This weekend is the 4th Annual People’s Arts Festival at the Russel in Detroit. Not only is it the largest free arts festival in the City of Detroit, but this year it features art, performance, film, and music.

Still located at an industrial complex at 1600 Clay Avenue, the Russel is a metaphor for rise, fall, and rebirth of the city itself.  The event website says it best:

Indeed, “The Russell” might, like so many of Detroit’s production/warehouse complexes, might have fallen at the hands of vandals, arsonists or time, becoming one more entry on the rolls of delinquent taxes and abandoned properties if – beginning almost a decade ago – it had not been repurposed as a home to artists’ studios after its 2003 purchase by Dennis Kefallinos’ Boydell Development Company.

Recognized today as the creative hub of Detroit’s artistic renaissance “The Russell” is home to over 125 commercial tenants representing a full spectrum of creative activity from architects, painters, clothing designers, glass blowers, wood craftsman and metal sculptors to graphic designers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers and art galleries.

And of course, the art’s going to be amazing.

See you there,

-B.C.Bodnar

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Editor’s note: SHEI Fashion will be putting on a mini fashion show at the People’s Art Festival. Come check it out!