, for now, I take home what one participant leaned over to me and said as today’s session ended, “you come to one meeting and you are no longer observer; it is your meeting now.”

Note:

This was the first of a series of meetings of the Communication Workgroup of Community Partners that I attended on March 21, 2016.  I’ve continued to attend their Monday meetings.  The website has now been launched; find it at http://flintcares.com The publications task group has developed a print flyer using simple language and graphics called “The Bottom Line.”  Information comes from the website where accuracy is vetted; content of “The Bottom Line” will change according to current need.  First issue deals water resource sites and using and changing home filters.  Next issues will deal with nutrition and Legionella.

View more essays like this one at 
East Village Magazine
http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/

Writing for Gary. December 28, 2014

I'm at my desk on this gray December morning.  Today’s writing ritual honors Gary Custer who is far away in Michigan in an intensive care unit.  It's 10:15 in my California time zone and I have another good hour to go.  Gary lays in a bed, intubated and semi-conscious, I am told. His devoted brother, Ed, sits nearby.  Ed waits for a sign of communication from crotchety Gary.

Gary edits and publishes the East Village Magazine, a monthly news magazine published in Flint, Michigan, since 1976. The eight-page publication---all 620 issues of it---is Gary’s life work. In thirty-eight years he has never missed an issue.

The magazine is part of a nonprofit entity called the Village Information Center.  According to Ed, the term "village" came from Marshall McLuhan's concept of a global village in the 1960s. Gary is that kind of village man. 

As Gary describes it, the magazine began “as an information co-operative, a group of people working together to provide the group some of the information they needed to protect and improve their neighborhood.” [1]  Confidence in a changing composition of an “information co-op” where each person provides something toward the production of the magazine---reflects the idealism of the founders. Gary is one of the last of them.

Contributions and several small grants and keep the magazine afloat, bobbling atop red ink waters. Unclassified ads supply some revenue. Contributions from local supporters and from all of us writers help.

It’s a slim publication, but when I see the glossy East Village magazine cover downtown at the Farmer’s Market or at the Lunch Studio I think I’m in New York. A slick urban sensibility emanates from the black and white cover photographs done by Gary’s brother Ed. In recent years their subjects often have been local architectural compositions that arrest the eye.  An artist and photographer, Ed provides stark shots that render the magazine distinctive, instantly recognizable in the sad stacks of flyers slipping off tables and falling through racks in cafes, markets, and campus lounges around town.   

My home town, Mill Valley, had characters like Gary---people defined by one pursuit, monothematic, and indefatigable.  Characters tend to sturdy and long lived, immediately recognizable by trademarks of dress and language and concerns. It takes time to acquire the distinction of being a local character.  When they disappear we suddenly realize how essential they are to the place we love.    

Gary fills the character bill in baggy jeans and a denim or flannel shirt.  A beard. His transportation mode is bicycle. He lives in the Village Information Center at 720 East Second Street which is also the magazine office.  He works seven days a week, sixteen-plus hours a day.  The office walls are stacked with old issues.  There’s an antique computer, a couch-like piece of furniture, a table and a couple of chairs. Toward the back of the room a partition screens a stove or hot plate and a bathroom.  A bottle of Bushmill’s sometimes emerges for Sunday proofing sessions, though he does not imbibe.  Gary is, not surprisingly, a beer man.

When I retired from teaching, people congratulated me.  They said, “Now you can travel and relax.  Enjoy life.”

Gary said, "Good.  Now you can write."  

I told Gary that I wanted to write personal essays for my blog.  “Fine," Gary said. "You can send them to me first.”

And so I did, but not enough to satisfy Gary. He is the copy omnivore. Every few weeks the new East Village Magazine gets ready to go to press.  Layout and proofing finished, Gary can begin to think about beefing up the online version of the magazine where space is limitless.  He shoots me a cryptic email.  It's usually something like, "Anything for our discerning readers?" 

I kick it back with a metaphor like, "Got a couple of pots on the back burner.  One is almost ready."  Gary will answer "Stir and send."  He will not be sucked into imagery. Gary wants copy; I want to procrastinate. Gary supplies the nudge an amateur writer needs.  More like an elbow to the ribs. “Just write,” he says.   

Gary is an old school newspaper man.  After an essay of mine reaches him, he makes few changes, but the changes are telling. Titles, definite articles, verb forms, and paragraph length are his blue pencil territory. 

My submissions carry a title---some enigmatic phrase that sparked my idea for the essay, a reminder of the notion I want to reprise in its conclusion.  My titles mean something to me. 

Gary prefers curt and telegraphic titles.  He extracts them from the body of the essay and discards what I’ve sent in. Whenever possible he omits definite and indefinite articles. Once he removed a definite article in a poem title.  The poet was offended; staff writers went on the warpath.  It was all over by the next deadline; we gave up, and the poet mailed in a check. 

Gary is not big on the subjunctive---to which I am academically inclined.    I studied foreign languages; teachers drilled the verbal nuances of wishes and doubts, or the counterfactual and the hypothetical into my brain.  He is a man of the indicative mood.

Nor is Gary much of a clause man, as in subordinate clauses (where subjunctives may lurk). One of my happy grammar school experiences was to diagram compound and compound-complex sentences on a blackboard.  Later, as a scholar, I learned the utility of the semicolon. Syntactical variety is not Gary’s metier.  "Subject, verb, object," he says.

Gary likes short paragraphs---punchy, you might call them.  I was trained in the topic sentence followed by development tradition.  When I first see my writing in print or online, it strikes me like a kid with a bad haircut.  Over my five years writing for Gary, however, I have capitulated.  When I re-read what he has printed I like it better than what I’d submitted.   

After Gary puts an essay online, he will send another cryptic email.   “Good essay” or “very good,” he will write.  I am happy.   And then he will add, “Any corrections?”  This is Gary’s amalgam of editorial exactitude and making nice. I sigh. Unless I detect an error of fact, I am resigned.  Titles, articles, paragraphs---I bow to Gary’s blue pencil.

Last November, in a moment of uncharacteristic effusion, Gary described the current staff the best he’s ever had.[2]  The magazine was poised to move from eight pages to twelve. We writers were elated.  Now, however, we meet in emergency session, stunned and sorrowing.  The most important member is not likely to return. 

Gary believed that “there are always people who don’t contribute, but we provided them the magazine in the hopes they would change their mind when they found out the value of the co-op.” [3] He lived this conviction with a mind over matter determination.  The hospital ICU will do its best for Gary’s heart and lungs, but the magazine is up to us now.

Read more essays like this one in East Village Magazine at http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/en/

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[1] Gary Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial: Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014

[2] Gary Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial: Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014

[3] Gary Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial: Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014

Community debate: moving the Flint Farmers' Market

Twelve Truisms about Moving
with gratitude to Sheldon Kopp’s Eschatological Laundry List

1.     Moving is hard

2.     It could have been done sooner

3.     Fear was part of it, from beginning to end

4.     Habit is comforting

5.     After two months, new habits developed

6.     Friends who were against the move got used to it

7.     New friends appeared

8.     Some places I left did not improve

9.      Other places I left look better now

10.     Even moves not of my own choosing turned out well anyway

11.     All the consequences of either staying or moving could not be known in advance

12.     Over time, fewer people shared my nostalgia; some moved, others died.

 Read more about the Farmers' Market controversy at http://eastvillagemagazine.org/