Creativity, camaraderie, authenticity, and a village of support crafted with intention — that’s just some of what you’ll get walking into Art Night Detroit.
Not only is art important for communities, but having a community is important for artists. Local artists are provided one through this event, described by its founder as “a trio of networking, creative work time, and a club-esque setting.” The event has grown from a private house hangout between friends to a community experience.
The event’s magical feeling is cultivated through dim lighting, not-too-loud music, unique spaces, emerging local artists, and the brain behind it all – Detroit-based artist, graphic designer, DJ, and producer Nathan Karinen.
In 2018, Karinen began hosting Art Night as a way to keep in touch with friends who all met in the same house and were moving apart. At the time, it was invite-only, usually around 10-15 people, and took place at Karinen’s own home.
The event always happened on a Wednesday then, and it continues to do so.
Starting in January, Art Night Detroit has been open to the public at various venues across the city, averaging around 100 people in attendance each time. Karinen’s simple yet powerful vision has flourished, granting local artists of all sorts a consistent collaborative networking environment, promotion engine, workspace, and overall fun time.
“I try to get a lot of influential people in one place and make it easier to meet the kind of people that you might want to meet as a creative in the city,” Karinen says. “It’s a change of pace, where there’s live music, but it’s not about the drugs, it’s not about staying out all night… It’s about coming together as a community to have time to work on your creative passions, to share whatever your creative passions are, and just have an enjoyable evening with your peoples.”
To the founder, art, in all of its forms, is the “spice of life.”
So each Art Night, he curates a refreshingly distinct setting at a different Detroit venue, gathering multiple visual artists with unique styles, a lineup of DJs with varying sounds, and sometimes, an upcoming food pop-up.
Some of the most recent spots to host Art Night include Indian gastropub Midnight Temple, warehouse nightclub Big Pink, retail studio space Extra Crispy Studios, and the Hamtramck bar New Dodge Lounge. For the first three months of taking it public, Art Night happened every week, and Karinen would hastily find last-minute places to host; since that was a little too much chaos, the event now happens every other week, sometimes more often if special opportunities arise.
Karinen says his goal with Art Night is to create something that he wished he had when he was a new artist in Detroit, and putting a spotlight on all of the talented people he’s met along his journey is a huge piece of that. So, before each Art Night, he makes an Instagram post tagging any new featured artists or venue that week, to allow people to get to know them and what they do.
“It feels good to promote my friends and be able to create a platform for the people that I like to spend my time with,” Karinen says. “It's good to just kind of highlight all these different facets of creativity and make something happen for other people while also helping grow my own thing. It’s kind of a symbiotic relationship in that way where it’s like I’m helping others and also helping myself at the same time.”
Sometimes, people’s way of expression is playing chess or ping pong, writing, coding, or pursuing another creative passion, and Karinen says he doesn’t like to be strict about it.
“It makes us, as the artists feel really good and supported, which gives us more motivation and passion to keep going,” says Mia Gale, a recently featured artist known for her clothing brand Freakscape. “What Nathan’s doing is just so amazing… As long as Nathan gets to be upheld as a beautiful human, that’s all I care about.”
Gale feels that the array of unique ways people express their creative passions at Art Night demonstrates the “diversity of humans.” This variety of art is what makes it so important for communities.
“I feel like art is everything, art is the food, the music, the pictures, the people, everything is art in its own capacity,” says Daniel Geanes, a Detroit painter who was also featured recently.
Geanes, whose artist name is Eccentric Danny, first met Karinen through Detroit sculptor Austen Brantley and was invited to the house party event before Art Night was public. Now, both Geanes and Brantley continue to come out and support the community effort.
“I just love to create,” Geanes says. “I’m gaining the specific attention that a featured artist gets, that’s a great feeling because it’s showing that recognition.”
Also meeting Karinen through Detroit’s art scene and attending it before it was public, Gale says she has been to some art events where it seems like the person putting it on just wants the clout of hosting, which is so far from Karinen’s goal. “He could care less if people knew it was him, I mean that’s the vibe I get from him,” Gale says. “He’s just such a gentle, sweet human. He doesn’t have much ego behind it, so you know it’s genuine and authentic.”
The multifaceted artists say they really enjoyed the intimate nature of Art Night when it was held at Karinen’s home.
“You go, and you had to take your shoes off, I love that, it’s just very homey, makes you feel very comfortable and welcome,” Gale says. “I love what he’s been doing now but I would also love it to be in a home again.”
While the event is no longer invite-only, and Karinen says he has “lost complete control” of who attends, Art Night is mostly word-of-mouth, and not using traditional marketing has helped keep the right people there, he says.
“People bring people that they think will be genuinely interested in the event, so that creates a community of people that are all there for the right reason,” Karinen says. “I don’t necessarily want just anyone, so it’s nice that people are bringing people that care.”
One core component of Art Night is the community drawing sessions, which gives people of all levels a chance to create some type of art.
“I try to get everybody that comes to work on a group drawing together, even if it’s just a scribble,” Karinen says. “It gives a chance for more experienced artists to show off a little bit, and it gives art-averse people a chance to do at least a little bit of visual art so they can’t skate by just hanging out and having drinks and socializing.”
The visual artists are only one piece of the Art Night puzzle. Another is the music. While some people love the techno, house vibe, some are more into other types of music.
DJ Palmwine has been a part of the event’s music lineup a few times and mainly plays R&B, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. He also met Karinen through a mutual friend and was invited to spin at his home, close to the time when he first began DJing about a year and a half ago.
“Incorporating art and music into [spaces] makes it more inclusive and opens it up to different interpretations of what community is and what it can look like,” DJ Palmwine says. “When folks come, they may not have gone to that specific space or went to see that specific artist… so it kind of shows the interconnectedness.”
While he’s always had friends in music, DJ Palmwine says he never saw himself as a “creative,” but that Karinen helps foster a motivating environment to express yourself in your own way.
“Specifically as a DJ, a lot of times it’s very gatekeep-y and I think Nate does a great job of not succumbing to that and giving folks opportunities who may not have otherwise had [one],” DJ Palmwine says. “With my social work background, I saw the importance of gathering community and bringing folks together. I started DJing as a tool to do that more informally, curating a space where folks felt comfortable and setting that vibe with music.”
Karinen hopes to add to the event’s success with new additions such as yoga, painting and graphic design contests, production and vocal competitions, and photography showcases.
“It's getting to a point where it’s been smooth sailing, and it’s been really good, but I want to keep adding new programming and there’s kind of an unlimited nature to it,” Karinen says.
Looking forward, he hopes to make Art Night into a nonprofit and do more community activities for all ages, as well as making a for-profit music production company for the nightlife side of things.
“I could see us being at the [Monroe Street] Midway and having an all-ages event, doing sidewalk chalk and kind of having it be accessible,” Karinen says. “I’d like to take it in a community service route as it continues to grow and start to take the beneficial properties of it and really continue to expand that beyond what we’re doing already.”
Karinen is happy he has been able to foster a space for people to express themselves authentically.
“A lot of people have this creative urge where if it’s not satisfied, it feels like you’re missing something,” Karinen says. “Art is a little piece of you, it’s part of your subconscious conscious mind that you’re putting onto paper, so it’s kind of like your own little gift to the world, so it’s really nice to be able to give people a spot to show that.”
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