In a non descript building in a non descript light industrial area of Tucson you will find a collection that will light up your day, the Ignite Sign Art Museum.
The museum is owned by Jude and Monica Cook, who have had a local sign company for over 40 years. They have amassed a great collection of historic signs from Tucson and beyond.
Outside is a collection of larger signs.
Inside is where the collection really shines.
In the back of the museum they offer neon making demonstrations.
The Ignite Sign Art Museum is well worth the stop.
Biloxi has to be the only town in America that built their freeway exit ramp over the beach and slightly into the ocean.
Nearby is the rebuilt Biloxi pier, replacing the one destroyed by Hurricane Katrina
Being on the Gulf Coast, Biloxi has palm trees on the beach giving it that tropical feel.
In some perspectives it feels like a beach town.
One of the more impressive buildings in town is the Frank Gehry designed art museum.
Biloxi has had a long history of gambling, and from the 1990s on large casinos were built directly on the beach.
Biloxi is one of the larger gambling meccas in the country outside of Las Vegas.
The tall hotel/casinos dwarf their small motels across the main boulevard along the beach.
But there is more to Biloxi than the casinos. The town is only a couple of hours away from New Orelans, giving the town itself a similar look and feel.
The Half Shell Oyster House not only is a great looking building, but the food was fantastic.
Nearby is MGM Park, a minor league baseball stadium for the Biloxi Shuckers – a middle tier farm team for the Milwaukee Brewers.
The name celebrates Biloxi’s heritage in the seafood and oyster industries.
The crowd was sparse for this Thursday evening game.
The Cultural Center of Detroit is located in the Midtown section, just north of downtown. We had the opportunity to visit two of the centerpieces of the neighborhood, the Main Library and Institute of Art.
We started at the Library where one of Detroit’s newest features, a streetcar called the Q Line’ was passing as we arrived.
We made our way around the building to the Cass Avenue entrance, which is much newer than the Woodward Avenue side.
The original building is in an Italian Renaissance style, with it’s impressive stairways and ceilings.
This look is carried over to one of the exhibition halls.
While one of the hallways on the second floor resemble a cathedral.
Reliefs celebrating the classics adorn this level.
A look at the main entrance ceiling.
We are still in the library, not the Institute of Art…
Directly across Woodward Avenue is the Institute of Art, with a statue of the Thinker greeting you.
The exterior had a significant amount of sculptures.
It is immediately apparently that the library and art museum were designed in similar style and completed at the same time.
Coincidentally there was a celebration of India going on the day we were there.
We came for the Rivera murals and ended up celebrating India as well!
The artists were happy to tell you about their culture.
A Rangoli demonstration.
This henna artist was very skilled, with a steady hand.
The east lobby had this great display.
Another exhibition hall featured pop art.
Some great chairs.
Ruben & Iabel Toledo had an exhibit called Labor of Love.
They also paid homage to the River murals. The DIA is a destination just for the murals, but the rest of the exhibitions are world class as well.
In 1932 famed artist Diego Rivera was commissioned by Edsel Ford and the Director of the Detroit Institute of Art Wilhelm Valentine to produce 27 fresco murals depicting the industry of Detroit, specifically the automotive industry.
The timing and subjects continue to this day to be controversial. Rivera had a socialist view towards society, while he was commissioned by one of the great capitalists of all time, the Ford family. In addition just before Rivera arrived there had been a protest at Ford by workers, who were fired upon with gunshots resulting in the deaths of six marchers.
The courtyard that contains the murals is oriented on a north-south-east-west orientation. Starting with the east wall (where the sun rises each day), there are symbolism of birth. A close look at the wider fresco shows a baby in the bulb of a plant. The two nudes hold grain and fruit, symbolizing a bountiful harvest of America, and show some of the earliest technology in agriculture.
The west wall, sunset, represents endings and last judgement. It shows both the good and bad of technology, as represented by airplanes that can transport people but also be used as an instrument of war.
The large narrow middle panel is tying together the agricultural south and industrial north, as well as the shipping industry present in Detroit to bring the two together.
The top panel of the north and south walls are known as the ‘four races’. The faces represent African, European, Asian and Native Americans, in a look of deities. Beneath this panel geological requirements for the production, associating it with the races above (which I am certain would be met with disdain today)
The panel on the upper right was the most controversial of all. It’s interpretation of a Renaissance view of Jesus’s birth, only the figures include actress Jean Harlow (making a second appearance) as the nurse and the Lindbergh baby as the infant. Most of Detroit religious community wanted the entire work destroyed because of this panel but Edsel and Wilhelm held firm.
The main panel on the north and south walls represent the production of a 1932 Ford V8.
As with the north wall, the south wall has a number of panels. The top center are figures holding raw materials used in the production of the automobile, continuing with the various races of mankind.
Below them are limestone, and various fossils used in glass manufacturing.
As with the north wall there are other smaller panels depicting other Detroit industry, as well as a continuation of the small monochrome panels of ‘a day in the life of the worker’.
A closer look at the north wall panel shows the workers with green skin, as a result of the formaldehyde used in the manufacturing process. It was in this type of symbolism that Rivera is showing what the workers ultimately have to pay to have jobs.
Ford Motors had long been ahead of the industry in employment of all races, and it is represented in the mural where the white and black workers are working for the common cause (capitalism, not for themselves).
The assembly of the chassis is coming together, with the steering columns and other components. Nearly every item had symbolism.
A notorious floor supervisor, who made life difficult for the workers was represented as a stern manager in this panel. This real life person was M.L. Bricke.
Also on this wall is a panel of the door manufacturing.
In this panel you see a number of visitors to the factory floor including religious leaders. The women in the brown plaid dress was done in the image of an actress of the time, Jean Harlow.
The small red car in the middle of this photo is the only fully assembled automobile in all of the 27 panels. Rivera was more interested in the process, rather than the result.
The stamping machine was chosen to represent the Aztec deity Coatlicue, a goddess of creation and war that required much human sacrifice. In this panel Rivera is clearly stating the workers have to sacrifice much for the company.
This panel on the west wall features the boss, who is an amalgamation of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
In one of the ‘day in the life’ panels, it shows Henry Ford teaching the workers (including the famed ‘The Thinker’) how an engine works.
Note the engine is actually a dog, with the gear shift knob being his tail.
A close up of the west wall shows the aforementioned airplanes, as well as the shipping panel.
A close up of a north wall panel depicts insect like figures in gas masks making gas weapons. Given that this was completed less than 20 years after World War I where gas warfare became common, it is clearly a statement on the evil of such an en devour.
With an accurate rendering of the Rouge Factory powerhouse, it is a symbol that the worker too has some level of power.
River even worked himself into the piece. He is the worker in the bowler hat.
While his spouse Freida Kahlo assisted him in the drawings to prepare for the commission, Rivera did all of the painting. He was known as a task master who overworked his underpaid assistants, and eventually drove Freida away as well, but for this series of murals Rivera was at his finest artistically.
RDZ Photography 