12/2/15 – All the World’s a Playground

Art Space: Playground Detroit (Paulina Petkoski & Samantha ‘Banks’ Schefman)

Location: David Klein Gallery

Breakfast:

PP & SS – Too chic for breakfast

SRS – Coffee (black) ** every mug is a to-go mug, if you can walk

These Playground girls have their stuff figured out. They are some stylish, badass bitches and they know how to get things done. Listen, I know how to get things done, but I also walk around looking like I might be a homeless person most of the time. Sam and Paulina are juggling about six occupations between the two of them, running Playground Detroit, promoting artists, leading a jet-set lifestyle, and then on top of that they look ultra-stylish, rocking more accessories on any given evening than I manage to work into a year. Where does Samantha find the time to even put on all those rings? Even more interesting than contemplating WTF I was doing in my goddamn 20s while these ladies are out conquering worlds is wondering what they’ll be up to when they get to be a seasoned and leathery old broad like me. Inspiring.

Anyway, I do not mean to reduce these accomplished women to their surface appearance, especially when they’ve got so much else going on. Playground Detroit is one of the art spaces aggressively tackling the incredible challenge of creating cultural exchange between Detroit and other places–especially a growing rapport with New York, where both of them worked for a time before returning to their native environs of Detroit. Since then, it’s been a nonstop party, if by party you mean tireless, hard-driving work to present some of Detroit’s emerging new talent and eke out a market in a town that tends to pay in love, but not money. My kind of party.

But speaking of nonstop party, here’s your ticket for next weekend: Holiday Recess, Playground Detroit’s 3rd Annual Holiday Party, and a fundraiser of art supplies and music gear for Detroit Public High Schools. For a low, low entry price of $10 you get a raffle ticket and an all-night pass to the action at the Pickle Factory, which includes performances by Red Pill, Racehorses Are Resources, Valley Hush, DTCHPLNES + DJ Todd Modes, and DJ Ryan Spencer, and an art exhibition featuring some of Detroit’s hottest young talent (they cannot help themselves, everything these people do is hot). There’s a whole run of lady artists that I personally believe to be absolutely crushing it: Ash Nowak, Michelle Tanguay, Paula Schubatis, and Dessislava Terzieva – to name just a few – and I’m dying to see what they’ve put together.

So, you can go for the feel-goodness of giving your extraneous art supplies and that bass guitar your loser ex left at your house to the ever-deserving highschoolers of DPS, you can go to participate in the absolute bleeding edge of scenemaking in the city, you can go for the sweet sponsored hookups, or to check out a smoking hot array of badass bitches who get stuff done and look amazing while doing it (TEACH ME YOUR WAYS). What you cannot do is come crying to me next Saturday night, when things are lame because you didn’t do what I told you and go to Holiday Recess.

Thanks, Playground! Stay frosty.