On September 27, 1852, a group of community leaders and laymen met to organize a Young Men’s Christian Association in Detroit. The YMCA quickly became a vital community resource for Detroit. Now, more than 150 years later, the Boll YMCA is encouraging people to look at the city with fresh eyes through its Y-Arts BRANCH. Following is an interview Gillian Eaton, vice president, arts and humanities, Y-Arts.
Q. What is your ultimate goal?
A. We see our Y ARTS BRANCH as a spring board or cheer leader for young people and the arts. There are great employment opportunities in the entertainment industries, which are very suited to our youth. They understand the computer gaming, music, film and video worlds better than we do. We need to open doors to these careers and nurture individual potential so that our children can create vibrant futures not only in the arts and entertainment industries, but also in local companies, civic institutions and the community. The children and adults that come through this program have fresh eyes that not only look at the city and region differently, but that can also make a positive impact on the organizations that employ them. In many ways they are entrepreneurs.
Q. How do you encourage people to look at Detroit?
A. We want people to look at Detroit with fresh eyes … look at its assets. Music, for example, has always played a vital role in Detroit’s culture and growth. Y ARTS has a 40-person community-based choir, called Deep River. It is very diverse group made up of urbanites and suburbanites, homeless people, refugees and others. They are putting out their second CD.
Q. You mentioned refugees. Where do they come from? How do you work with them?
A. The refugees come from al over the world. Many people are forced to flee their native countries as political refugees and have come to Detroit to find a new life. We work with the
Freedom House, which provides a temporary home for survivors of persecution from around the world. These are often doctors, nurses, journalists, artists and educators, who need to find a way to start a new life in the United States.
Our Y ARTS Detroit Branch delivers computer training and other holistic programs, like massage, pottery, jewelry making and English as a second language. Y ARTS has also helped build an entrepreneurial business for one man from Uganda who has started Y ARTISANS, a T-shirt silk screening, and banner making initiative. He is a wonderful artist in his own right and can create whatever a customer wants. Hopefully this new company can employ other refugees and teach them the entrepreneurial American spirit.
Q. What other arts programs do you have?
A. We have on-site ceramics classes every Monday and drop in art classes on Saturdays, for only $5 a class. We teach computer courses, both MAC and PC based. The PC course is certificated. We teach adult Film classes in partnership with Detroit Film Center. We deliver after-school arts programs to seven Detroit schools, in music, dance, art, performance and media.
We also have partnerships in our MARLENE BOLL theatre with Wayne State, Matrix Theatre, Project Theatre and Heritage Dance Works; also Detroit Docs, Trinity Film Festival, The Bicycle Film Festival and many other local groups.
With funding from MCAP (the Macomb County Abstinence Partnership, a branch of the YMCA) and the Knight Foundation, we held a six-week camp where students produced a 30-minute magazine-style TV show (think iCarly, Yo Gabba Gabba, etc.), with various segments being created using documentary and narrative forms of filmmaking and animation. They also created Web and print media to promote their work.
We worked in collaboration with East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), MCAP and Detroit professional digital media artists. The theme of the show is A Healthy World with segments promoting abstinence, care for the environment – healthy choices for our bodies, minds and planet.
Q. What tools do you have to teach art?
A. These are the Arts’ Assets at the Boll. Our Media Lab hash 12 new PowerMac workstations each equipped with the newest professional-grade media arts software. We have nearly 30 Mac laptops with all the same software as the Lab workstations. In addition, digital photo and video equipment is available for both on-site and outreach programming.
We have two art studios for creative art, such as painting, pottery, drawing and do on as well as a “Black box” theatre with capacity to seat up to 140. It is equipped with the latest in media presentations.
Our large, windowed lobby has an exhibit area where we display artwork to thousands of Y members and the general public.
We promote these opportunities throughout Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties through other YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit branches, reaching nearly 30,000 members. This gives us the ability to develop spirit, mind and body of each individual we serve through holistic arts, health and fitness programs all under one roof.
We also employ 25 professional working artists from a wide range of disciplines, which I have the privilege of leading.
We partner with many organizations, like Focus:Hope, the University of Michigan, Michigan’s Americorp Partnership and we are proud to share the talents of the poets who work with InsideOut, which engages children in the pleasure and power of reading and writing. It was founded by Terry Blackhawk, while she was teaching high school creative writing in Detroit.InsideOut Literary Arts Project’s Citywide Poets program was just selected as one of just 15 National Winners of the prestigious
Coming Up Taller Award, an honor bestowed annually by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Gillian Eaton is vice president, arts and humanities, Y-Arts. She is an award winning educator, actress and director who recently received the Wayne County Humanities award. She has created arts education outreach programs at the Detroit Historical Museum, the Roeper School and The University Musical Society. She was the McAndless Fellow at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) and has directed and taught Shakespeare in performance at the EMU, University of Michigan and Wayne State University.
A native of Wales, Gillian has worked in London’s West End theatres, The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatres in Los Angeles and many regional theatres. She has appeared in numerous stage plays, TV shows and films in the US and the UK and has written for the cinema and the stage. She has received numerous theatre awards for directing and acting and has been honored with the Michigan Artist prize from ArtServe Michigan and the Detroit Free Press Award for outstanding contribution to theatre.
Gillian began her work with the YMCA in March of 2007.
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