It’s simple as that. What are you doing right now? What are you doing when nobody is watching? That, my friend, answers the question of what you are to become. I was reminded of this last week when I met a most extraordinary man.
For over 30 years, Tyree Guyton has been creating his future and inspiring thousands of people a year by taking charge and filling voids with beauty.
Imagine the sadness while you sit and watch your home, your neighborhood, your hometown fall to the corrosion of neglect. In the Black Bottom neighborhood of Detroit on Heidelberg Street, Mr. Guyton was faced with this scenario. His boyhood neighborhood was suffering from urban blight like so many other places across the USA.
Tyree returned to his home in 1986 to find it riddled with drugs and deepening poverty. Having lost three brothers to the streets, he was encouraged by his grandfather to turn to art instead of violence. Together with the help of neighborhood children, they slowly reclaimed their community. Lot by lot, they cleaned and repurposed what they found, creating a living, dynamic art installation that is visited by over 275,000 people annually. The Heidelberg Project was born.
As I got up to leave after our short visit, Tyree asked me to complete a sentence. “If you don’t see beauty…”. I hesitated. He said: “Create it.” Sometimes the simplest messages mean the most. Apply this to every minute of every day. If you don’t see something, create it, make it, conceive it, visualize it, do it. If it’s not in your hand, it’s not in your future.
The HP Mission and Vision
"Our Mission
The Heidelberg Project (“HP”) is an outdoor art environment in the heart of an urban area and a Detroit based community organization with a mission to improve the lives of people and neighborhoods through art.
Our Vision
The theory of change for the Heidelberg Project begins with the belief that all citizens, from all cultures, have the right to grow and flourish in their communities. The HP believes that a community can re-develop and sustain itself, from the inside out, by embracing its diverse cultures and artistic attributes as the essential building blocks for a fulfilling and economically viable way of life.”
https://www.heidelberg.org
https://www.tyreeguyton.com
