(upbeat music) - What a wonderful idea.

Tell us where you came up with this.

- So it's been brewing for about, really and truly, my entire career, to be honest.

(laughing) - Yeah.

(laughing) - Yeah, and I've worked, you know, at various museums, you know, over the last 11 years.

I came home in '23, primarily because my mother and my aunt are aging and need handlers, right?

- A lot of that going on, right?

(Kelli laughing) Yeah.

- And I worked at the Wright for about six or seven months.

And while there doing oral histories of so many of the older artists in the city, and, you know, having those conversations.

You know, it would come up all the time.

"Kelli, can you help me catalog?"

or, "Do you know anybody that can help me digitize?"

So by the time, you know, five, six people ask, I was like, "Huh."

- (laughing) There's an unmet need here, right?

- Right, you know, you know, there's something here.

And I said, "I have a wide-enough network nationally, I said, "I think I can get it off the ground."

And so I went to Neil and I was like, "I love you dearly, right?"

(both laughing) "But I'm gonna."

- Neil at the museum, right?

- Yeah, I said, "I'm gonna try to do this."

And he was just like, "Okay."

And so we are a little under, you know, a year old.

And it's tough, you know, but we're trudging along.

- And the idea of course is not just to archive, but I would imagine to commemorate and celebrate in some way all of this material that, you know, we've created here.

I mean, there's something about Detroit and our history that I think distinguishes us in some ways- - Very much so.

- from other places in terms of the people who are here and what they've done.

- Yeah, very much so.

You know, I call it like a professional genealogy.

(Stephen laughing) You know, so the way people like Dr. Cleve Taylor or, you know, Marian Stevens went into the schools, you know, and just created this demographic, like this critical mass of people who were also doing really well, in the arts, you know, across the different mediums.

And I kept getting conversations, or not conversations, questions, you know, requests.

You know, Dr. Morgan, you know, I'm looking up, you know, this particular artist who was working in Detroit, you know, in 1957.

And either the Wright had a very small file, right, or no file at all.

Nothing at the Bentley, nothing at DIA.

And then the more I talked to Ms. Woodson and the more I talked to other artists, I was like, "Oh, the work or the archives, like the evidence, primary sources, (laughing) right, are in these storage units, you know, are in people's homes," which would make sense, you know, 'cause people are still alive.

And so I said, "Well, how can, you know, I create something that actually like delineates that out, you know, where people can actually trace these professional ancestors?"

- Sure, right.

What do you imagine is the end product here?

- Sure.

- Where does it live and is it something that just ordinary people will be able to access?

- Yes, yes.

So we're in the process of building a very robust website that will actually integrate the database.

So anybody.

- So you'll just be able to look online?

- Yes, we'll be able to search it.

We do want a building, (laughing) you know?

- Yeah?

(laughing) - Yeah, we're thinking of doing a capital campaign next year, 'cause I have my eye on a couple of buildings around the city.

- That might work.

- Yeah.

You know, 'cause right now, what we're doing is really taking our skillset and the framework, you know, to people with archives.

When we are contacted with people who have archives that aren't necessarily, you know, in the proper storage space, you know, then I just kind of direct them to the right places that they can get it stored.

But hopefully, you know, it will be, you know, a physical repository where people can actually come, you know, and see the materials themselves.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm really curious about the interactions with the artists, to try to help them organize these things, or maybe in some cases they are organized, I guess.

But just that moment of discovery of the value and the importance of what they have, I think, has gotta be really cool.

- Yeah, they know.

(Kelli laughing) - Yeah, they already know, right?

(laughing) - They super knew, Stephen.

They already know.

A really good example I can use is I see our partner Ali Wheeler and Alima Wheeler Trapp.

They're the stewards of the Black Canon.

And they are the children of James Wheeler, you know, who was a, you know, very well known activist, historian.

And it's so interesting because they're totally aware, you know, again, of how important the collection is.

But there are certain things that, you know, their dad had that they're just like, "That's just junk."

(Stephen laughing) And I'm like, "Don't throw that away."

- "No, no, no, no, no."

- Right?

(laughing) (Stephen laughing) You know, 'cause they're trying to refine it so that their kids, you know, aren't kind of overwhelmed with it.

They're like, "We gotta get this stuff in order."

And I was like, "Don't throw that away."

So there was like this old tobacco can, right, for instance.

And Alima was just like, "That's Dad's old, you know, that doesn't," and I was like, "No, it gives people a sense, you know, of like who he was."

And she was just like, "Whatever, Kelli."

(both laughing) And so it's so interesting to have those kinds of conversations, you know, in the Black Canon case, with descendants, you know?

But then there's, you know, we've been in conversation with Shirley Woodson and Senghor Reid, you know, about some of Mrs. Woodson's archive.

And actually we were talking just yesterday, you know, and Senghor was like, "I got four boxes, you know, just of photographs, you know?"

And I said, "We can digitize them."

- Yeah, no, right, right.

- (laughing) Yeah.

And I said, "And we can, you know, name it, you know, in honor of his father, you know, Edsel Reid, and people can just look through," 'cause a lot of times you see, like in the Black Canon collection, the candid photography, which has been really cool.

Mr. Wheeler was an actor in Concept East.

So they're, you know, again, candid photographs of some of the performances, with Dr. Wright's Mobile Museum, you know, right there.

- Oh, you're kidding?

- Yeah, it's like, it's so amazing.

- Wow.

Wow.

- Yeah.

And so Alima and I, I mean, it's been slow, 'cause we have other things, but we're gonna work on a show of that photography, you know, to really explain, to your point earlier, you know, how often Detroit artists were working, you know, across genre, across medium.

- And with each other, right?

(Kelli laughing) - Yes, in neighborhoods, yeah.

- Yeah.

All of this came out of a community, not just individuals.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.