Michigan winter is both an atrocious burden full of psychotic driving choices and indoor huddling (mostly to avoid others’ psychotic driving choices) and also an eyeblink of malleable time that shoots right past us. Last week was December 1st, according to all internal clocks, and yet the calendar refuses to agree. Apparently it is the tenth of January! The TENTH! That’s 33% of January and all of December, simply missing from memory. Both terrifying and great in equal measure. Come on, Spring. You are just around the proverbial corner.
Where did this time go? Let us cast our minds back.
Well, there was Christmas. That was a thing, right? Christmas happened? Certainly Megan’s Cozy Christmas party happened. Many people were in attendance (and pajamas), eating copious amounts of various soups. Lights were strung, tents were erected, a DJ booth was built and utilised, communal art was produced, and dancing was done by many. So that accounts for one evening.
We cleared out the loading bay. It looks HUGE. That was also a day.
ATYN (GR) has had not one but TWO life drawing classes in our fancily-illuminated upstairs. Both were amazing, and full of very talented people (and also total amateurs), and the models were not only fantastic but also interacted with the artists afterward to provide critique and feedback. As expected, the internet’s fears were utterly unjustified, and the first model was a 75 year old man. It’s almost like we know what we’re doing and have a certified instructor up from Holland to oversee it. Crazy.
There was an Open House one of those nights, just to keep us on our toes and remind us that scheduling things is not anyone’s strong suit. That was full of wine and cheese and mirth, and resulted in several new members, one of which is apparently hosting a dinner party to serve the turducken he has set himself the task of making. It is this sort of thing for which we live. “I need a place for my turducken,” is a meeting note. Membership has its privileges, as they say.
We gained a multi-disciplinary artist, an EDM DJ, a music manager, a philosophical Christian, and a magician in the space of four days. The possibilities with that mix alone are almost endless. Megan started a Theatre Club for disaffected performing artists. James redid the website (don’t worry, it is still 1994 vibes all around) and we added some RSVP capabilities. A wall or two got built. I filled 175 gaps in the walls to save on heating. Some people came to repair the roof. We all agreed to build giant doors and a huge wall to separate the loading bay from the main events space. Studios were rented. Dani and I are starting a human-based philosophy and daily action club/class for people who are tired of trying to parse the modern state of this country. We booked a quinceañera and a political town hall meeting. The non-profit paperwork got approved. We voted to assemble a Roomba Army for Megan to name and care for. New Year’s Eve happened and we watched Wrestlemania III which I can’t stop thinking about (it’s truly mesmerising, from start to finish). Untitled Book Club started up. A million emails got sent. Art collectives reached out looking for new home bases. There was a bat in my office.
Perhaps it is not a time warp or some sort of selective amnesia. Maybe time just flies when you’re having fun, as the old timers used to say.
We hope you’ve all survived the holidays and are returning to full humanity. If not, we have about 14,000 square feet of communal space that might be of assistance. Come on down between 10am and 6pm Monday-Saturday and talk to someone about what’s happening. Meet the bat. Have some free coffee. Etc.
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