Family is at the heart of everything Taylor Childs makes.
It’s discernable in her piece, “Whose Archives?” where a woman covered in cloth holds up two pieces of fabric, with one side featuring her uncle, grandmother and cousin and the other a portrait of Childs, her sister, grandmother and great aunt.
And there’s “Nana’s Orange Lilies,” a piece adorned in assorted fabrics, beads and acrylic paint with the smiling faces of Childs’ great aunt and uncles, cousins and grandmother against a checkered background.
“Nana” captured the attention of two people attending the recent opening night of the Detroit fabric artist’s installation “Apex” at the LOVE Building in the Core City neighborhood. They were also interested in the family photos that lined a table below the artwork.
“These are my great-aunts and uncles,” Childs told them, pointing to a black-and-white photo of seven people seated around a table in their best attire.
The 28-year-old was also dressed up for her special night, wearing a silver dress that sparkled like a disco ball, her dark hair pulled back into a bun.
“Apex” is a tribute not only to Childs’ family but to the historic Apex Bar, an establishment on Oakland Avenue in Detroit’s North End that was once part of the Black business and entertainment district Paradise Valley. The Apex was also a regular spot for bluesman John Lee Hooker, who often performed at the bar and was a source of inspiration for his hit song, “Boom Boom.”
The installation is part of Detroit Month of Design, an annual event hosted by Design Core Detroit that celebrates the city’s arts and culture scene. In addition to the exhibit, Childs will host a fashion show from 8-10 p.m. Sept. 27 at the LOVE Building.
Childs’ great-uncle, Spurgeon Harvey, owned the Apex Bar for a few decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s. It quickly became a family business, she told BridgeDetroit.
“My great-uncle had 13 siblings and they started to have kids,” Childs said. “My grandmother was his niece and she worked the bar and my cousin was a cook and a bartender at the bar.”
Harvey also owned the Red Shingle Tavern in Port Huron years earlier in the 1930s. Childs said her great-uncle passed as white, which was how he was able to buy the bar.
As family members grow older and pass on, their stories become lost, Childs said. With “Apex,” she wanted to make sure those stories live on.
“I’m really just trying to highlight the Black stories that haven’t been told,” she said. “Within my art, I’m always drawing archives from my own family.”
Design is open for everybody
Held every September, Detroit Month of Design is a citywide collaboration that gathers artists, designers and the community together for exhibits, installations, talks and workshops. The Motor City is the first and only U.S. city to be designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) City of Design.
Some of the 95 events happening throughout the month include Lawrence Technological University’s exhibit “Works in Progress” inside the office of infrastructure firm AECOM, the Motown Museum installation, “Pushin’ Culture Forward” along the Detroit Riverwalk, and the “Highrises Art Deco: Spectacular Skyscrapers in Detroit and Across America” exhibit inside the Guardian Building.
This year’s theme is “Creative Currents,” which looks at how design is helping to solve and address real-world issues, like housing affordability, sustainable fashion and land use, said Design Core Detroit Co-Executive Director Kiana Wenzell.
“What’s the role of designers in these areas and how are they taking collective action?” she said. “Design Core – our values, our diverse experiences, accessibility and collaboration – we don’t believe in going it alone. We have interdisciplinary teams, collaborative teams, moving in the same direction to meet shared goals that is like a current that can lead to transformation.”
Wenzell said the festival takes almost a year to plan, which includes distributing surveys, hearing from event organizers and talking with funders. Design Core usually puts out an open call in January or February for artists, designers and organizations who want to participate, such as Childs.
“We really want a calendar that’s a holistic view of our community from emerging designers, designers in the growth stage, established designers,” Wenzell said.
Childs, Wenzell said, applied through the open call, was selected and Design Core helped Childs pitch her events to media channels and also helped market and promote her as an artist.
“It’s great because you get a mix of the independent Design Core produced and sponsored events that help make up the festival,” Wenzell said.
Wenzell said as an UNESCO city, she wants one thing to remain true when it comes to Detroit’s creative legacy – that design is open for everyone and that the city is welcoming to everyone.
“Creativity is for all and so is our process for creating, inviting people into that process, to hear from multiple voices so that the outcomes of whatever we create is more sustainable and is more equitable,” she said. “We don’t want to be a city that’s like, ‘No, you can’t, I gotta be this type of person to make it.’ Detroit is for you.”
Stitching together a family legacy
Childs said art and fashion has been a part of her life as long as she can remember. Her great-grandmother was a seamstress who would make blankets and church hats.
“I really love painting and drawing, but it was always fashion and fiber that always had a hold on me,” Childs said. “Fashion is part of my DNA.”
The artist worked on the majority of the nine pieces featured in the show all summer, which consist of paint, beads, rhinestones and other glittery adornments on top of pieces of fabric. Childs’ piece “Apex” is a painting of the bar’s brick exterior on a long, white sheet.
Harvey, Childs’ great-uncle, managed Apex until his death in the 1990s. His son then took over the business, she said. It’s unclear when the bar closed, but the last time Apex posted anything on its Facebook page was in 2010.
Today, the bar is in the process of being restored by activist and artist Bryce Detroit, who wants to turn it into an audio cooperative where people can come in and record music.
Artist Daniel Parker came out to support Childs on the opening night for “Apex.” The two have known each other for about four years and Childs is like a little sister to him, Parker said.
“It’s cool to see family traditions tied into her artwork,” he said. “She motivates me and I motivate her. It’s always good to see friends in the limelight doing good things within the community.”
Childs initially felt a little uncomfortable sharing her family’s story because she believed her grandmother and other family members who remember the Apex should tell it. But now, she feels a sense of pride that she gets to share a piece of her family’s history with fellow Detroiters.
“I’m telling it from my perspective through my grandmother and I think that is an even deeper story because so many people can relate to the praying grandmother or the grandmother who held the family down,” she said. “I want people to feel in my art that you’re in my grandma’s home and she’s telling you a story, too.”