Flint wheat weaver makes big investment to save treasured grain for an ancient art
By Dylan Doherty In the spring of 2015, Melissa Ruboyianes of Flint got a life-changing e-mail. She learned that Dennis and Sharon Hanson, owners of Black Beard’s wheat farm in Turtle Lake, North Dakota, were retiring after 35 years in the wheat business. Ruboyianes, 58, a craftswoman in the ancient art of wheat weaving and co-owner for the past 30 years of a Flint-based wheat weaving craft company, despaired. Black Beard wheat was a...
“Flint Fit” project to combine water bottles, art, fashion and jobs
By Patsy Isenberg Flint Fit, a creative project to recycle Flint water bottles and turn them into fabric for rainwear and swimwear, kicked off last week at Flint’s St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center. The project brings together Flint seamstresses, a fashion designer, a New York museum director, and a conceptual artist. The artist, Mel Chin of New York City, explained the initial concept of “taking something empty and creating something that...
Former Mott Park golf course tees off to new life with neighborhood energy, disc golf
By Teddy Robertson On this wet, gray evening in mid-October, the 55-degree air feels colder after several days of balmy October sunshine. Beneath the dripping trees at the former Mott Park Municipal Golf Course, closed since 2009, the parking lot—surprisingly—is two-thirds full. Inside the old golf clubhouse, its windows protected by blue-painted plywood, board members of the Mott Park Recreation Area Association (MPRAA)...
“Where are the journalists?” Part Two: Capturing the heart of the community
By Harold C. Ford This three-part series aims to explore, analyze and lament how many forces challenging the Fourth Estate are playing out in our own community – specifically in a close look at changes in The Flint Journal, now dwindled to a local staff of fewer than 10 people, and subsumed by M-Live Media Group and Advance Publications, its corporate owner. We contend that as the whole of journalism struggles, its troubles triggered...
East Village Magazine – November 2017
The latest issue of the East Village Magazine is available for download here: