THE BIG PAINTING SHOW
A Three Day Affair:
Jessica and I visited opening night at the BIG PAINTING SHOW.
It's an abandoned factory in Highland Park that has been bought and repurposed for exhibitions and artist studios.
333 Midland, Highland Park, Michigan
METRO TIMES Article by Lee Devito:
It’s only Robert Onnes’ third time actually visiting Detroit, and he bought a factory. We’re speaking to Onnes by phone, and he’s just arrived in Michigan after more than 30 hours of traveling from his native New Zealand to check out 333 Midland — his “new, old factory,” as he calls it. It’s in preparation for his 20,000-square-foot Highland Park property’s big debut as an artists’ exhibition and studio space this month.
We ask Onnes if he was shocked the first time he came here — Detroit really couldn’t be any further from New Zealand. “You know, you can tour Detroit on Google Maps,” he says, unfazed. “It’s interesting. In New Zealand, where we live, you can’t buy a house for under $600,000 — New Zealanders have a blind faith that prices will never go down. We’ve never experienced the sort of crash that America has.”
A working artist, Onnes decided he had gone as far as he could in New Zealand, where he was building metal sculptures out of a small 800-square-foot factory. He was drawn to Detroit for the same reason countless other immigrants have been drawn here at various times throughout history — opportunity.
Onnes says he and his wife read about Detroit’s story in The Economist, and its cheap real estate and reputation of becoming an artists’ mecca made it an attractive prospect. He first came to Michigan in September 2012 to scope out the scene here. A real estate agent suggested Onnes connect with Robert Sestok, an artist who’s been living and working in Detroit for decades. Sestok had driven by 333 Midland once and saw the potential for it. By the end of that trip, Onnes bought a house in Rosedale Park, and he closed on 333 Midland in March 2013.
Onnes already had an amusing connection with the region: He designs his sculptures in CAD and uses a machine to route shapes out of sheets of metal, which he then bends and folds them into their final form. Onnes originally imported the routing machine to New Zealand from Michigan, and now it’s returning to Michigan with him. It’s a small world after all.
