Welcome to the first official installment of this little video series I am working on.
My dear friend David Messerschmidt who was working with InDi on our project had the idea to use our office space for an Art Battle event. The way an art battle works is that the guests vote on their favorite piece at the end of the night. There are any number of artists working under any number of themes and mediums with a limited time frame of completion. Funny enough, we had a decent amount of negative feedback on the use of the word ‘battle’ and the idea it was a competition. I would like to take the opportunity to say that it is ironic because such a statement and critique itself is competitive and aggressive in nature but I choose not to focus on the ‘battle’ part of the event in these video’s too much – mainly because we did not win. lolololol We came in 2nd place. And for the record Competition with Honor is a beautiful thing.
I set the theme for this party, naturally, as Urban Farming and left it that loose for the artists to interpret. This was the first party of a 3 party series we had planned but we lost our funding shortly after the event coupled with a substantial personal tragedy that set me back for several months. We are currently seeking funding to continue this aspect of our vision which can be disclosed to those interested in creative philanthropy.
The group I am calling Team IndiEdibles consisted of some very dear people to me. Mary Thiefels has worked with me as design support over the past 10 years for coloring and creating 3d concepts for my landscape sales. I actually met Mary over 10 years ago at Jerusalem Garden in Ann Arbor where both her and I worked but our friendship did not develop until later on. I call her Mama Mary and consider her an Angel. Jeremy Johnson-Lemuix, aka Sunshine, has been a friend and foe for over a decade as well – at one time being my landscape companies foreman for 2 seasons. I fired him and we laugh pretty hard about it to this day with only a mild sliver of angst! lol. I love Sunshine deeply and have watched his music and art develop over the past decade. He is one of the most talented graphic designers I know. In fact, I hired him to design my tree of life logo which has been the staple of my business now for close to 9 years.Sunny has been gardening since he came to work with me 9 years ago and runs a boutique landscape company in Ann Arbor as well as expressing himself through music and art. He is a father, a student and an aspiring devotee of life. I have a lot of feelings for this fellow. Edward Frazier I met close to 7 years ago at a yoga retreat in northern mi called Song of the Morning and I instantly felt an affinity with him. That meeting lasted no more than moments until years later when it turned out that he was friends with Mary, Sunny and several other friends of mine. Edward and I have never spent a great deal of time together, but I have always admired him and paid close attention to his developing mastery of the art of Tattoo and painting. His style is explosively real, dark, profound, moving and drips with the unmistakable quality of divine inspiration. I wanted our mural to be a scape of the city of detroit integrated seemlessly and properly into the landscape with a non-religious benevolent deity over the city radiating blessings onto it. Edward came to mind for this aspect of the mural instantly and he took this vision and made it his own. Watching him translate the scale of his sketch from his pad to the wall and then to ever so carefully develop this piece with the input and assistance of the other members was astounding. I met Shadia Zayed for this first time at this event. She has been a working associate and friend of Mary Thiefels for years and came with Mary. Shadia’s energy and focus from the second she got to our office was moving to me. The whole night she was lit up like a christmas tree and she fit into this group of artists as if they had been family for a long time. Sunshine brought his friend Jess Willard who is a dedicated student of Tibetan Buddhism a musician, an artist and also a cunning ladies man. I met Jess a decade ago at the the buddhist place yet never felt a stong connection with him until that night. We were on the roof of the russel and something very magical happened and I fell in love with Jess – and no, this is not gay – men can love each other, Real Men do. I had no idea Jess was coming that night and he was a pleasant surprise and a foundational presence in the painting. Then there was Chip. Chip is technically an Elemental Diety aka Woodland Gnome of the Highest Order. You will hear Chip’s music in coming videos. He is a Jewel of a human being. Lastly but not least is Nisa Jorbachi who I met for the first time that night. Of course I fell in love with Nisa right away, not just because she has voodoo black eyes and hair and reminds you of a Persian Goddess – but because instantly her 100% engaged energy added to the Fire that was lit within the members of this group. I am sorry I did not have any good film of you two. Please accept my apologies. This team is part of my Family and what we produced together has moved me deeply. I love you all so much and cannot express what it means to me that your in my life and that we have had the chance to make things like this happen together. May there be many more celebrations.
A special thanks to DJ Frank Raines and DJ Brian Hill.
A special thanks to Swami and Mr.Bs for your loving and gracious support. Look what we did together~ Cheers to success!
Love,
Michael