College leader’s legacy: A new generation of Detroit artists

When Mikel Bresee first came to Detroit in January 2001, the city wasn’t known as a hub for emerging artists. 

After graduating from the School of Arts Institute of Chicago, the visual met with community groups and local leaders and said he quickly realized that an entire generation of Detroiters had become accustomed to not having arts programs in schools, churches or neighborhoods.

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Many people, he said, believed they had to travel to New York, Chicago or even outside of the country to study or have a career in the arts. The lack of awareness about arts programming throughout Detroit at the time motivated the visual artist to take a job with the College for Creative Studies more than two decades ago. 

“What shocked me was that there was nobody in the nonprofit sphere who was providing visual artists to the schools or community organizations,” recalled Bresee, 67, director of the Community Arts Partnership (CAP) Department at CCS in Detroit.

“The lack of arts programming was something that I knew could be changed, even if it wasn’t going to change overnight.”

With little-to-no visual arts programming aimed at Detroit’s youth, Bresee’s first goal was “to get art to these kids” and his vision for the Community Arts Partnership program was born.

Since its inception, CAP has helped more than 72,000 Detroit youth connect with arts resources and programming. Currently, it delivers about 100 programs to 3,000 Detroit students each year with the aid of more than 320 partner organizations including the city’s recreation office and Detroit’s public school district, private and charter schools, faith-based groups and foundations. 

Bresee reflected on the success of the program and his lengthy career with CCS ahead of his retirement on June 28.

“One of the coolest things about (CAP) has been watching people come in when they’re very young, seeing them grow as artists and then seeing them get paid for their art,” Bresee said. “That’s something a lot of adult artists can’t even say.”

‘A great outlet’

Before working with CAP at Cody High School in 2014, Detroit muralist Habacuc Bessiake said he never considered Detroit an arts city.

The CAP alum said he was under the impression that he had to go elsewhere to be an artist, especially if he wanted to make any money from his art. 

“What I recognize now is what I saw as a lack of art, with more so a lack of funding, and a lack of resources,” Bessiake said, “but luckily for kids in Detroit, CAP is trying to fix that.”

Because he already had an interest in becoming an artist, Bessiake leaped at the chance to do paid projects with CAP while he was still in high school. Paid work is made possible through the city’s Grow Detroit’s Young Talent program and for youth leadership students who become CCS employees. 

Bessiake’s first paid job was helping paint a mural at Cody in 2015. Projects like this, he said, helped him see his school as more than a building or a place to get grades, but as a community. 

“Once I was involved in the arts, I became like an ambassador for the school,” he said. “It became more than going to class and getting an A or B, it was very holistic and it was a beautiful experience.” 

The program helped Bessiake realize he didn’t have to leave Detroit to become who he wanted to be. 

“I think you just value life more when you recognize that you have a future in it, so I valued Detroit more now that I recognized that I had a future here,” Bessiake said. 

Bessiake worked every summer during high school as an artist, an opportunity he said that he wouldn’t have had without Bresee’s work with CAP. 

Bresee said he knew that doing art projects to truly benefit the community meant he had to understand what the needs were and how he might be able to get the funding to meet those needs. He also wanted to create something that would sustain even if he – or grant funding – were no longer around. 

CAP is set up to meet the needs of its community partners who oversee student enrollments in the free program. Its grant funded programs – Detroit Neighborhood Arts Corps (DNAC) and Detroit Neighborhood Arts Workshops (DNAW) – are open to high school and middle school students, respectively.

High school students can sign up for DNAC and middle school students can sign up for DNAW. 

Bart Eddy is the founder of Detroit Community Schools, a K-12 charter school district, has partnered with Bresee and the CAP program for years. 

“Public education as it exists normally today, does not include the arts and practical training anymore…and so we have to find other ways to bring that,” Eddy said of the partnership that has allowed young people from DCS to gain employment. 

“Bringing in the arts provides an opportunity for them to awaken their own creativity, and, at the same time, because it’s community oriented, connected into the spirit of community building.”

Fellow CAP alum Brittany McCauley, a visual artist and lifelong Detroiter, started with CAP when she was about 11. Now, at 33, she works as a teaching artist for CAP. 

McCauley credits Bresee and the program for taking her childhood love of comic books and turning it into a career. 

“It changed my perspective on art and just seeing how big that field is,” McCauley said. “I just really fell in love with creating things, and it was a great outlet, especially when I was young and looking for guidance. There was a lot about art and myself I wouldn’t have explored without CAP.”

While some people have an innate interest and talent with art, McCauley said she believes CAP benefits Detroit kids who may not already view themselves as artists. 

“It’s all about understanding that art is everything,” she said. “Everything that you look at, somebody picked up a pencil and designed it and drew it and colored it. And there’s so much science to that and so much history in that, if we could use that message I feel like people will be interested.”

Bresee agrees with the “everything is art” mindset. He makes sure that CAP students understand that the arts world is much bigger than “people sitting in studios painting.”

“It’s incredibly important and powerful for kids to see that their work could end up on a mural, and many have from CAP, so it’s something they can see in their neighborhood and say ‘hey, I did that’ or even have their parents say ‘look at what my kid helped make,’” Bresee said.

Detroiters taking the lead 

Larry Lunsford, assistant director of CAP, has worked closely with Bresee throughout his years at CCS and will take over as the program’s next co-director alongside Lynn Blasey. She’s been with CCS for about 16 years and started as a program manager for CAP in 2008.

For Lunsford, one of CAP’s biggest successes is seeing students come back as adults.

“You’d be shocked how many former students come by and remember us from when we came out to their school or worked with them during our weekend programs,” Lunsford, 68, said. “It makes you realize the impact you’ve had years and years later.”

Lunsford isn’t sure what changes are in store for CAP, but said he wants to create even more opportunities for students to make money from their artwork. 

“The best work is still yet to come,” he said. 

Bresee said he’s excited to see what Lunsford is able to do with the program. 

“I thought about bringing in some young, fresh-faced person to run it, but it makes sense to have Larry, a Detroiter and someone who knows everything about the program, to keep it going,” Bresee told BridgeDetroit in an interview alongside Lunsford. 

Bresee said he knew it was time to step away from CAP because he’s ‘not what Detroit needs anymore.” 

But Bresee said he’ll always be part of the program and it will always be a part of him. 

“Twenty years ago, this work seemed to require people coming in from the outside with resources,” Bresee said. “Detroiters are no longer willing to sit back and let outsiders take the lead. The folks in Detroit can handle it.” 

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include that Lynn Blasey will become co-director of CAP alongside Larry Lunsford.