A sculpture by Jake Chidester close to the orange front door to Corktown Studios.

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Corktown Studios

2707 14th Street
Detroit MI 48216

Opening receptions are usu­al­ly on Sat­ur­days, some­times fol­low­ed by a clos­ing re­cep­tion the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day. The ma­jor ex­cep­tions are the an­ni­ver­sary shows, which oc­cur on the same Sunday as the St. Pat­rick's Day pa­rade on Mich­i­gan Av­e­nue a couple of blocks south.

Located in Detroit's Corktown neigh­bor­hood, the gallery also has studio space for a few art­ists, and was for a long time the home base of the Rogue Sat­el­lites band and the Haunted Wood Revue con­certs (featuring mostly sing­ing gui­tar­ists).

Owned by Alisyn Malek, the gallery had, for the first five years, Lisa Poszy­wak as ar­tis­tic director (as of March 2023, a suc­ces­sor was not yet named). Studio hold­ers in­cluded Chris­to­pher An­der­son and the late Paula Zam­mit.

After a renovation and ex­pan­sion proj­ect in 2015 was com­pleted, the gallery started look­ing for new artists to oc­cu­py the new studios, even­tu­al­ly adding Amy Fell, Paolo Pe­di­ni and Eliz­a­beth Work­man to their line-up.

In November of that year, the Knight Foun­da­tion named Cork­town Studios as a re­cip­i­ent of a match­ing funds grant for a proj­ect to pro­fes­sion­al­ly re­cord up­com­ing Haunted Wood Re­vue con­certs.

Current exhibition

• Nurtured Nonthought, Jacob Evan Smith. Opened Sep­tem­ber 8 and slated to run to September 29, with a gallery talk and closing reception that day from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Upcoming exhibitions

• Hibernaculum II, three artists. Maybe for October?
• Hibernaculum III, three artists. Maybe for November?

Past exhibitions

Paula Zammit with the Scillians.

• Skatesthesia, A. J. Kesler, Daniel Stelly, Evan Hutchings, Franko Terenzi, Jason Smith, Julia Kiseleva, Lilly Nelson, Steven Allen. June 16, 2023 — July 15, 2023.
• 11th Anniversary Show. March 12 — 24, 2023.
• Pinky Toast, A. J. Kesler. September 30, 2022 — October 7, 2022.
• 10th Anniversary Show. March 12 — 13, 2022.
• Transport, Brook Banham. November 9, 2019 — December 14, 2019.
• Hibernaculum I, three artists. October 5 — 19, 2019.
• First We Shape the Tools, Then the Tools Shape Us, Michelle Brehmer, Caroline Del Giudice, Aaron Deshields, Yvette Granata, Megan Grierson, Ryan Herberholtz, Elise Martin, Kevin McCoy, Kristina Sheufelt. September 21, 2019.
• Silo, Lucas Myers. August 10, 2019.
• Existential Crisis, Jess Tiernan. Opened May 2, but there will be an official reception May 4, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
• Digilogue — A Conversation of Collage Typologies, Jake Chi­des­ter and Alisyn Malek. April 13, 2019.
• 7th Anniversary Show. March 10 — 23, 2019.
• Outside & In, Richard Seaman. February 23, 2019 — March 2, 2019.
• Summon, Kim Fay. October 13 — 27, 2018.
• The Rusty Show, Matthew Lisk and Sara Nickleson. September 22, 2018.
• Gone Swimming, Part II, Tom Duimstra, Michael Peoples, Matt Wolcott. August 18, 2018.
• Person, Place or Thing, Darcel Deneau, Amy Fell, Melissa Jones. May 19, 2018 — June 18, 2018.
• Layers, Christina Fehan. April 7, 2018.
• 6th Anniversary Show. March 11, 2018.
• Morality & Mortality, Richard Seaman, Brian Skol. February 24, 2018.
• Links, Paula Zammit. October 28, 2017.
• Marat Paransky solo show. June 24, 2017.
• Jason Reed solo show. May 13, 2017.
• Molly Diana solo show. April 22 — 30, 2017.
• 5th Anniversary Show. March 17, 2017. For the first time in the gallery's history, this was on St. Patrick's Day, rather than the Sunday before.
• New works by Jaye Thomas. October 29, 2016.
• Strange New Territory, new work by Paolo Pedini. September 24, 2016.
• Wine + Anger, Kim Steiner. August 27, 2016 — September 17, 2016.
• Julia Maiuri solo show, relocated from Whitdel Arts. April 13 — 23, 2016.
• 4th Anniversary Show. March 13 — 26, 2016. As usual, this is a group show for studio holders, a group that now also includes Amy Fell, Paolo Pedini and Elizabeth Workman.
• Lawrence Technological Uni­ver­si­ty exhibit of architecture grad students. December 11, 2015.
• Lisa Poszywak solo show. September 11, 2015 — October 3, 2015.
• Kristina Sheufelt solo show. August 15 — 22, 2015.
• Oil and Water Paintings by Matt Lewis and Taurus Burns. May 23 — 30, 2015.
• Precious Belongings Works by Ashley Meunchen and Nicole Shepherd. April 2015.
• 3rd Anniversary Show, March 2015.
• Yesterday's News New works by Alisyn Ma­lek, October 2014.
• Summer Revisited Works by Alaina Plow­drey, April 2014.
• 2nd Anniversary Show, March 2014.
• Capture: A Dialogue Between Paintings & Photographs A group exhibit of paintings and photographs, each paired. Amanda Kane, Kelly Guillory, Alonso del Arte, J. Singleton, Bruce Giffin, Mark Sarmel, Sal Rodriguez, Haneif Katebi, Hamed Habhab, Sanda Cook, Lisa Poszywak. February 15 — 22, 2014.
• Running Its Course Works by Christopher J. Anderson, August 2013.
• Dirt and Deep Water Works by Paula Zammit, April 2013.
• ...a few more going back to 2012...

Sara Nickleson poses with J. J. (left) and Anthony Curis (right) at the opening of her show with Matthew Lisk at Corktown Studios.

On February 12, 2016, the studio hold­ers pulled an all-nighter, starting work on a new piece at 7:00 p.m. that night. The following day they hosted the All-Nighter Open Studio. This was not a for­mal ex­hib­it, and in any case some of those pieces were show­cased at the 4th Anniversary Show.

We should also mention the pop-up event at the Jam Handy, a collaboration with the Detroit Drunk­en Historical So­ci­e­ty (DDHS) to celebrate the city's birth­day, which took place on Saturday, July 25, 2015. The silent auction in­cluded artwork by Bar­ba­ra Cam­pagna, Alonso del Arte, Oscar Oscar, to name just a few.

The studio holders (Alisyn Malek, Jake Chidester, Lisa Poszywak, Jaye Thomas, Paula Zammit, Chris­to­pher Anderson and new member Paolo Pe­di­ni) had an exhibit at Cass Cafe that opened on November 7, 2015 and was up until January 24, 2016.

The gallery participated in Noel Night 2015, with mu­si­cal sculp­tures. And there was a Rogue Sat­el­lites LP re­lease party for the album Bees and Snakes on De­cem­ber 19, 2015.

The studio holders and a few friends had a show at Janice Charach Gallery from May 15, 2016 to June 16, 2016.

On August 19 and 20, 2017, Corktown Studios hosted Rich­ard Sea­man for a portrait paint­ing work­shop.

The anniversary celebration slated for 2020 was canceled be­cause of the co­ro­na­virus pan­dem­ic.

External links

Jaye Thomas (left) and Lisa Poszywak in front of one of her paintings at Corktown Studios.

• Official website
• Facebook page
• Instagram page

News

• Jeff Milo, "Rogue Satellites: Making music, making art in N. Corktown", Detroit Free Press, December 16, 2015.
• Jon Zemke, "Local artists create creative space in North Corktown called Corktown Studios", model D, October 30, 2012.

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