I was honored when Chris Schneider asked me to curate Hatchback 14. It was, if you will, my maiden voyage as a juror – I’d never had a whack at it before, and relished the opportunity, particularly for an enterprise I admire as much as Hatch.

A few words about me: Critics who come out of the art-historical tradition might well lay down incisive, thoughtful criteria for judging this sort of show, based on long-established aesthetic laws well known to the cognoscenti.

I am not one of those critics. An art writer by vocation, not training, I try to be thoughtful, but mostly rely on instinct. At my shallowest, I confess I sometimes just want to have fun. That said, stunning craftsmanship grabs me by the collar, and I like to think I’m a helpless sucker for out-and-out beauty.

Of which there’s a fair share in Hatchback 14 -- as well as spirited detours into the creepy and clever, the absurd, the unexpected, the original and downright funny. I have to say I was very happy not to have been asked to pick winners among the 50. That would have been daunting.

You could tease out any number of trends among the submissions, but portraiture, to take but one example, was a strength, whether in painting, sculpture or ceramics. Library Patron shows marvelous technique, but my first delighted reaction was to laugh out loud.

The woman in the clay bust, Social Distance / Socially Distant, stares out at us with real-world apprehension, surrounded by a field of broken glass. By contrast, the wood-and-metal construction Under His Eye is just this side of shocking, with a single bloodshot eye grabbing attention like the only light in a room.

Names of submitting artists, of course, were hidden from me, but I was pleased with both the range and quality of what I had to work with. Detroit’s emergence as a 21st-century arts hotspot has been one of the most unexpected and marvelous developments of the past 10-15 years, and exhibitions like Hatchback 14 just underline that swelling of local talent.

Michael H. Hodges, The Detroit News
Hatchback 14 Juror

Michael H. Hodges covers the fine arts for The Detroit News, where he's worked since 1991. He is also an author, winning First Place for Biography in the Midwest Book Awards for “Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit”.