Hello, and thanks for your interest in APLAUDD! I'm Vince Cavasin, the President and CEO of APLAUDD, and the keeper of this site.
I have been working with and advising my friend of 18 years, the Detroit artist Matthew Davis (if you're not familiar with Matthew's work, please visit www.mldavis.com) since September 2003. My work background is in management consulting, and I have a fair amount of experience in marketing strategy and eBusiness strategy. In a nutshell, I have spent most of my career helping large corporations understand the needs of their customers, design products that fit those needs, and present those products on various channels (including the web) so that their customers could make informed decisions as to whether the products are worth purchasing or not.
I wanted to apply this experience to helping Matthew because I have known for a long time that he is a talented artist, and I wanted to help him find a way to work with the City of Detroit to, at the very least, create a safe home for his sculptures--which have touched the lives of literally thousands of Belle Isle visitors, and which (to counter the city's main complaint) are far less "dangerous" than the decaying buildings that dot the city's landscape--buildings with which the city government seems utterly unconcerned. Of course, if a healthy dialog could be achieved between public artists like Matthew and the city, a way could certainly be found for public art to be created in an environment where even more people could have their lives enriched by it, and where it was erected in such a way as to allay the fears of even the most paranoid city manager.
I soon discovered that this vision of a healthy dialog was going to be tough to fulfill. To my literally dozens of emails and phonecalls to various City offices over the last few months, I have only once received a reply, and the main message of this conversation was that I should contact a certain department--one of the ones that won't return my calls.
This experience led me to believe that the artists and art lovers of Detroit must take action if we are ever going to get a voice in the city government.
This is how APLAUDD was born.
Interested in helping? email us!
Copyright © 2004 Vince Cavasin and APLAUDD: Art for Public Life And Urban Development in Detroit. All rights reserved.