Ashur Collective

Deliciously violent, and coming to Detroit.

You can still preorder at BigCartel.  Digital and physical copies ship in August.

We’re finally doing this!

If you like pulp fiction graphic novels, check out this comic.  Think The Sopranos meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you’ve got what “Blood Money” is about.  You can place your order here!

at-the-pool:

I was very excited to come across Kelly’s profile today. Her profile (shown below) immediately jumped out as AMAZING.

Kelly is a painter who also wears masks at art exhibits and festivals. The masks are created from cardboard, mesh wire, and plaster wrap. They last about three months, and…

At The Pool loves us!  Go visit their site and register to meet cool people!

The rest of our Detroit photoshoot is up!  You can view our pictures here.

You can also buy select images from this series at our shop!

Ajooni by ashurcollective

Available as an art print at our store.

Detroit Art City - available as shirts and prints on Redbubble.

Also available in sherbert variety!

New shirts, art prints, and stickers!

We’ve got new designs up in the shop.  Show your Detroit pride, or just be colorful, with our awesome artsy photos and scribbles.

More coming soon.  Like really soon.

Click here to shop!

We’re getting ready to announce something cool in conjunction with one of our favorite bands, Phantom Cats.

Stay tuned.

theuniverseisfinite:

Are you in the Detroit area this weekend?

Then COME ON DOWNNNN for an awesome art show and Detroit art prints for five bucks!

My work will be up at Bottom Line Coffeehouse until January 27th, but this Saturday is the reception.  See you there!

The show is up until the 27th, so go see some great work by us!

Our new store is up! Visit us at Redbubble for tshirts, prints, and other gifts. Our first major project is underway; until then, we’ll be periodically putting new designs in the shop and announcing art shows. Thank you and stay tuned!

Want a portrait of yourself?  Meet Danger and have a few beers at the same time?

We’re moving tshirt production to a local printing operation soon.  Check out this design we came up with!

Our robot print is now a tshirt!  You can also get it as a larger poster, if you don’t want our original 8x11 offering.

SKULL - Now out at Society6.  Choose between white, pink, or black paint.

More designs coming soon!

FRESH TO DEATH - Available in pink, white, and black lettering on Society6.

Lettering painted with sumo brush and black ink.

We did recolors of this design in green and pink, for anyone who wants a different version of our Tyler The Creator shirt.  You can find them on our Society6!

Our Marie Antoinette earrings are SOLD!  Have more design ideas for us?  Want to see a specific shirt?  Let us know!

Art Prints by Ashur Collective, now on sale.

Hey, we made these earrings, and they’re for sale.  

You can buy them on Etsy.

Hey guys! Sorry that I haven’t posted reviews on this blog, but I’ve been super busy.

My friend and I are in the works of creating a graphic novel, but we need a bit of funding to make this happen! We started up a fundraising page which you can find here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blood-money-the-road-to-detroit

If you could please take a look, we’d really appreciate it! Donate or share, every bit helps to get this out there. Thanks!

1. Diabetes: a book too sweet, like really sweet.

I don’t typically read flowery books but I had been given one to borrow a handful of years back, called Jemima J. by Jane Green. It’s the only book I have that I think fits this category. Your typical, romantic, coming-of-age novel about a girl looking to be just like everyone else. Meh.

2. Chicken Pox: a book you’ve read once, and will never pick up again.

Mockingjay by Suzane Collins. I love the book series of The Hunger Games but found Mockingjay to be very disappointing. I had a hard time even finishing it.

Also probably The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. I liked the first one enough, and the second was okay, but I started the third book and can’t get into it. I’m not sure when I will, either.

3. Influenza: the flu, a contagious book that spreads like a virus.

I’m not sure what this is asking? But Harry Potter definitely. If any book gets around, it’s that series!

4. The cycle: a book you read every month, year or often.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, without a doubt. My favorite book.

5. Insomnia: a book that kept you up all night.

Every book keeps me up all night! It really depends on what I’m reading. Right now it’s Text Message by William Malmborg because oh man, I love his writing.

6. Amnesia: a book that’s forgotten and failed to leave a powerful impression in your memory.

Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner. A book that was highly praised when I was in high school. I bought it, read some, put it down, and forgot about it. Another one of those flowery books.

7. Asthma: a book that took your breath away.

Phantom by Susan Kay. Holy smokes, the detail and the thought behind it is just amazing. My love for all things Phantom of the Opera is bordering obsessive and this book just does not help!

8. Malnutrition: a book that lacked food for thought.

Stephanie Plum novels? I like them a lot but the writing is too repetitive, and the mysteries easy to figure out. I stopped reading those for that reason.

9. Travel sickness: a book that took you on a journey through time or space.

There are so many. Harry Potter, Phantom, The Lovely Bones, Inkheart, to name a few. 

“

Each soul is a mystery, a puzzle box of hopes and wants and dreams, and all the pretty little pieces of the vast illusion we create to shield our inner selves. In the end, the colors run and bleed together, and finally fade into the dust. But the evidence remains; captured images and writing and the like.

And so, who is more real, more permanent? The one who gazes into the mirror, or the reflection locked inside?

Plot (taken from Amazon.com)

High school can be a difficult time in a young person’s life, especially toward the end where one has to start making the sudden transition into adulthood. For Jimmy Hawthorn it is even worse. Not only does he need to successfully make that transition, he has to do it while hiding the fact that he is the one responsible for the disappearances of two fellow high school girls, both of whom are prisoners in a secret underground fallout shelter he discovered behind an abandoned house on the outskirts of town.

To preface this, I would like to say that this book is certainly not intended for a younger audience or the faint of heart. It deals with the topics of kidnapping, torture and rape, and some of the scenes are extremely dark and graphic. I personally had to set it down a few times, not because I was very upset at was going on, but because in some strange instances, I was rooting for the bad guy. A bad guy that seemed more realistic and close to home because he came off as your typical, high school student who was having the hard time of figuring out his future, while trying to hide desires that he can’t shake, and he knows is wrong to want.

When the world of online porn proves unsatisfactory, and his fetishes take a turn where it’s something he wants more and more of, to the point of obsession, he takes matters into his own hands and kidnaps one of his fellow classmates. Jimmy brings them to a fallout shelter created by a family long since moved out of town, a fallout shelter no one really knows about. 

Jimmy goes back and forth with being extremely excited about doing this, sneaking off to see the girl late at night and early morning, sometimes right after school, to being extremely disgusted with himself. It’s easy to tell that he doesn’t want to be like this, he just is, and finds it too embarrassing to talk about with anyone. With no help, and no one to talk to—not even his brother, who he has a very strong bond with—he delves deeper into obsession and makes choices that end up with some very terrible and dangerous consequences.

This book is a lot deeper than it may appear upon first glance. You get to know Jimmy, you can understand the feelings of a kid who is a little weird, and always bullied for being an outcast. I think that’s what makes him the scariest villain of all, because he’s a human being. He grows on you, as much as he can sicken you. What I loved the most about this story is that it was extremely well written, the characters believable and endearing as much as they were frustrating. It didn’t focus much on the fetish itself, and didn’t become an erotic novel which it had the potential of doing. Instead, it focused on a deeper psychological issue, real violence and crime. 

I highly recommend this book if you can stomach it.

I give it a 5/5.

Click to buy Jimmy on Amazon.com!

This isn’t an in depth review because I haven’t finished—but I just have to say that this book is the most disturbing book I’ve read in a while! Holy smokes, do not read this if you’re under 18. It is not for the faint of heart.

I can’t quite decide if I feel sympathetic towards Jimmy, or if I want to see him get what’s coming to him. And then I feel bad feeling sympathetic. Then of course I want to smack some sense into the other characters for being so stupid.

Well played, Mr. Malmborg. Well played.

• City of Whispers and The Old City (City of Whispers #2) by Katherine Sorin
  An apocalyptic vampire novel set in Manhattan  Great story, great author. Most highly recommended.
• The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler
   A book about a high school girl accused of murder. She narrates the story, writing to us a journal of the events leading up to it. 
• A Lighter Shade of Gray by Devon Pearse
  A young woman is involved in a homicide investigation in which her best friend is the suspect. The author’s writing is absolutely beautiful. 
• CRASH by Nicole Williams
  Not a book I would typically pick up but I found myself very interested in the story of Lucy and Jude (yes, Lucy and Jude.) It’s a sort of coming of age novel which focuses on Lucy, an all around good girl who has had been dealt some unfortunate turns in her life, and bad-boy Jude, who is involved with Lucy in more ways than thought possible. It delivers some interesting twists at the end and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Here’s a TBR for the next month!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Jimmy by William Malmborg
Therapy for Ghosts by Eric Praschan
A Smudge of Gray: A Novel by Jonathan Sturak


Please feel free to give me book recommendations! I am always looking to expand my library. Reviews on the books listed above will be forthcoming.

Plot (taken from Amazon.com)

When an epidemic turns most New Yorkers into vampires, a handful of remaining humans find themselves struggling to survive in a quarantined Manhattan. As their numbers dwindle, Ailis Laurent undergoes a transformation of her own: she becomes a hardened vampire killer. 

Okay, I’ll admit, the plot sounded a little cheesy to me when I first read it. But as I flipped through the first pages, I found myself immediately drawn into Sorin’s world, and couldn’t put it down until I was forced to. And even when I had to take a break for my sanity’s sake, I still found myself thinking about it.

This is a somewhat typical apocalyptic story, except instead of zombies, it’s vampires. I found the change to my liking because I’m not crazy about zombies, but I love a good vampire story. It takes places in New York City, which had been recently put under quarantine due to what they were led to believe was a bad flu epidemic. Turns out, it’s something much worse, and Ailis, along with a handful of others, have to survive against it.

At first, I was worried that Ailis would end up as the typical damsel in distress. A Mary-Sue. But her characterization was spot on, and exactly what you’d want out of a protagonist. She’s strong, mostly independent, and could kick major vampire ass. The other characters that were placed in the story were just as well developed and lovable as the heroine, and weren’t used simply as a plot device to keep the story moving along. Something else I also appreciated was the fact that although there were an even number of male to female characters, Sorin didn’t feel the need to pair off anyone immediately. Whatever relationships happened, grew as the story progressed, and it was as realistic as this kind of story can get.

Sorin’s writing style is not overly descriptive, but neither is it clumsy or awkward. She keeps a nice balance which helped it become an easy, fast paced read. 

It’s a great story, and well written, but the ending came too fast and I wasn’t entirely too pleased with how she tried to tie up the plot. It’s a cliff hanger, which I will get more into when I get to reviewing The Old City, but I feel like the ending presented itself in such an odd way. I do hope that it doesn’t just continue on to finish Ailis’s story, and that she ties up the loose ends and gives closure to the other characters.

I give it a 4/5.

Click to buy City of Whispers on amazon.com!

1. Greed: What are your most expensive and inexpensive books?

My most expensive books have to be my Harry Potter collection. They are the only full set of books that I own that are hardcover, and came in a little box to keep them safe. Normally I don’t splurge on books unless it’s a must have read, but it’s Harry Potter. Can’t go wrong with those.

Also The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. 

My most inexpensive book is The Crush by Sandra Brown. It was given to me purely for a good laugh. Which I definitely got. Pretty good guilty pleasure novel if you’re looking for a quick, easy read.

2. Wrath: What author do you have a love/hate relationship with?

This is difficult. I want to say JD Salinger but not because of his writing… just the fact that I want his books so badly on my e-reader but he never gave the rights to it. On a serious note, the author I both love and hate is Janet Evanovich because while I had read her books from when I was a freshmen in high school, and loved them to bits because of their humor and the fact that it takes place in New Jersey, I find them to be way too predictable and it’s getting annoying that nothing new ever happens. Same old, same old. Make up your mind, Stephanie Plum (and pick Morelli while you’re at it.)

3. Gluttony: What book have you deliciously devoured over and over with no shame whatsoever?

This one would have to be, without a doubt, the Catcher in the Rye. I normally can’t re-read books because I find the suspense gone, and I tend to skip parts. But with Catcher, I can re-read it over and not get tired of it. Many people hate Holden because of his attitude and I can see why, but I love him.

4. Sloth: What book have you neglected to read due to laziness?

A Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I really enjoyed The Name of the Wind but holy—are those books long. And it had been a while since I read the first, that I’d have to re-read it to start the second, and I just can’t get myself to do so since there are other books I want to read first.

5. Pride: What book do you most talk about in order to sound like a very intellectual reader?

I read for enjoyment and not to sound intellectual. But if I had to pick, I’d probably say any of the classics. Count of Monte Cristo, To Kill A Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, etc.

6. Lust: What attributes do you find most attractive in male or female characters?

Flaws. I like characters to come across as real, three dimensional people. Anyone too perfect tends to be too boring, same goes with anyone that has it all—who can get whatever they want without even trying. 

I also like characters with instabilities. Emotional, mental. Whatever adds a bit of a challenge to their life and the story.

7. Envy: What books would you most like to receive as a gift?

A copy of The Phantom of the Opera. I have one, but it’s not easy to read as the text is very small.

Also a box set of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I just got into them and want to read more.

Plot (taken from Amazon.com)

Any father’s worst nightmare.

A knock on the door in the middle of the night.

A police detective tells you your daughter’s been found beaten to death and left in the Red Run Drain.

When you go to tell your son, he’s missing.

Evidence links your son to the killing.

What will you do to prove your son’s innocence? Will you sacrifice your own?

As the plot summary suggests, Red Run is a grim, dark thriller. It deals with a man trying to forget his past as a delinquent as he raises his kids to have a normal life. He soon learns the harsh reality that danger can be anywhere you go, and that no matter how hard you try to protect those you love, or sheild them from harm, they still have a way of finding you.

Ethan loses his daughter, and in the same night, his son Graham goes missing. With evidence that heavily suggests his son is the one responsible for Ali’s death, Ethan tries to protect Graham from spending time behind bars by taking him, and running, with the help of his girlfriend Sadie.

As a last resort, Ethan ends up under the protection of his junkie ex-wife and his deranged brother-in-law. From then on, things only get worse. There are some twists in the plot that had taken me completely by surprise, and others that I saw coming. I had called out who the killer was only a few chapters in and while it was the most logical and fitting, I really did hope that I was wrong throughout the story.

As a murder mystery novel, Rob Cornell kept it interesting and engaging. The story itself wasn’t the most original but the writing was fantastic. I will note that there were some grammatical errors that can be distracting if you catch them, but it didn’t take away from the book as a whole.

This was my first read by Rob Cornell and it probably will not be my last. I will say that if you like Harlan Coben and James Patterson novels, this will be right up your alley.

I give it a 4/5.

Click to buy Red Run from Amazon.com!

Have you seen this yet?  The Detroit music scene was covered by the Sundance Channel and New American Noise.  I’m in it, at the 6:48 mark (wearing a large mask in the far right corner).  Lots of great bands are featured here too, like Phantom Cats, Flint Eastwood, and Deastro.  Check it out.

Craig Paul Nowak came up with a plan for Detroit artists: get them out of town.

No, not make them leave, I mean submit work to as many cities aside from Detroit as possible.  As he formulated a team to kick things off, he met with a few artists to talk with them about his ideas.  Our meeting took place during Dlectricity, where we walked through the crowds and observed Woodward lit up with special exhibits.

What struck me, were the visitors that persisted on the first night of the festival, despite the freezing rain that was coming down.  I originally thought it would lower the amount of festival-goers and delay most things until the next day.  But they were there.

I said to Craig—see that?  These people are hungry for art.  They’ll even come in the rain to see it.

Videos:

Dlectricity’s website

Sept 20th, 2012 - We were almost done painting the Hopscotch pattern on Woodward.  Night fell.  Melinda from dc3 dropped off some pizzas for us to thank us for the hard work, and then went back to helping coordinate the Detroit Design Festival (it was going on at the same time, Hopscotch was listed as one of the festival events).

With nowhere to eat, we decided to sit on the lawn of the DIA—we weren’t about the wander down Woodward just to find a table to sit at.  It was funny because, inside the museum, there was a black-tie affair going on.  People could see us eating pizza on the lawn of the museum as they drove home:

That Saturday, the project wrapped up, with everyone hopping towards the final square, behind two marathon runners who hopped all four miles:

The Detroit Design Festival heralded in this age of “stuff happening everywhere”.  At first, I thought I was just becoming more aware of things happening around town. 

But after asking around, I found out it was true:  Detroit became the new place to party.  Not only that, it became a more popular idea to move back within city limits, and consciously dedicate energy to helping the community blossom and live.

**

This blog has featured past events that laid a groundwork to what I’ll be addressing here.  Moving forward, the following is a collection of portraits, interviews, paintings, videos, and photographs of things happening in the Motor City.  It’s written from the perspective of someone who likes a more intimate look at her subjects, while still being honest about what she sees.  Eventually, I hope to collect all of this and publish it.  Even taking it on the road for an exhibit would be cool.

It’s an ongoing project and won’t be done overnight, so hit the RSS feed, and I’ll update when I come across new things of interest.

Welcome to Detroit Art City.

Ajooni is a member of the design group Wedge Detroit.  I worked with her and the rest of the Wedgies during their social/design project Hopscotch Detroit.  It sounds nuts, but we spent the summer and early part of fall 2012, planning and creating the longest hopscotch the world.  It was one of the most fun-filled summers I’ve ever had.

The best thing I can say about Ajooni is, she’s always doing something.  Always working, always going somewhere, always laughing.  In the planning phases of Hopscotch, when she and Dylan were trying to figure out what mixture of chalk paint was best to use, she took the patterns and walked outside to lay them down—while barefoot.  I remember sitting on the front steps and watching her hop along the patterns she made, and exclaiming how she felt like a kid again.  I think that’s why creating hopscotch patterns appealed to her so much.

So, this portrait—it was done while we were sitting in Bronx Bar one day.  I think Ajooni was waiting for some more people to join our table.  I had a drawing pad with me, and I decided to practice gesture drawing while she was sitting there.  The drawing was done in about ten minutes(?).  It proved to be pretty popular, so I’m releasing it as a print now.

When an artist draws a person, we do so sometimes because we want to capture the imprint of who they are, in a way a photograph can’t emulate.  I feel this drawing is popular, because I managed to capture that imprint of Ajooni successfully.  She’s kind of like the rocketship tattoo she sports on her wrist… barely sitting still, smiling, until she blasts off in another direction again.

You can get a print of this drawing here.

Throwing this in—Steve, a very cool guy who attended Koinonia Cafe to deliver some very quirky poetry every now and again, shows off his van in this interview.  I tried to catch what I could.  Sorry I was sick that week.

Koinonia Cafe was an art/music/poetry collective, based out of Central Alliance Church in Midtown Detroit.  The collective was active for a few years up until 2010/2011.

Here’s a tour of the building, which included an upstairs theatre, on a regular night of board games:

When there was enough of us to put on a show, we did just that.  The Quasi-Annual Just Festival was an evening of everyone putting on their best, from a gallery of art, to slam poetry, to musical performances.

I caught some video of some of these people—Mike Abdoo, Emily Rose, Joshua and the Plague of Frogs, and Downright Delight:

I still see many of these great people in the Midtown area, although we’ve gotten older and have moved on to other projects.

But maybe one day, we’ll come back and put on another festival. Who knows?

August 2010 - I get invited to march in a DPS rally by my former art instructor, Addell Anderson.  Addell is a dedicated instructor of the arts and art philosophy, who went on to earn a well-deserved position with WORK Detroit.

For the day, we met up downtown and started our march past the monorail, headed towards Hart Plaza.  Along the way, I noticed a stand situated off to the side, where a few men were peering out at the audience.

That’s when I did a double-take.

“Is that Jesse Jackson?” I yelled, and pointed to them.  No one knew.  So I looked again.  It was him—and Bill Cosby, and Mayor Bing.  I started to flip out.

I’m not someone who sees celebrities or famous people often, so when it happens, I’m never sure how I’m going to act.  For all the trouble he’s seen, it was still awesome for me to see someone who actually marched with Martin Luther King, and was a part of the civil rights movement.  I tried yelling something like a thank you for everything he’d done, but I don’t think he heard me.

Later on, the crowd assembled at a stage, where Jackson and Cosby were supposed to give a speech.  Before they did, a comedian went up, accompanied by Jackson.  In order to introduce him, the comedian decided to do a parody of a reverend.  Cosby got up while we were all laughing and joined in. 

(click here if video doesn’t load)

Cosby then talked about the contributions made by John Conyers. A detractor in the audience interjected about Monica Conyers (who at the time was involved in a scandal), but someone else in the audience told her to shut up:

(click here if video doesn’t load)

The argument continued in the audience while Cosby was speaking. Cosby became irritated when the audience didn’t respond to him the way he wanted them to, and lectured them a little on apathy.

Later on, he performed an edited version of a James Brown song. Robert Bobb and Mayor Bing dance around him.  I decided to leave since things were wrapping up.

(click here if video doesn’t load)

That was in 2010, when the city council was going through a change.  In a post-Kwame era, people were getting sick of the old blood and corrupted government, and wanted something better.  This march happened during a divide, when some parents were taking their kids out of public schools and putting them in charters.  DPS held the march to rally support, with the slogan, “I’m in.”

I have no idea of Cosby is still touring in Detroit—but he used to.  When I was attending community college downtown, I heard he made appearances there all the time, to talk about the benefits of education.  It’s possible he’s still doing that—but you’d need to call WCCCD and ask around about it.

Back in 2010, North End Studios was located on West Grand Boulevard.  It overlooked the New Center area, and hosted various art shows and music performances.

The first time I saw the colorful mural on the side of the gallery, it stuck out like this beacon in a sea of grey.  If you’ve ever walked along West Grand, you’ll notice how odd it is—all this color, along a section of street that’s seen better times.

One day, I got the chance to explore the gallery with a friend.  We saw everything from old machinery, dilapidated stairs, to a beautiful view of the surrounding neighborhood.  Later that day, we climbed back down the stairs again to attend and art show on a lower floor.

North End Studios relocated to Lorraine Street in 2012, on the west side.  It still has a rooftop, and it still has the same great gatherings that made North End what it was.

This time, when you look out, you see more foliage.

I kind of miss the old place.

North End Studios Website