WDET News
- Detroit's "Spirit" Restored
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Sep 19, 2008Metro Desk - Link to Audio
A well-known icon of the City of Detroit turns 50 next week. As WDET’s Rob St. Mary discovers, it’s not easy being green.
Standing here at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson, the “Spirit of Detroit” has been front row center for much of the city’s recent history.
The rise of three local auto companies as a worldwide force… the rhythmic birth of Motown… 1967’s days of civil unrest and the loss of more than half of Detroit’s population. And over that time, the Spirit has felt the effects of the weather. His complexion changing from a medium green to dark olive green with black streaks. Across his face, it looked like the spirit had been crying tears of motor oil. On closer inspection, some of the streaks down his arms and chest are fissures up to four-millimeters deep… the effects of long term acid rain exposure.
Gregory McDuffee is General Manager of the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority which oversees the city/county building and the Spirit. He says the authority has known for at least a decade that the statue was in need of restoration but money had not been available to do the project. This spring, $151,000 was approved for the project.
“It’s a casted bronze statue. It’s arguably the largest cast bronze statue that’s been created since the renaissance period. So, the integrity of the original casting and development was such were even with 50 years of weather and some vandalism the integrity of the piece was really never compromised.”
Over the spring and summer of this year the often called “jolly green giant” was encased in plywood and scaffoldings as Detroit-based Venus Bronze Works was hired for the restoration.
First, the statue was blasted with fine grain pulverized walnut shells to remove any surface dirt and loose material while smoothing out the color. Then the Spirit was power washed. Finally, to even out the gray/black and green look, Venus Bronze Works owner Giorgio Gikas says the Spirit was heated in sections by propane torches and basted with a bluish chemical mixture that looks a lot like window cleaner.
“Cupric Nitrate… and it’s turning bronze green. So, the way it works is, apply the heat, the chemical, heat, chemical and then take it all the way across.”
After several coatings, a chemical reaction with the bronze takes place evening out the complexion.
Gikas says his aim is to make the Spirit look better, not new.
“It’s very tricky to make sure that the object has been restored and preserved for future generations but however it still shows its age because it is not a new piece, it’s already 50 something years old. So, we have to balance the treatment and the aesthetics with what we knew it looked like and we know Marshall would like it to look.”
Gikas’ reference to Marshall is to Marshall Fredericks. From Belle Isle to Royal Oak and shopping malls to the area’s major universities, Fredericks’ work is part of the visual landscape of Metro Detroit. He started apprenticing at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills in 1930s. After World War Two, Fredericks would be commissioned for bigger works in Washington and Cleveland… as well as in Detroit.
After decades of considering what to do with the rough and industrial riverfront, the City of Detroit started to undertake a massive renovation program. Local architects received guidance from internationally known designer Eero Saarinen. The architect of the St. Louis Gateway Arch and the General Motors Tech Center talked with local architectural firms about what would become Hart Plaza, the Ford Auditorium and a joint city/county building.
Mark Coir is the Director of the Cranbrook archives. He says even though Saarinen wouldn’t make any of the final decisions, the architect did have political pull and he didn’t want any of Fredericks’ art near the new waterfront. Coir says Saarinen considered Fredericks a lightweight artist because of his lack of interest in the modern and abstract movements of the 1950s.
“How much can you do with a figure? Well, they were hoping to have greater things… or how can I say this… artists of larger international stature who were willing to things perhaps of a more abstract nature.”
After the local architects in charge of the project took stock of who to select for a public art piece in front of the recently built city/county building, Fredericks was hired and the Spirit was sculpted.
At a cost of about $40,000 the Spirit of Detroit was cast in Oslo, Norway and unveiled before about a thousand people in the Motor City on September 23rd, 1958.
The front page of the Detroit Free Press from the day before says the Spirit broods in massive dignity portraying the relation of man and God. The verse from Second Corinthians along with the seals of the City of Detroit and Wayne County is etched on the marble wall behind Fredericks’ sculpture. The Detroit News headline on its picture page the day after the dedication called the Spirit a “Powerful Boost for Civic Pride”… “symbolizing the might of a city and its cherished ideals”.
Cranbrook Archives Director, Mark Coir.
“It speaks to a great, great range of emotions. Power, majesty, the potential of the human animal and yet the fact that we are indeed human in a singular sense as well and Marshall was well aware of that. And so, throughout his entire body of work you will see that play on the form and he uses it of course a lot as metaphor… the searching capabilities… the spiritual side of man comes up a lot and yet the playfulness.”
Starting in the 1970s the Spirit became a de facto logo for the city of Detroit. Today, it graces everything from city letter head and business cards to parking tickets and garbage trucks. The Spirit is even featured on coffee mugs and t-shirts at Detroit area shops. Even when area sports teams are in the playoffs, the Spirit is often draped with a jersey… something some art critics find a controversial tradition.
As a memorable image, local artists have used the Spirit in many ways. While some sell photographs of the Spirit at local art fairs, other artists find its shorthand for the city a great way to make commentary. Detroit artist and illustrator Mark Dancey created a version of the Spirit in a 1992 replacing the green giant with a red devil.
“Our devil’s night devil, this destructive thing and he’s crying, you know, he doesn’t really want to do it but he’s not bringing hope or light but he’s bringing fire.”
And Dancey says fire is part of Detroit’s story since the city was destroyed in 1805 in a massive blaze. Following that fire, Father Gabriel Richard coined the city’s Latin motto.
“We hope for better things but we’ll rise out of the ashes. That’s kind of strange when you think about it… like that’s the motto of the city. We’re always talking about coming out of the fire, there’s how it is now… we’re talking about it but the destruction’s still going on.”
Dancey says while the Spirit is great art, it’s very much of its time. The sculpture was created in a post-World War Two Detroit… an industrial juggernaut on the rise where anything seemed possible. Dancey says his recent illustration in the Metro Times shows a newer philosophical image of the Spirit… one where the green giant is delivering the hope of redevelopment of old buildings for new cafes, lofts and art galleries.
“There is a future; I wouldn’t stick around here if there wasn’t but it’s different. It’s like what can I do with this broken down thing… what can I do with this White Elephant. They don’t want it. You can have it.”
And when the Spirit is rededicated at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson on Tuesday morning, Marshall Fredericks will not be in attendance. He died ten years ago at the age of 90.
A former assistant to Fredericks, and one of the restorers of the Spirit, Scott Solcum says like the Statue of Liberty has come to symbolize New York City… the Spirit holds a similar place in Detroit’s iconography.
“This kind of thing has to be maintained for the future. It’s the fabric of the city. It’s the kind of thing that defines us… if we let it go… what does that say about us?”
At 11:30am Tuesday morning, the Spirit of Detroit will be rededicated. The public is encouraged to attend.