A pop of color for Detroit

71 POP is a microcosm of the current visionary wave rippling across the city of Detroit. It’s easy to look at Motown and see vacated businesses and walls of broken windows rotting beneath the city’s gray and cracking skin. But the truth is a little harder to see: the city is molting out of that skin and into something sleeker. Optimists and entrepreneurs and opportunity-seekers look at those buildings and see art studios and restaurants and budding non-profit organizations. In the case of 71 POP, I Am Young Detroit’s Margarita Berry came across some abandoned property on Garfield Street and saw a home for the creations of local artists.

If you put yourself in the shoes of an eager young artist, you can see the appeal of Detroit with clarity. Affordable apartments, readily available studio spaces and the Midtown artistic hubs, which include the College for Creative Studies, the Sugarhill Arts District, and Wayne State University, work to spice up Detroit’s résumé when seeking out young talent. Factor in an underlying attitude that the city’s artistic legacy can be resurrected through modern art and entrepreneurship, and it isn’t shocking to see Detroit being hoisted up on the shoulders of ambitious twenty-somethings.

Now those artists have the chance to showcase their work and connect with the surrounding community through the unique retail venture that is 71 POP. Margarita Berry’s vision for the art venue is succinctly stated in the text at the top of the venue’s retro-modern web site, which reads “71 emerging artists, 71 pop-up shops, 71 Garfield Street.” Interested artists, most of whom would not be able to afford the means to showcase and sell their work, are given a temporary “pop-up gallery-style retail space” as well as a complete business and branding make-over as it relates to their aspirations as an artist. Artists can apply through the website and are placed in a rotation of 71 local artists and designers upon acceptance.

The idea behind 71 POP supports the spirit of collaboration felt among those who want to see the restoration of Detroit. Shoppers are encouraged to engage directly with the artists, many of whom are at work shaping the new image of the city. This new image caught the eye of CBS News this past July, where reporters noted “early signs of a Motor City renaissance” after speaking with Berry and other local entrepreneurs. Approaching the Christmas season, it’s exciting to see the bleakness begin to give way to a colorful montage of opportunity and possibility.

71 POP is located at 71 Garfield Street in Detroit and is open Thursday through Friday from noon to 7 p.m. and on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit 71pop.com.