Flint Postcards: Flint Cultural Center

 Just wondering if this sculpture is still with us? Is it a Flint survivor?

Flint Postcards: Flint Cultural Center from the Air

 

Flint Postcards: Downtown Flint with Orange Accents

 

Flint Postcards: All the schools have been closed this week so the kids don't get frostbite

With postcards like this one, Gary is clearly not suited for employment with the Flint tourism board.

 

briX Magazine and a Brick of Art

 

A few weeks ago I peddled the old Schwinn over to Joe Cunningham's quilting studio on Market Street in San Francisco to catch up with a fellow Flintoid. He handed over the ultimate Flint artifact, a "brick" of postcards created by Michigan artists for briX magazine. With its lowercase b and uppercase X, it was a publication that was pushing the boundaries of art, ideas and punctuation in eighties Flint. A self-described "collection of art & ideas," it was published thrice yearly by the Art Army Press for project ARTSOURCE/Greater Flint Arts Council.

"In this issue of briX we decided to invoke the adage: 'A picture is worth a thousand words,'" wrote Guest Editor Christopher R. Young. "To do so we changed the magazine format to that of a series of postcards to be packaged as a unit in the form of a brick. This not only provided a workable and convenient format, it also gave us a clever visual pun, a unifying theme to rally our imaginative energies around."

(Does everything, even art, have a tinge of militancy in Flint, where it takes an "art army" to "rally" our imagination?)

Here are a few samples from the collection that definitely capture the mood and feel of Flint in the midst of its free fall.

Thom Bohnert, Flushing, Self Portrait, 1988

Kenneth A. Hannon, Flint, From the series Greetings from Flint, 1988

Madeleine Barkey, Flushing, Untitled, 1988

Kenneth A. Hannon, Flint, From the series Greetings from Flint, 1988

Pat Keating, Grand Blanc, Fish: It's only art, 1988

UPDATE: A photo of the elusive briX Magazine, courtesy of Tim "East Side" Lane.

Flint Postcards: Buick Skylark Coupe

Flint Postcards: Downtown Flint

Flint Postcards: The Drifter Motel

Go here for more Drifter memorabilia.

Flint Postcards: Hamilton Dam

Flint Postcards: Hamilton Dam

Flint Artifacts: Risque Postcards from the Early 1900s

Flint Postcards: New Union Industrial Bank Building

Flint Postcards: Souvenir of Flint, Mich.

Flint Postcards: House Underwater 1909

Flint Postcards: Buick Super Riviera

Flint Postcards: New Chevys for Sale

Flint Postcards: Kissing is not a crime

Flint Postcards: A.C. Spark Plug

Flint Postcards: Bird's-eye View of Flint

Flint Postcards: Bryant Hotel