Created in a style reminiscent of a children’s coloring book, this 85 foot long drawing depicts every building seen along my seven-mile bike ride through Detroit, from my east side home to my Michigan avenue studio space (555). In its stylized crooked lines and tight details the city is abstracted, yet still familiar, becoming funny and friendly and thus invites a closer viewing, without the usual distractions and intimidations of a harsh reality (as the drawing is absent of cars, people and trash), at a city in need of some attention. Notice the short expanses of inhabited housing followed immediately by uninhabited housing, all intermixed with uninhabitable housing inhabited, and even the empty lots, once inhabited, sprinkled throughout. In a country where cities (such as Detroit) can be devastated and deserted, then quietly sold off, perhaps the previous methods of community and city development have grown stale and, quite possibly, malignant. The title, then, (coming from the oft-said phrase of early education teachers towards their students, “color inside the lines,” and the punishing of some for thinking “outside the box”), refers not just to the beautifying act of coloring, but ignites a plea to question the inane and constipated methods of community development certain American cities have allowed. Enjoy the drawing and please, do take your time… there’s lots of room outside all these lines.
-Ben Bunk, October 6, 2009
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