Premie re Issue
I DIE DT RE TORI TO I T
O C T O2C0T1 92 01 9
LOOKS THAT KILN
The artistry of Pewabic Pottery has been breaking the mold for over 100 years.
THE MOTORLESS CITY
The sweet ride of Detroit Bikes
GRAMS OF THE ’GRAM
How the senior set is getting Insta-worthy
DETROIT ISSUE 1 VOL 1 OCTOBER 2019
sensimediagroup @sensimagazine @sensimag
F E AT U R E S
28
16 Beauty in Imperfection
The delicate art of wabi-sabi, and how difficult it can be to actually live it.
22 Pottery for the People Pewabic Pottery has been bringing art to the masses for more than 100 years. SPECIAL REPORT
28 Holding on to Hope
Cannabis offers an alternative treatment for what Health magazine calls “Invisible Illnesses.”
36 Insta-Grams
Elders (and relative elders) wanting to stay relevant had better get Insta-worthy.
D E PA R T M E N T S
07 EDITOR’S NOTE 10 THE BUZZ News, tips, and tidbits
to keep you in the loop. SENSIBILITIES Hot takes from our editor in chief. LOCAL OtterBox coolers.
CITY CYCLES Bikes built with Detroit quality.
48 THE SCENE Hot happenings and hip hangouts around town.
ON THE COVER Pewabic pottery in the new Sparrow HerbertHerman Cancer Center in Lansing, Mich. PHOTO BY JASON KEEN PHOTO EDITS BY JOSH CLARK
FALL IN October events to keep you moving.
50 THE END 44 THE LIFE Football or bowling? You Contributing to your health
and happiness.
never have to choose again.
BOO! Why we get high on horror.
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
7
Wide Range of CBD Products
CBDDPairsswithhaaHealthyyLifestyle wwwwohgrassyknolllcom 14077RobinsonnRdd,,GranddRapidss49506 (616))419-3364 A DV I S O R Y B OA R D 420 United Canna Care Center Cannabis Edibles 710 Security Security Aronoff Law Licensing Law Firm Bratic Enterprises Energy Efficiency & Sustainability Cannabis Counsel Cannabis Law Firm Chornaya, LLC Provisioning Center— Metro Detroit Common Citizen Provisioning Center—Flint Etz Chaim Attestations Great Lakes Hemp Supplements, LLC Hemp Supplements Great Lakes Natural Remedies Provisioning Center— Lakeshore Healthy Healing Clinic Compassion Clinic & Certification Center Kush Design Studio Cannabis Facility Design & Build LC Solutions Michigan PLLC Accounting/CPA Services
8 D E T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
LEGC, LLC Concentrate Vaporizer Michigan Creative Branding MRB Solutions Human Resources Northern Specialty Health Provisioning Center—Upper Peninsula
FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Oh, Hello Promo Promotional Marketing Pain Blocking Oil Cannabis Topical Paradigm Wellness Holistic Therapy & Consulting Perry & Drummy Inc. Commercial Insurance
FACE BOOK Like Sensi Media Group for the parties, topics, and happenings we’re obsessed with right now.
Pure West Club Caregiver Connection & Network RAIR Medical Flower Solutions by Dr. Dave West Michigan Hemp CBD Sparrow Consulting Cannabis Licensing
T W I T TER Follow @sensimag to stay up-to-date on the latest news from Sensi cities.
Ultra-Tech Printing Packaging Solutions
I NSTAG RAM @sensimagazine is home to exclusive photos and content.
SENSI MAGAZINE Published monthly by Sensi Media Group LLC. © 2019 Sensi Media Group. All rights reserved.
S
sensimediagroup @sensimagazine @sensimag
EXECUTIVE Ron Kolb CEO ron@sensimag.com Tae Darnell President tae@sensimag.com
Alex Martinez Chief Administrative Officer alex@sensimag.com EDITORIAL Stephanie Wilson Editor in Chief stephanie@sensimag.com
Doug Schnitzspahn Executive Editor doug.schnitzspahn@sensimag.com Leland Rucker Senior Editor leland.rucker@sensimag.com
Robyn Griggs Lawrence Contributing Editor robyn.lawrence@sensimag.com Chez Chesak Contributing Writer Darralynn Hutson Contributing Writer Buzzy Jackson Contributing Writer James Edward Mills Contributing Writer DESIGN Jamie Ezra Mark Creative Director jamie@emagency.com Rheya Tanner Art Director Wendy Mak Designer Josh Clark Designer em@sensimag.com B U S I N E S S /A D M I N Kristan Toth Head of People kristan.toth@sensimag.com Jamie Cooper Publisher jamie.cooper@sensimag.com Kyle Miller Associate Publisher kyle.miller@sensimag.com Leah Stephens Associate Publisher leah.stephens@sensimag.com Constance Taylor Associate Publisher constance.taylor@sensimag.com
Sensi is a lifestyle. It’s a way of interacting
with the world and the community around us that cultivates a respect for our health and well-being. It’s a promise to live our best lives, to appreciate everything from street art exhibitions and anime conventions to beer halls and bowling lanes. Sensi is about laughing and enjoying time with friends. It’s about speaking up, listening carefully, and making a difference in a world filled with so much background noise. Sensi is a future full of promise. This is us. This is how we live our lives. We hope to share that full vibe with you—and learn and grow with you. With that philosophy in mind, we are overjoyed to welcome you to the first issue of Sensi magazine in Detroit. We founded this magazine four years ago with a passion to speak to our community. Every month, Sensi will entertain and (we hope) educate you with both national and local content that speaks to our mission and values. Look for features and service pieces that will connect you to this magical place and the wider Sensi family. You hear a common refrain about this city: “Detroit is legit.” And as this urban community continues to grow and explore new ways to deal with the constantly changing challenges of city life, we will seek out all the ways it remains legit. In this issue, we check in with Detroit institutions like Pewabic Pottery (page 22), which continues to commit to community. We also give a shoutout to up-and-coming change makers like Detroit Bikes (page 44) and OtterBox (page 10), which are finding innovative and passionate ways to build on the city’s manufacturing heritage. Sensi is legit. And we are proud to launch in this community and champion the way Detroit remains unique and ever adapting. We can’t wait for you to join us.
As this urban community continues to grow and explore new ways to deal with the constant challenges of city life, we will seek out all the ways it remains legit.
Amber Orvik Chief Administrator amber.orvik@sensimag.com Andre Velez Marketing Director andre.velez@sensimag.com Neil Willis Production Manager neil.willis@sensimag.com Hector Irizarry Distribution distribution@sensimag.com M E D I A PA R T N E R S Marijuana Business Daily Minority Cannabis Business Association National Cannabis Industry Association Students for Sensible Drug Policy
Doug Schnitzspahn doug.schnitzspahn@sensimag.com
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
9
CONTRIBUTORS Doug Schnitzspahn, Stephanie Wilson
THE
Feel the Heat Climate change is no match for human change in the Great Lakes region. 10 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
Last month climate protestors, inspired by 15-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, took to the streets to call for change on rising temperatures caused by human industry. The message: Climate change is real, and human change is necessary. Here in Michigan, The Great Lakes Integrated Sciences Assessments Program (GLISA), a collaboration of the University
of Michigan and Michigan State University funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been studying the effects of climate change in the region and looking at what changes can make a difference. Last month, GLISA announced 12 winners in its 2019 small grants competition. It handed out $20,000 to each of them to “partner with them to ad-
dress the risks of climate variability and change in the Great Lakes region.” Grantees will engage directly with decision makers from a diverse range of sectors and communities to implement climate adaptation projects in the community using GLISA’s existing climate information services. Great Lakes Integrated Sciences Assessments Program glisa.umich.edu
COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
BEING THE CHANGE: Sweden's 15-year-old Greta Thunberg is leading a movement of young climate activists.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
Manufactured Cool
OtterBox draws on Detroit manufacturing to build its tough coolers. Want to build something that can withstand, say, the wrath of a hungry bear? Do it in Detroit. That was the conclusion OtterBox, best known for its durable smart-phone cases, came to when it decided to build its nigh-indestructible series of Venture coolers here in Michigan. In 2016, the Colorado-based company partnered with Warren’s Proper Polymers, an expert in plastic tooling. By 2017, the facility was rolling out 2,000 coolers per week. The result? According to tester Jermiah Osborne-Gowey, who has been hauling the OtterBox Venture 45 cooler on camping trips all summer, “It’s both rugged and nice to look at, and it holds a surprising amount of food and beverage. The handles are firm and comfortable, the nonskid feet are extra grippy, and there are a number of slick add-on accessories allowing you to customize it to your needs and activities.” Oh, and that thing about the bears? It’s true. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee allowed OtterBox to test the coolers—bolstered with the brand’s Locking Kit, which is sold separately—in Yellowstone National Park, where Ursus arctos horribilis met Detroit-quality plastic. The Motor-City manufacturing won. Venture Coolers / $230 to $350 / otterbox.com
ALL THE FEELS
BY THE NUMBERS
32 OZ BURGER
THATʼS TWO POUNDS, KIDS! The size of the biggest burger at Cutter's Bar and Grill—a bargain at just $16. cuttersdetroit.com
October 1 is World Vegetarian Day. To celebrate, one CBD brand is touting the medicinal properties of its product alongside the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet. “Plant-based wellness is good for everyone,” says Aryn Sieber, a cannabis industry consultant and the founder of CBD Essentials. “Education is our core standard for excellence as a company. We find that the vegetarian community is one of the smartest groups of consumers when it comes to understanding therapy designed around the healing properties found in natural ingredients.” A first responder on 9/11, Sieber discovered the benefits of CBD and medical cannabis while battling stage 4 throat and neck cancer. His CBD Essentials Body+Massage Roll On works to soothe painful and inflamed joints. “The biggest benefit of CBD, by far,” says Sieber, “is the hope that is gained by those who experience real relief from what ails them, without resorting to products that contain an enormous laundry list of ingredients or masking agents that are not useful to them.”
15.5% THE ABV IN
Kuhnhenn Brewing Company's Raspberry Eisbock, a cult favorite. That's twice what you'll find in a standard IPA. kbrewery.com
25
AFRICAN LANGUAGES
On the African Language Wall mural at the expansive MBAD African Bead Museum. mbad.com
CBD Essentials Body+Massage Roll On $70 / cannaisseurbrands.com
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
11
Retail Stores in Kalamazoo & Nashville
www.PremierHempCompany.com (855) 420-8100 L O C A L C O M PA N Y
Pain? Anxiety?
www.SolutionsByDrDave.com (855) 420-8100
12 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
WORKING WARMTH Based in Rockford, Wolverine has been hammering out leather and work wear since the 1880s. That makes it the perfect brand to turn to when the chill of fall hits Detroit. While Wolverine is best known for its sturdy kicks these days, it also builds some burly apparel. The new Worksite Stretch Jacket features exible Motion-Max technology, keeping it from scrunching up in the shoulders. Add in smart pockets for tools, magnetic closures, an extended tail, and an oversize eece-lined, three-piece scuba hood that fits over additional headwear, and you have the perfect companion piece for everything from banging nails to a night at the Fowling Warehouse (see page 50). $90; wolverine.com
THE BUZZ
MAKING STRIDES
Add this walk to your activism calendar. Help the American Cancer Society in Making Strides against breast cancer by being part of this commu-
nity-wide event. This noncompetitive, three- to five-mile walk is meant to unite Detroit in support
of those whose lives have been impacted by breast cancer. Donations and proceeds benefit ACS breast cancer research and prevention efforts. So far, the event has raised $165,000 of its $1.4 million goal.
Making Strides of Detroit October 12 Hart Plaza
"We've had some really bad streaks, and that's how you wind up losing 100." —RON GARDENHIRE Detroit Tigers manager
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
13
O N T H AT N O T E …
The most reputable organization for breast cancer research is the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. If in doubt, your donation will be well-spent here. bcrf.org
SENSIBILITIES WHAT MATTERS THIS MONTH BY STEPHANIE WILSON
1 NOW STREAMING The Politician on Netflix (Sept. 27). Early reviews described the dark comedy as a cross between Glee and House of Cards. It’s probably on my iPad right now.
______ 2 COOL GIRL FALL I’m still waiting for this single to drop. Hot girl summer: fun while it lasted; exhausting to maintain.
______ 3 BYE-BYE, BUNION It’s the worst word ever. Let’s call it what it is: “overex-
tended toe-joint,” often resulting from wearing pointy-toe heels to work during a hot-girl decade. Turns out cool girls wear flats.
______ 4 AN EIGHTH One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. The world is awash in pink ribbons right now—tiny reminders to book a mammogram everywhere you look. Book one.
______ 5 PINK PSA October 13 is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. It’s also
my mom’s birthday. She would have been 72 this year, but…metastatic breast cancer has no cure. If you’re going pink this month, make sure your efforts go to organizations funding research, not just awareness.
______ 6 FURRY ACCESSORY Your dog probably doesn’t want a Halloween costume. But if he has one, I definitely want to see some photos slide into my Insta: @stephwilll.
“I didn’t really care about the car world that much, but I cared incredibly when I read about these guys and their passion for what they were doing, how different they were from one another, that conflict and how that conflict kind of fueled their innovation and their creation of this car.”
—MATT DAMON On his upcoming film Ford v Ferrari
14 D ET RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
SELF-
IMPROVEMENT
STARTS NOW
Sean Myers, Thomas M.J. Lavigne, Alan Kaufman, Matthew R. Abel, Steve Rich, Julia Gilbert, Ann M. Cisco
Developing any new habit starts with routine, and there are so many apps out there designed to help you integrate new behaviors into your daily life. Here are three of the top-rated options.
►CANNABIS
PRODUCTIVE
DONE
STICKK
►Local
This habit tracker helps you build a whole new routine. Set goals, watch your progress, get reminders based on location, build streaks, and celebrate victories with a swipe.
What sets this free app apart is the ability to track a goal multiple times a day. If your goal is to drink more water, drinking one glass and checking it off the list isn’t gonna cut it.
You are 300 percent more likely to achieve a goal if you put real money on the line. StickK allows you to do just that. Lose that bet, and the money goes to an organization of your choice.
business law services
►MarijuanA
facility license
permits,
zoning & lobbying
► Criminal
defense
► constitutional & family involving cannabis issues
O CTO BER 2019
law
S E N S IM AG.CO M
15
Confessions of a Wabi-Fraudie, or Pay No Attention to Whatʼs Under the Stairs. TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE
I had so much shit. I got rid of most of it.
Wabi-sabi me?
W
hen I started writing about wabi-sabi, right around 9/11, the Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection had a serious underground following. But most people still thought wabi-sabi was that spicy green stuff you eat with sushi. Marie Kondo was, like, 10. Wabi-sabi was a great umbrella for a lot of conversations I was enmeshed in as the editor of a green lifestyle magazine: simplicity, the Slow movement (starting with Slow Food and evolving into Slow Everything), reduction, recycling, reuse. It was still pretty early for a lot of those conversations in 2001, though, and it was early for wabi-sabi in America, too.
In those first few months after the planes hit the towers, my agent and I and a handful of people in publishing were pretty certain Americans would retreat and nest, plant Victory gardens, and live more thriftily, as they always had during times of war. I got a fat advance to write The Wabi-Sabi House just as Americans—at the directive of President George W. Bush, who told them it was the patriotic thing to do—embraced easy credit and went shopping. My book wasn’t the runaway bestseller we thought it would be. Wabi-sabi—if you’re being real about it—is a tough sell for Americans. An ancient philosophy with roots in Zen, it’s about revering austerity,
nature, and the everyday and accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. A reaction to the prevailing aesthetic of lavishness, ornamentation, and rich materials in 15th-century Japan, wabi-sabi is the art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in earthiness, and revering authenticity above all. “It’s everything our sleek, mass-produced, technology-saturated culture isn’t,” I wrote in The Wabi-Sabi House. “It’s flea markets, not warehouse stores (today I would say Amazon); aged wood, not Pergo (today I would say vinyl planks); rice paper, not glass. Wabi-sabi celebrates cracks and crevices and rot, reminding us
that we are all transient beings—that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came.” Well, this didn’t land all that well in the forever-rich, forever-young early aughts, which launched the Kardashians and eventually crashed into the Great Recession. A simple, unpretentious oasis in a weary world. In 2011, while Americans were still smarting from the financial meltdown four years earlier, I wrote a follow-up book, Simply Imperfect: Revisiting the Wabi-Sabi House, for a small, progressive Canadian publisher. I didn’t get a fat advance. But it seemed like the time might finally O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
17
Join us every week and connect with other cannabis business owners, professionals, newcomers, service providers and more. Our events are a valuable resource for those looking to connect and learn more about the constantly-evolving industry.
CannabizConnection.com
EXPERIENCEEAANEWWMODELL OFFHEALTHCAREE ParadigmmWellnesssGrouppissannintegrativeehealthcareepracticeelocateddinnGranddHaven,,MichigannnWeeareeaagrouppoffholisticc anddallieddhealthhprofessionalssanddtherapies,,providinggroottcauseetreatmenttoptionsssSpecializingginnholisticcwellness,,ourr practiceetakessannentirelyynewwapproachhinncomprehensiveehealthcareeeOurrnutritionallanddlifestyleecoachingganddeducationninn cannabisstherapeuticssfocusessonntheemind,,bodyyanddspiritttooseeeanddsustainnpossibilitiessforryourrlifee
(616))644-62277||wwwwparadigmwellnesshealthhcomm||GranddHaven,,MI
18 D ET RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
be right for wabi-sabi, and I wanted to see it have its day. If everyone embraced it, we would have a completely different world. Wabi-sabi was born from the Japanese Tea Ceremony, a simple Zen ritual for making and sharing a cup of tea that warlords in 15th-century Japan turned into a means of showing off their immense wealth through gaudy Tea houses full of gilded imported goods. The wabi way of Tea (wabichado) grew out of a backlash to that, championed by a master so powerful his style is practiced to this day. Sen no Rikyu’s quiet, simple Tea ceremony, with tea served in locally fired bowls and flowers in fishermen’s baskets, was what everyone wanted. Wood, bamboo, and hospitality were in; porcelain, lacquer, and pretension were out. Japan had just gone through several centuries of war and extravagant consumerism, and Rikyu’s Tea ceremony provided the simple, unpretentious oasis that society craved. For wealthy merchants and shoguns, it felt like the ultimate luxury, the epitome of high art. For peasants and commoners, it made the art of Tea accessible. Preparing and serving the bitter green tea
Being a wabibito means living modestly, satisfied with things as they are, owning only what’s necessary for its beauty or utility.
became a means for everyday samurai, who had few material comforts, to escape for a moment and share a ritual. Ichigo, ichie, or “once in a lifetime,” is perhaps the most important tenet when learning the art of Tea. We never know what might happen tomorrow, or even later today, but right now we can stop for a cup of tea. Wabi, the name for Rikyu’s style of Tea, was often used by poets to evoke melancholy. One of my favorite descriptions of it is “the feeling you have when you’re waiting for your lover.” It evokes a little monk in his torn robe, enjoying a night by the fire, content in poverty. No one’s quite sure how or when the word sabi got hooked up with wabi, but conjoined it takes on an entourage effect. Meaning “the bloom of time,” sabi connotes tarnish and rust; the enchantment of old things; appreciation for dignified, graceful aging. Wabi-sabi, then, is a philosophy that reveres age, imperfection, and natural order. We don’t practice Tea in this culture, though, and it can be hard to see how it translates for 21st-century Westerners who drink lots of coffee. Like all good philosophies, wabi-sabi gives us
a launching point toward thinking about what matters. To practice it, or to become what is called a wabibito, means living modestly, satisfied with things as they are, owning only what’s necessary for its utility or beauty (ideally, both). But what’s under those stairs? Both of my books have entire chapters on the importance of uncluttering and how to do it. I’m something of an expert. Unfortunately, they both have chapters on decorating with salvage and flea market finds and how to find them, so I’m something of an expert on that as well. These areas of expertise don’t play nice together, as you can imagine. I wrote Simply Imperfect post-divorce, after I’d moved into a townhouse and left most everything behind. Looking back, I’m hilarious. “Living in a small space keeps me from acquiring things,” I wrote. “Except for storage, my little house has just enough of everything.” I was so smug and such a wabi-fraudie, hiding everything under the stairs in the basement. My townhome had a terrible little crawl space, far too deep and narrow, that encouraged layers upon layers of crap to
5 COMMONSENSE STEPS TO DECLUTTERING YOUR HOME 1. Donʼt try to do your entire house at once. Move to larger areas once youʼve had smaller success. 2. Spend a few minutes per day cleaning so it doesnʼt get overwhelming. 3. If in doubt, throw it out (or give it to a charitable organization like Goodwill). 4. Get rid of two items every time you buy a new one. 5. If you canʼt get rid of it, hide it well. Storage should make up 10 percent of your homeʼs square footage. Based on an excerpt from Simply Imperfect
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
19
Theeindustryyleaderrinnconstructionn managementtanddprojecttexecutionnn
ApexxConstructionnSolutionssrepresentssourrexclusivee clienteleewhileeworkinggcloselyywithharchitects,, engineers,,buildinggoffcialssanddtrusteddvendorsstoo ensureedeliveryyoffprojectsswithinntheeestablishedd budget,,scopeeanddscheduleee
wwwwApexConsttnett||info@apexconsttnett||(248))231-6017
We provide full-service accounting, advisory and income tax services to the Cannabis Industry and those ancillary to the industry. We are here to navigate you through the complex tax and accounting issues related to Cannabis.
20 D E T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
build up. When the space became impenetrable, I would stand in the doorway and throw stuff in. The woman I bought the house from warned me about it during the closing. She’d thought she could show the house furnished until she looked in there. When it came time for me to sell the place 10 years later, I felt her pain. “Where the hell has all this stuff been?” everybody asked as I unearthed bins and boxes of my memorabilia, my kids’ art projects, photo albums, toys, sports equipment, appliances, file cabinets, record albums, CDs, books, dishes, phones (four of them!),
textiles, dog beds, jars, tools, old paint, door, light fixtures, screws, nails (so many screws and nails), and assorted other crap I had tucked in there and forgotten about over a decade. “In hell,” I would say. Clutter smudges clarity. I spent a solid three months clearing out that townhouse, mostly under the stairs. I dumped a camper truck and several carloads of stuff at Goodwill and left weekly loads for the Vietnam Veterans Association. I had a garage sale and got depressed watching no one want my coffee table books and pink mid-century nesting ashtrays,
even for a dollar. I got tired of being rejected by my son when I texted, “Sure you don’t want those red dishes from your childhood?” Some people did want my junk. It felt good to give away an Eastlake chair I tripped over in my bedroom for nine years to a furniture refinisher who understood its value and could give it the love and attention it deserved. I sold my daughter’s bed to a woman who had gotten rid of everything to hit the road in her van 10 years earlier and was starting over again. I gave her all the bedding, too. When it was all over, I felt like I’d had an ayahuasca-strength purging.
“Clutter smudges clarity, both physically and metaphorically,” I wrote in Simply Imperfect. “Things you’re holding onto because they were expensive, because they were from your mother-inlaw, or because you might need them someday are all getting in your way. In a wabi-sabi home, space and light are the most desirable ornaments.” I bought an Airstream with brilliant space and light, limited but efficient storage, no room for furniture, and no basement. After all these years and all these words, I might finally be a wabibito. If not, I can always find a bed on Craigslist.
Live Wabi-Sabi without buying anything. Everyone from NBC News to Rachael Ray is talking about wabi-sabi. It doesnʼt seem like most media get the philosophy at its core, though, since they use it as a basis for featuring new products that consumers should buy to get the wabi-sabi “look.” Here are a few tips on getting to wabi-sabi without buying a bunch of shit. • Pay attention to your daily bread. Is the food youʼre eating in season, and is it available locally? The meals you choose and prepare connect you with the earthʼs cycles and where you live, and youʼll live a healthier life. Buy food from your local farmersʼ markets and ask your grocer where different items came from. • Bring a small gift when invited to someoneʼs house or even to a meeting—nothing extravagant, just a small gesture (homemade jam, apples from your tree, or a luxurious bar of soap) that lets them know theyʼre appreciated.
• Next time you sweep the floor, consider it a meditation. Opt for the broom when possible. • Offer every visitor a cup of tea. Serve it with something sweet. If no one comes by, enjoy a cup of tea by yourself in the late afternoon. • Keep one vase filled with seasonal flowers, ideally picked within a mile of your home. • Take a walk every day. • Learn to knit or crochet. Partially excerpted from Simply Imperfect
With its commitment to community, Detroitʼs Pewabic Pottery has been bringing art to the masses for more than a century—and itʼs showing no sign of slowing down. TEXT BUZZY JACKSON
22 D ET RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
IN HONOR OF MARY CHASE STRATTON: The Cadillac Center Stationʼs two-story Pewabic tile installation intermingles new tiles with historic green field tiles that were donated by the Stroh family. COURTESY OF PEWABIC POTTERY
COURTESY PEWBATIC
I
f you look closely, you’ll see the tiles everywhere: Comerica Park; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Detroit Public Library; every QLine station; Little Caesars Arena. This is what makes the art of Pewabic Pottery special. It’s not just for private collectors. It’s for everyone. Once you see it, you never forget it. The classic Pewabic ceramic tile is an oceanic green (“Pewabic Green”), although no two of the kiln-fired tiles are exactly alike. Ranging from vanilla to celadon to cinnamon and obsidian, Pewabic tiles come in a spectrum of gorgeously deep colors and glosses, some nearly matte and others iridescent. They look just as beautiful on the backsplash of Martha Stewart’s summer house in Maine as they do lining the walls of the “people movers” in Detroit’s Cadillac Center station. And then there are the more intimate objects: hand-glazed bowls, vases, and cups, heavenly to both the eyes and the touch. Pewabic is a little bit like another great local original: Faygo Redpop. It’s different, addictive, and totally Detroit. In 1903, Detroit witnessed the birth of two of its great institutions—Ford Motor Company and Pewabic Pottery—founded on principles in direct oppo-
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
23
MAKING A DIFFERENCE BY DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY.
Made in beautiful....
Traverse City, Michigan “Cherry Capital of the world”
Specializing In Full Spectrum CBD Products Physician Recommended & Patient Approved 10x More Effective than CBD Isolate Products Try Our Award Winning Cherry Drops!
ORDER ONLINE NOW!
www.GreatLakesHempSupplements.com
Get 10% Off!
Coupon Code: SENSILUV 2366 Cass Road, Traverse City, MI 49684 231.620.1420 24 DE T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
sition to each other. As every good American schoolchild knows, Ford revolutionized mass production of its automobiles by implementing the assembly-line method of manufacturing. No single Ford employee built a car;
local pottery studios emerging from the East Coast to the West. These ceramics have become collector’s items because very few of the original potteries survived the century. Pewabic Pottery, however, celebrated its 116th
COURTESY PEWABIC
AN UBIQUITOUS PRESENCE: Pewabic Pottery is still housed in the same building (above) where Mary Chase Perry Stratton and Horace Caulkins set up shop in 1907 after moving out of a makeshift studio. The art that has come out of the venerable headquarters can be seen throughout metro Detroit (below).
each one completed a single task as the assembly line rolled on. Henry Ford became a billionaire. Pewabic was different. While the rest of America threw itself into industrial manufacturing, Detroiters Mary Chase Perry Stratton and Horace Caulkins took a deliberate step back, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement started in Great Britain in the late 19th century. Pewabic Pottery was born— and over the next century, it grew into a monolithic nonprofit organization employing over 60 Detroiters and managed by a board of trustees. The early 1900s saw a boom in handicrafts all across the country, with
birthday this year with an expansion of its studio space, doubling its size and capacity for employees. Pewabic moved from a makeshift home studio to a dedicated building on Detroit’s east side in 1907, where it remains today. Sure, the kilns are now electronically controlled, but Perry Stratton’s original mixer is still in use. Today’s artisans still handpaint the glazes that Perry Stratton herself developed and still use many of her original tile molds. In It Together None of this happens in a vacuum. Community involvement is one of the keys to Pewabic’s longevity.
“We used Pewabic on our buildings because of its connection with the city,” Lisa Stefoff, store manager of the Solanus Casey Center (SCC). When local legend Father Solanus Casey was beatified in 2017, the SCC commissioned a tile in his honor. Stefoff believes Pewabic’s history and name recognition enhance the beauty of the tiles. “We like to be an example of Pewabic, not only with what we sell, but how we incorporated it in our building.” Education has been a vital component of Pewabic’s community focus since its early days, and it continues to offer pottery classes for
children and adults of all skill levels. These classes are taught by ceramics artists, often Pewabic artisans or art professors from Wayne State University, and have become a valued part of Detroit’s cultural heritage. One local student, 77-year-old June Mabarak, has been taking classes at Pewabic since 1979. But she doesn’t have a 40-year hoard of pottery at home. “I give it to my family. I keep it in my car for when people help me.” In recent years, Pewabic has extended its community contact through its mobile Street Team, which provides access to real clay craftO CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
25
26 D E T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
ing and firing to schools, parks, and private events from a van that can pull up virtually anywhere. The team offers dramatic raku firings—a process in which clay is cooked to over 1,500º F inside a metal can filled with
“It’s an honor to collaborate with one of Detroit’s most historic companies,” says Andrew Veenhoven, head brewer of Founders Detroit Taproom. He recently brewed a special “Cone 6 IPA” in honor of the pottery. “The quality
COURTESY PEWABIC
UNIQUELY DETROIT: Pewabic continues to connect to the community. Not only will you see its tiles all around town, you can also be a part of the process. Pewabic offers numerous ways to get involved and to learn more about its tile-making history.
combustibles. The result is a handmade souvenir with a shiny, unpredictable metallic finish. Inside the van is a wheelchair-accessible museum featuring the history and process of Pewabic Pottery over the years. “Through these events, we discovered something magical we weren’t expecting: We’re opening a communication channel,” says Annie Dennis, Pewabic education director. “The firing becomes a magnet that draws people in, but the magic is the dialogue that ensues. The clay creates a language that crosses cultural barriers.” Even local brewers are getting in on the action.
of its artistry has withstood the test of time.” One of Pewabic’s longest-running community traditions is its Empty Bowls event, now in its 27th year. Handmade bowls crafted by Pewabic artisans, students, Girl Scouts, and volunteer artists are sold for $5 to $40 and filled with a complimentary bowl of soup, donated by local restaurants. The Pewabic staff volunteers its time for this popular event, and all proceeds go to the Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southwestern Michigan. “A $15 bowl provides 45 meals: That’s a huge impact. Even buying a kid’s bowl for $5 provides 15 meals,” says Alethea
and lovers of all things handmade. Collectible Pewabic tiles can now be found for sale on Etsy, eBay, and at art auction houses. But the heart of Pewabic will always be Detroit. More than a century after Pewabic’s founding, its Street Team gets around town in a custom To the Future Ford Transit van. Both With all the good companies are still govibes, it’s easy to forget ing, still based in Detroit. just how big an artistic With its new facility excontribution Pewabic has made not only to De- pansion and heightened troit but to the American public presence, Pewabic craft tradition. After 116 seems well-positioned for the century ahead. years, a renaissance in the maker movement has Pewabic Pottery once again brought Pe10125 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit wabic into the spotlight, Monday–Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and with it, an entirely Sundays, Noon to 4 p.m. new generation of artists pewabic.org Davenport, Pewabic’s events coordinator. “Last year, we made $13,000. That’s 39,000 meals.” Empty Bowls exemplifies the Pewabic spirit: serving its local community through one local nonprofit helping another.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Buzzy Jackson was born in Michigan to two native Detroiters. She now lives in Colorado where she cheers the Red Wings from afar. buzzyjackson.com
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
27
hope SPECIAL REPORT
HOLDING ON TO
Autoimmune diseases are hard to diagnose—and even harder to manage. But cannabis offers a fresh alternative to those seeking treatment for the untreatable. TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE
28 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
e O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
29
Supportinggaacompleteeandd complianttaccountingg environmentt Bookkeepingg&&FinanciallRecorddKeeping VirtuallCFOOServices MMFLAAAttestations FinanciallProjectionss&&Forecasts AccountinggSystemmSettUp TaxxPreparationss&&Planning BusinesssStarttUppConsulting QuickbookssProAdvisorrServices 280EECosttAccounting PayrolllServiceeManagement (810))793-670222222||||||LCSolutionsMichiganncommmmmm||||||info@LCSolutionsMichiganncom
Sparrow Consulting Hatch a Plan
Sparrow Consulting is a comprehensive business consulting firm that serves a variety of public, private, and non-profit organizations. With expert staff specializing in the fields of organization development, public administration, licensing and compliance, cannabis business development, grant funding and financing, risk management, strategic planning, occupational health and safety, emergency management, and strategic planning, Sparrow Consulting can help you hatch you plan.
3312 Glade Street, Muskegon Heights, Michigan 49444 | 231-747-7951 | connie@hatchaplanmi.com
30 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
K
ate Phillips’ stomach hurt for years. It grew so bloated she looked pregnant. And no one—not the gastrointestinal specialist, the neurologist, the functional medicine doctor, the nurse practitioner she drove three hours each way to see—could tell her why. Doctors prescribed her 41 different medications. One doctor said her illness was stress-induced, another told her she had multiple sclerosis, and yet another said she had cancer (which was terrifying). Phillips gave up dairy, gluten, and sugar and spent more than $100,000 on medical specialists and snake oil doctors, like the nurse practitioner who put a coil on Phillips’ stomach to test for something that baffles her to this day. “You’re just so desperate, so sick,” Phillips says. “You don’t care what you have to do.” Suffering heart palpitations and seizures and no longer able to walk upstairs by herself, Phillips was forced to move in with her grandparents. When she was 21, a heart attack led her to the first of what she calls “Lyme-literate doctors” (LLMDs), who diagnosed her with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a circulation condition, and Lyme carditis, a rare infection caused by Lyme bacteria in the heart tissue. All those years, Phillips had been suffering from undiagnosed Lyme disease. Growing up in the woods of Massachusetts, Phillips had been constantly drilled to look out for the classic symptoms of Lyme disease (named after Old Lyme,
Connecticut, where it was discovered), a tick-borne autoimmune illness that is more prevalent in New England than anywhere else in the world. Trouble is, she never got the flu-like symptoms or bullseye rash she’d been warned about. In her case, the spirochete bacteria from the tick that bit her attacked the weakest part of her body—her stomach, which Phillips jokes was ruined by a classic Irish Catholic diet of boiled meat and starch while she was growing up in Boston. “All those medical practitioners looked at my stomach as one little box. I became a symptom, not a person,” Phillips says. “That’s why, anyone with an autoimmune disease will tell you, it can take years to get a proper diagnosis.” Cannabinoids and Inflammation Often described as an attack on the self, autoimmune disease is triggered when the body’s immune system mistakes healthy tissues for invaders, goes into overdrive, and becomes inflamed. This can manifest as anything from Lyme disease to lupus, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, or Crohn’s disease—among some 80 to 100 diseases that Health magazine describes as “invisible illnesses” because they’re difficult to diagnose. Traditional medical treatment for autoimmune diseases is generally heavy on long-term antibiotics, painkillers, anti-inflammatories, anti-depressants, anti-seizure drugs, and steroids, which suppress the immune system and slow down inflammation but are so hard on the body that they can only be taken for a short time. Functional medicine doctors take a more longterm, holistic approach, addressing
diet, lifestyle, and emotional health in addition to physical symptoms—and more and more often, cannabis is part of the program. Dr. Joseph Cohen, DO, medical director of Journey 2 Life and Holos Health in Boulder, Colorado, says autoimmune diseases are tricky to diagnose because they’re difficult to differentiate and can be triggered by many things, including dietary factors (gluten is a massive trigger), environmental toxins, and stress. The key to treating them is to remove those triggers and heal the gut, because about 70 percent of the immune system lies in the gastrointestinal tract, he says. Cohen is among a growing number of doctors who are finding the immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory properties of cannabinoids helpful in treating autoimmune disease, and often prescribes treatments high in CBD. “Autoimmune diseases are such a huge collection,” says Selma Holden, MD, a family physician in southern Maine who integrates mindfulness, yoga, herbs, and other complementary techniques into her clinical repertoire. “But one common originator pathway is this process of inflammation, and the speckled evidence we have in limited clinical trials or pre-clinical animal studies is showing that administration of exogenous cannabinoids does seem to reduce the impacts of inflammation. “ Holden is intrigued by the generally accepted description of autoimmune disease as the body attacking itself. “The question is,” Holden says, “why did the body start attacking itself in the first place? There’s a piece to explore about their mental and emotional state. How can
Functional medicine doctors take a more longterm, holistic approach to autoimmune disease treatment—and more and more often, cannabis is part of the program.
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
31
EXPERIENCE
relief.
Â
gershs.com /PBOHeals @GershsPBO @GershsPBO 32 DE T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
she discovered her life’s mission. “I became a total nerd—I just wanted to know why cannabis was working,” says Phillips. “I have this lifelong, black-hole obsession with learning about cannabis.” Opening the Book After a stint working with a on the Crazy Stuff medical marijuana dispensary in Phillips, a Chinese herbal Steamboat, Colorado, Phillips medicine practitioner and former returned to Brookline, Massawilderness medic, says her Lyme chusetts, to be with her family disease diagnosis prompted her and got involved with the state’s to “open the book on all the crazy cannabis industry while helping stuff.” Cannabis, with its ability to modulate immune and nervous launch a boutique dispensary. She now runs Silk Consulting, system function and decrease which assists Massachusetts inflammation, was a natural choice. She began juicing cannabis cannabis retail operations with management staffing and employfan leaves after reading about Dr. ee training, educational content, William Courtney, a California creation, and events. physician who recommends daily As part of her work, Phillips consumption of raw cannabis flowspeaks to doctor groups at presers or juiced raw cannabis based on scientific evidence showing raw tigious hospitals around the state cannabis could have a remediating about the benefits of cannabis for autoimmune diseases—often beeffect on autoimmune disorder. cause so many patients are asking Within weeks, she felt about it. “They’re very accepting,” clear-headed for the first time she says of the physicians. “But in years. She moved on to more they’re a small number of people, potent edibles and then concentrates, and with help from canna- and medication is all they understand. It’s hard for them to quantify bis-friendly (or at least tolerant) doctors, she weaned herself off all something that’s not synthesized.” her medications. In the process, cannabis help them transition to a space where they feel more compassion for themselves and at peace with how their bodies are?”
Big Pharma Steps In That’s about to change. A handful of reputable, even prestigious, studies have found cannabinoids helpful in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, and the medical world is taking note. Cannabinoids have been found to slow degenerative effects in multiple sclerosis patients and reduce destructive immune response and inflammation in lupus patients. In 2014, University of South Carolina researchers found that THC can affect DNA expression through epigenetic pathways to suppress inflammation. This year, a team of Israeli researchers found medical cannabis to be “a safe and effective alternative for the treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms” but cautioned: “Standardization of treatment compounds and regimens are required.” Biopharma companies like Katexco Therapeutics and CannBioRex, which have spent years developing synthetic cannabidiol (CBD) therapeutics to treat inflammation and autoimmune disease, have been waiting for this moment. As the political climate around cannabis relaxes and
Within weeks of beginning her cannabis treatment, Phillips felt clear-headed for the first time in years. With the help of cannabis-friendly doctors, she weaned herself off all her medications.
BY THE NUMBERS
23.5 MILLION Americans have a chronic autoimmune disease.
80 + ILLNESSES
are considered invisible illnesses.
$100 BILLION
per year is spent caring for Americans with autoimmune diseases.
Source: National Institutes of Health, Health magazine.
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
33
• Folding Cartons • Prime Labels • Pouch Film
Custom Printed Consumer Packaging • GMI Certified • ISO Certified • GMP Compliant
9001:2015
• UV Inks and Coatings • Short Run Pricing • Fast Turn Time
• Special Effects • In–House Graphics • Up to 18� Web Width Proudly servicing the pharmaceutical and compliance markets for
OVER
25 YEARS 616.249.0500 solutions@utprinting.com
Located in Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.utprinting.com
www.trustrain.com
34 D E T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
Cannabis can help some people transition to a space where they feel more compassionate for themselves—at peace with how their bodies are.
legalization leads to greater acceptance, they’re preparing to put their synthetic CBD drugs through clinical trials—which Katexco CEO Jonathan Rothbard, a former Stanford University professor, says “are the only way to prove the scientific viability of cannabinoid treatments to the FDA and the only path by which medical cannabis will truly evolve.” Every large pharmaceutical company is taking a good look at cannabis, Rothbard told Forbes, and he expects many of them to launch their own clinical trials involving synthetic cannabinoids alongside Katexco, which is developing CBD-based therapies for autoimmune conditions including arthritis, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and irritable bowel syndrome. “While beverage and alcohol companies are joining the CBD bandwagon, it makes sense that big pharma steps in, too,” he said. CannBioRex Pharma, which is exploring cannabinoid treatments for pain, arthritis, diabetes, and obesity, was co-founded by a
powerhouse duo in the biopharma world: Sir Marc Feldmann, an Oxford University professor who won a prestigious Lasker Award for developing what is currently the best-selling class of drugs, the TNF inhibitors, including the anti-inflammatory drug Remicade; and Raphael Mechoulam, widely regarded as the godfather of cannabinoid research and the man who discovered THC and CBD. Feldmann says the company is following “tried-and-true pathways of developing medications that are known to work”—namely, FDA approval, which entails extensive research and clinical trials—because that’s what the pharmaceutical industry has successfully done for six decades to ensure that compounds are safe and effective before they’re released to the public. “The problem with medical marijuana as it is used today is that you’re guessing when you buy a product. Many of the products you buy do not have the amount of cannabidiol they say they have,” Feldmann says. “That can be
solved, but we are also prepared to tackle the elephant in the room, which is how much cannabidiol or other cannabinoid you actually need to get the maximum benefits for what condition. We are going to do proper, lengthy, and expensive clinical trials to make sure we know exactly what is the right amount to give for maximum benefit with minimum side effects for a specific medical problem.” Holden, for her part, is grateful for the costly and tedious work these companies and others— including GW Pharmaceuticals, which recently released Epidiolex, a synthetic CBD-based seizure medication—are doing to satisfy the medical community’s skepticism about cannabis as legitimate medicine, but she does not want to see cannabis regulated as a pharmaceutical rather than an herbal medicine, because that would restrict people’s access to it. “What I get worried about,” Holden says, “is when the profit interests step in.” O CTO BER 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robyn Griggs Lawrence is the author of bestselling Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook and the newly released Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Weed.
S E N S IM AG.CO M
35
36 DE T RO I T
OCTOBE R 2019
INSTA-
GRAMS Elders (and relative elders) wanting to stay relevant had better get Insta-worthy. TEXT ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE
T
his year Facebook, the venerable elder of social media, turned 15–a ripe old age in digital years. Fittingly, the patriarch has officially been taken over by the baby boomers, who have quickly stepped in to fill the void as Gen Ys and Gen Zs ditch their parents’ platform for fresher,
brighter realms like Instagram and Snapchat. The seven million over55 users who are now posting grandkid pics and ranting about politics are Facebook’s second-largest and fastest-growing demographic. Facebook stopped being cool as soon as Mom and Grandma could—and did—comment on your posts and friend request
your friends. Worse, they turned it political, which means sour, and those negative vibes aren’t what millennials like 29-yearold Caitlin Moakley want to see on their phones. “I don’t find hope on Facebook,” Moakley says. “I find that’s where thoughts go to die. Facebook is kind of like the retirement home for social media.”
Instagram, on the other hand—which Facebook bought when it was a year old in 2012, let’s not forget—grew from 500 million to 1 billion active monthly users last year (one for every dollar spent to acquire it). That’s still less than half the number of Facebook users, but here’s the big difference: 90 percent of Instagram users are youngO CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
37
Your Local Energy & Sustainability Expert • Commercial LED Lighting • Industrial LED Lighting • Horticultural LED Lighting • Agricultural LED Lighting • CHP (Combined Heat & Power) • Solar Rooftops Systems • Solar Ground Mount Systems • Solar Carport/Canopy Systems • Solar Dual Axis Systems • Solar Glass • De-stratification • Energy Star Rated Flat Roof • Design/Engineering/Installation www.Bratic.net
38 D E T RO I T
O CTO BE R 2019
er than 35, according to Brandwatch. Half of these young consumers follow brands on Instagram, where engagement, as measured by likes, shares, and comments, is 10 times higher than Facebook, according to Forrester. More than 25 million companies are already building (or attempting to build) loyal followings. “When you talk about millennials, you are talking about Instagram by default. If you want to reach a young audience, you have to be on Instagram,” says 54-year-old Zoe Helene, founder of educational advocacy group Cosmic Sister. Helene contracted Moakley’s company, Soil and Spirit, which helps small businesses in the natural products, cannabis, and psychedelic communities create digital content, to help build an Instagram presence for Cosmic Sister and one of its major campaigns, #psychedelicfeminism. Helene is at the bottom of the wide boomer arc that tops out at 67- and 68-year-olds, and she’s among a first wave to see Instagram’s potential for connection, promotion, and community building. The last couple years have seen the debut of what the New York Times calls the “glamorous grandmas of Instagram,”
stylish elders who are asserting their presence in part to subvert “shopworn notions of what ‘old’ looks and feels like.” These women are hip, irreverent, and not afraid to say what’s on their minds. They’re strutting it, winning big, and projecting confidence in aging well. Their attitude could perhaps be best summed up by 71-yearold Australian knitwear designer Jenny Kee, @JennyKeeoz, who told the Times, “If we are going to be in a nursing home, we’ll be there with our marijuana, our health foods, and our great sense of style.”
evant.” If they’re feeling intimidated, she advises, “hire a wicked smart millennial, pay them, respect them, and respect their knowledge.” Moakley, who has been using social media since she was in high school and Instagram since college, knows the platform like her thumbs know the phone in her hand. She finds it intuitive and user-friendly, but she empathizes with older people who haven’t grown up as digital natives. “I mean, cutting and pasting, spacing out your lines,” she says. “Who would have known this stuff ? It’s not just laid out for you.” Aside from the techniBIG SISTA INSTA’S calities of posting, tagging, ALWAYS WATCHING and building audience, Helene hired Soil and there’s etiquette to InstaSpirit because she believes gram that boomers who that “for older women to cut their teeth in the milwork properly on Instaitant, factional Facebook gram, they need to work trenches might not get. with younger women.” She Following someone but continues to set overall never liking or commentstrategy and vision for her ing on their posts makes feed, but needed someone you a “ghost follower.” with innate Instagram After you post, you’re exsensibility and experienced thumbs. “My millennial thumbs haven’t downloaded yet,” she says. Helene often gets into conversations with fellow boomers about their fear of this youth-oriented platform. “You can’t ignore it,” she tells them. “That’s a surefire way of being perceived as irrel-
pected to reply to people’s comments within the hour—and Instagram will show it to more followers if you do (creepy). Apparently, Big Sista Insta (the no-less-powerful younger sibling of Big Brother Facebook) is always watching. You can make her happy by making use of all she has to offer, creating content for IGTV (an app for watching long-form, vertical video), carefully curating your favorite stories, and engaging your followers via story polls. She doesn’t like it when you edit your post’s caption or location tag in the first 24 hours (no one can say why). In return, she’ll give you data like you’ve never had it before. For Helene, who sold digital insight tools like the ones available for free with an Instagram business account to Fortune 100 companies for hundreds of thousands of dollars back in the early 1990s, this is nothing short of miracu-
O CTO BER 2019
THE ELDERS OF INSTA ARE SUBVERTING TIRED NOTIONS OF WHAT “OLD” LOOKS LIKE.
S E N S IM AG.CO M
39
LARGEST SELECTION OF HEMP AND CBD PRODUCTS IN MICHIGAN
VISIT US: FOLLOW US: @RockfordHemp 43 E Bridge, Rockford, MI SHOP ONLINE: www.RockfordHemp.com CALL US: 616-884-0179
40 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
lous. “Instantaneously, I know I have the most followers in New York and LA and that 46 percent of them are aged 25 to 34,” she says. “I have a pie chart here that’s changing in real time. When I post a ton of goddess-y stuff, my male percentage goes down—and I’m fine with that. Our #MaleAllies are welcome, but I suspect some of those followers were probably there to pick up chicks anyway.”
and no one has to follow anyone back. You will be judged by how many followers you have and how many you follow—and who they are. They’re as much a part of the image you’re building as the content you post. If it sounds a lot like a junior high popularity contest, well…you might have to embrace and heal your inner dork if you want to play big on Instagram. You build community with hashtags, which EMBRACE AND HEAL were introduced by YOUR INNER DORK Twitter but came into Instagram is about their own on Instagram. images and image—cuYou can figure out what rated, filtered, elegantly matters to your audience presented. We take more by checking out what pictures every two minhashtags they use and utes than we took during follow, then you can start the entire 19th century interacting with the top (according to Fstoppers, tags in your niche to get a photography news site) noticed. Instagram lets and why we’re willing you have 30 hashtags on a post and 10 on a story, so to fork over four figures you can experiment. As for a superior camera in Helene is quick to point our phones. Creating an out, “It’s all a game.” Insta avatar who stays “You’re putting forth on brand, only wins, and the highlight reel of your spreads love to her band life, and when you tap of followers is tempting through your Instagram #goals. story or scroll through Image through colyour Facebook profile laboration and comat the end of the day, munity—very precisely you’re reliving the best chosen and developed moments of it,” Keith community—is everything here. It’s not about Campbell, PhD, author of mutual “friendships” like The Narcissism Epidemic, told Marie Claire. “The Facebook. You can follow and unfollow anyone stress is stripped down, you like (as long as they you’re looking at yourself in the way you want other have a public account),
people to see you, and your brain says, ‘Hey, I had a good day, and I’m a decent person.’” This isn’t narcissism, says the author of the book on narcissism, but a basic need to find validation to feel good about ourselves. “We’re all existing in a culture that has turned self-worth into a competitive, measurable unit that gets displayed to the world,” Campbell said. “To be successful today, you often have to have your own brand and a network of connections and followers, so of course you’re going to be invested in yourself; of course, you’re going to do what you can for the likes and comments and followers, even if that means having a persona.” And yet. Campbell and fellow academic Jean Twenge found that narcissistic personality traits have risen as fast as obesity since the 1980s, with a particularly marked spike in women since the turn
of the century, according to the Guardian. In 2017, a LendEDU study crunched the data and declared Instagram users narcissistic attention-seekers in need of constant validation and ego boosts. Just as you can’t blame the substance for substance abuse, Instagram is not the culprit in our increasingly self-absorbed culture. It is simply a reflection. We’ve been given this mirror to tweak our images and put our best faces forward, but we’ll inevitably fail if we try to be something we’re not. “If you’re going to be on Instagram, the most important thing is to be authentic,” Moakley says. “So much out there is not very authentic right now.” Authentic, but preferably with sunsets, surfboards, and silhouettes of lithe bodies in bikinis, if you follow the stats on what gets the most likes. If that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, you’re probably over 50.
2019
WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT INSTAGRAM Be present. One in three users will go to a competitor if ignored. Pace yourself. The sweet spot is one to two posts per day. Tone down the hard sell. More than half of users unfollow brands that oversell. Refresh your bio. Itʼs the only place you can post a link; donʼt let it get stale. Get good at video. It generates 1,200 percent more shares than text and images combined. There are apps for that. Hootsuite and Buffer schedule and distribute content, Pic Stitch edits photos, and Captiona makes great captions. Data Source: Sprout Social
S E N S IM AG.CO M
41
At Kush Design Studio we think differently
Our Team OF Experts Can Assist With: • Branding • Construction Design & Build • Go-To- Market Strategies
• Marketing • Operations • Packaging
relax. we’ll take it from here!
kushdesignstudio.com | 616.439.4701
Kush design studio
if you can dream it, we can bring it to life
MAKES SENSE TO
ADVERTISERS INCOME
AG E
E D U C AT I O N
$100K
103,840
60%
PLUS THE ANNUAL INCOME OF
25% OF OUR READERS
OVERALL
MONTHLY READERSHIP
35-75 YEAR OLDS 56.8% OF OUR READERS
$200K+ 24-34 EARN PER HOUSEHOLD 11.8% OF OUR READERSHIP
THE AGES OF OUR 2ND STRONGEST
MARKET WITH 25.1%
COLLEGE GRADUATES
THE MAJORITY OF OUR READERS
HAVE AT LEAST ONE DEGREE
27% OF OUR READERSHIP HAVE A MASTER’S DEGREE OR HIGHER
ADVERTISE WITH US
(720) 504-6557 INFO@SENSIMAG.COM
Numbers are based on a 2019 independent audit of the Denver/Boulder Edition from MEDIA AUDIT
THE
SCARY STAT
$9 Billion The amount Americans spent on Halloween in 2018 Source: National Retail Foundation.
Fear Factors Why we get high on horror. TEXT STEPHANIE WILSON
44 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
Forget pumpkin spice and everything nice. For lovers of the spooky stuff, fall is a time to relish all things freaky, creepy, and fear-inducing, which makes no sense to anyone who doesn’t love a good scare. There are some scientific reasons why some of us seek out unsettling experiences that deliver jolts of terror. When we’re scared, we achieve a weird kind of high. Fear triggers the natural fight-or-flight response, causing a rush of adrenaline to be released into thy system, priming the body
for action. That adrenaline is joined by dopamine, the hormone associated with pleasure. According to research at the University of Michigan, that neurological “reward” conditions the brain to respond to scary situations with consistent confront-or-run reactions. As a result, our brains love getting dosed with dopamine—especially when our conscious mind realizes there’s no real danger. So, fear fiends, this is your time to shine. Go binge on that scarily addicting horror high all month long.
Build It Here Detroit Bikes has a plan to revive the Motor Cityʼs reputation for American-manufactured vehicles—with two wheels. TEXT AND PHOTOS JAMES EDWARD MILLS
Though most consider cars when they think of the Motor City, one thriving downtown business is bucking that image. Detroit Bikes boasts a booming trade in
pedal-powered transportation. The company is following in the city’s time-honored tradition of American-made manufacturing to create a line of customizable bicycles
that give area urbanites the opportunity to commute in style. With a starting price tag well below $500 for a basic model, each bike can be assembled to match the
customer’s preference for size, color, and speed. In the hopes of bringing building back to the city he loves, Detroit Bikes founder Henry Ford II (no relation to Detroit’s other famed Henry Ford) wants to revitalize the local economy with skilled labor jobs and the creation of unique consumer products. “Detroit introduced automotive manufacturing, put everyone in a car, and put the world on wheels,” he says. “I’d like to see De-
troit Bikes do the same.” At capacity, the facility in Elmira can build up to 150 bikes a day. With the ability to engage in large-scale production, the company can also construct private-label bicycles to sell at specialty shops around the country. Also distributed through individual sales online, Detroit Bikes is the Motor City’s model of a modern manufacturer. Detroit Bikes detroitbikes.com
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
45
TOP: DETROIT COCKTAIL CLASSIC BOTTOM: FULLER WOMAN EXPO RIGHT TOP: COMMON “LET LOVE”
THE
Cultural Calendar When the crisp fall air rolls into town, Detroit heats up. These events will keep you moving and shaking this fall. TEXT DARRALYNN HUTSON
A little chill brings Detroiters out by the droves. After all, no one does October like the Motor City. Long, hot days and warm, evening breezes give way to early, pink-sky sunsets and crisp, cool air. It’s one of the loveliest times of the year. Even the most dedicated summer fans can’t deny the fact that a Detroit fall can be pretty spectacular. And all the autumn splendor— the changing leaves, corn, pumpkins, hardy mums, goldenrod, and chrysanthemum—brings out a whole host of happenings: From edible tasting gatherings to pee-your-pants-scary haunted houses, from beer fests to business accelerators, there’s something for everyone here in October.
48 D E T RO I T
OCTO BE R 2019
Detroit Cocktail Classic October 1–7 Eastern Market detroitcocktail.com
This is the cocktail party of the year, encompassing multiple sheds in historic Eastern Market and featuring Detroit’s most
celebrated drinking establishments, spirits, and brands serving up craft cocktails.
10th Annual Intʼl Fuller Woman Expo
October 4–6 Best Western Southfield Tickets at eventbrite.com
MIDDLE: ARETHA FRANKLIN BOTTOM: PILLOW FIGHT FAR RIGHT: YOUMACON
Detroit Storytelling Festival
Michigan Commercial Cannabis Conference
October 5 Detroit Main Public Library detroitpubliclibrary.org
OctoBEERfest
October 11–12 TCF Center, Detroit
Common “Let Love” Tour
October 5 Detroit Shipping Co. 21+ only. Tickets $25
October 7 The Fillmore, Detroit thefillmoredetroit.com
Vegan | Vegetarian Tasting Competition
Posh + Popular Fashion and Beauty Summit
October 5 Durfee Innovation Society Tickets $10, $5 for kids
October 11–13 Greektown Casino Ballroom poshandpopularsummit.com
October 5–6 Auto City Speedway, Cilo Tickets at eventbrite.com
October 8 Wayne State University Admission $65 dbusiness.com/breakfast-series
October 13 D Loft, Detroit Tickets at evensi.us
NCIAʼs Harvest Celebration
October 6 Eastern Market Brewing Co. universe.com/events
DBusiness Breakfast Series
Cash Out On Cannabis Tour Kick-Off
October 17 1128 Washington Blvd., Detroit greeningofdetroit.com
Donut Fest Detroit
October 6 The DeltaPlex Arena wmcannabisexpo.com
October 11–13 The Detroit Zoo zooboo.detroitzoo.org
The Greening of Detroit's 30th Anniversary Green Tie Celebration
Michigan Croptoberfest
West Michigan Cannabis Expo
Zoo Boo
Queens of Soul
October 11–13 Detroit Symphony Orchestra dso.org
October 17 Ann Arbor thecannabisindustry.org
Detroit Pillow Featuring a special Fight
tribute to Aretha Franklin, this event celebrates the reigning divas of Soul. Enjoy hits from strong, soulful women including Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Adele, Alicia Keys, Amy Winehouse, Patti LaBelle, and Etta James.
October 19 Hart Plaza, Detroit Details on Facebook
Wale “Everything Sip and Shop is Fine” Tour Detroit Popup October 18 Brunch El Club elclubdetroit.com
Detroit Free Press Marathon October 19–20 freepmarathon.com
Jidenna “85 to Africa” Tour
October 22 Saint Andrew's Hall saintandrewsdetroit.com
Jay and Silent Bob
October 22 The Fillmore thefillmoredetroit.com
3rd Annual Sustainable Detroit Forum 2019
October 23 TCF Center, Detroit Tickets at eventbrite.com
October 25–26 Detroit Writing Room Tickets at eventbrite.com
CMCP Harvest Festival 2019
October 25–27 885 N Wyman Rd, Remus Tickets at eventbrite.com
9th Annual Vanguard Award, Detroit Young Professionals October 31 Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Center dypvanguardawards.org
Haunted Detroit Bicycle Tour
October 30–31 Wheelhouse Detroit Bike Shop wheelhousedetroit.com
Youmacon Anime Festival
October 31–November 3 TCF Center and Renaissance Center youmacon.com
Michigan Brewers Guild 11th Annual Detroit Fall Beer Up your cosplay Festival game for the grand
October 25, Eastern Market Tickets at eventbrite.com
gathering of anime fans of all ages. Don’t miss the “Live Action Mario Party.”
O CTO BER 2019
S E N S IM AG.CO M
49
THE END
LOREM IPSUM Bus quiandant. Nis prempor porestiur molestrum vit andandit quunto tem sumenducium ipis alit aut exped quia cum imporep eliciet audam renit, culparibus eaquat ute
Perfect Game Itʼs football season. So letʼs go fowling, dude.
XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX
TEXT CHEZ CHESAK
XXXXXXXX
Bring the Lions to the lanes and you get fowling. Unlike bowling, where a heavy ball slams into pins on the same plane, the significantly lighter football sails in at a high angle, making it harder to upend the pins. The rules are simple: Teams stand 48 feet from 10 pins and take turns slinging a regulation football to knock ’em down. The first team to do so wins. The hybrid sport began in 2001 when Detroit native Chris Hutt wanted to bring bowling to the INDYCAR tailgating scene. He and his buddies set up a lane in the parking lot, but their backstop failed and their bowling ball almost careened into bystanders. Later, when they started throwing a football and it smashed into the pins, it hit him: fowling! Thirteen years later, Hutt opened the first 35,000-square-foot Fowling Warehouse, with three Lorem ipsum quam que dolor res. in Grand bars inside and 120 brews on tap. Locations Rapids and Cincinnati, Ohio, soon followed.
Headline Goes Here TEXT AUTHOR A. PERSON
Lorem Ipsum quam que dolor res. Footer info website.com
50 D E T RO I T
O CTOBE R 2019
FOWLING WAREHOUSE 3901 Christopher St, Hamtramck fowlingwarehouse.com
For thousands of years, people have been cultivating therapeutic-use cannabis with the formula,
SEEDS + LIGHT + WATER We wouldn’t change a thing.
Introducing THE FINEST POSSIBLE ALL-NATURAL CANNABIS CULTIVATION, PROCESSING, AND PROVISIONING Provisioning centers opening throughout Michigan 2019 & 2020, including:
MyGLNR.com // @MyGLNR