Nine stories tall on the side of the Chroma Building, artist Sydney G. James’ Girl with the D Earring watches over Detroit’s North End. The towering mural serves as the unofficial flag of a neighborhood that James has spent years turning into an outdoor gallery.
“I’m connected to the North End because I love the people, and that’s where the first years of BLKOUT Walls are,” says James, who co-founded the mural festival with Thomas “Detour” Evans and Max Sansing in 2021 to give a canvas to Detroit’s multitude of Black artists and help their work shape the city. “All people need is opportunity and space,” she says.
“The pieces are curated to reflect the souls of the city and the spirit of the city,” the co-founder explains. “We want the work to be intentional. We even give the artists themes, like ‘beautiful resistance,’ and then give them information about the area that they’re painting. Because all of that should matter.” BLKOUT Walls returns to Detroit in September 2027 with a theme yet to be revealed and new artists ready to paint the town to match its vibrancy.
See street art in the North End
The North End sits along the Woodward Avenue corridor a couple of miles north of the famed Detroit Institute of Arts, which houses one of the largest collections of Dutch Golden Age art outside the Netherlands. James’ favorite North End mural is also her most famous. A clever Detroit reimagining of an iconic Dutch painting, her Girl with the D Earring remakes Vermeer’s classic Girl with a Pearl Earring by depicting a Black woman with the gothic “D” logo of the Detroit Tigers hanging from her earlobe instead of a pearl. Patches on her shirt bear the names of Black-owned businesses, including Apex Bar and Angie’s barbershop.
“I try to be clever and low-key educational,” the 2017 Kresge Artist Fellow says. “With Girl with the D Earring, it’s a simple composition because you want to capture people’s attention. Ten seconds is the expectancy of the viewership.”
It’s fitting that James’ signature mural references the era in Dutch painting when open-air art markets flourished. Girl with the D Earring exemplifies how the BLKOUT Walls festival has transformed Detroit’s North End (and beyond) into an outdoor art hub by the people and for the people.
“I have work in museums, I have gallery showings and exhibitions,” James says. “But what keeps me outside is that art can feel so elitist and exclusionary, and I want people to feel like, ‘This [art] is mine, this belongs to me.’ We really do curate BLKOUT Walls artists … to reflect the community.”
Walking the North End and viewing her works proves this idea. James proposes a trip between late spring and early fall, when an abundance of cultural festivals turns every weekend into an extravaganza, capped by the BLKOUT Walls festival each September of odd-numbered years. After setting eyes on Girl with the D Earring, swing by her untitled mural at Baltimore and Brush, showing the evolution from boyhood to adulthood.
Then head to Oakland Avenue to view her Yolanda Williams piece, which portrays a local business leader with her eyes on the future, the past etched into her apparel. Matriarchy, the artist’s collaborative mural with her mentee, Bakpak Durden, stands like a sentinel near King Street and Oakland Avenue, a tribute to all mother figures, including her own, with roses representing the children.
A few blocks west on Woodward Avenue, James painted a lunch line on the side of the Turkey Grill in her 2021 mural Let Me Get Umm…, a collaboration with another mentee, Ijania Cortez. The people in the piece, representing the everyday Black men of Detroit, are her partner and her nephews.
The artwork becomes especially poignant when you consider the historic significance of what happened directly across the street. There, you’ll find a historical plaque—dedicated three years after James completed the mural—which commemorates the spot where the killing of three Black teenagers became one of the defining horrors of the 1967 riots. Today, it’s a quiet public park.
If time allows, a short drive north into Highland Park is worth the trip for James’ mural honoring Detroiter Malice Green, a 1992 victim of police brutality. Loop back to Kiesling on Milwaukee Avenue for another portrait of modern Black manhood through the lens of the Motor City, James’ homage to the Detroit Pistons, Path of Giants. She recommends stepping inside to experience the bar in the 19th-century building, which has been a saloon since the 1890s.
Where to eat, drink, and shop in the North End
James’ murals and the other BLKOUT Walls in the North End lend a creative vibe to an area filled with distinctive shops and restaurants. Grab breakfast or brunch at See You Tomorrow and try James’ go-to order of fried chicken and broasted potatoes seasoned with truffle, garlic, and rosemary.
For lighter fare, try the coffee shop Café Noir near Brush Street before you shop at Vault of Midnight for a well-edited selection of comics and gaming items. The shop is a James favorite.
Enjoy the shade of the trees as well as the picnic tables and other amenities in Delores Bennett Park. When your thoughts turn back to food, James recommends Supino Pizzeria on Woodward or the Kitchen by Cooking with Que (practically next door) for vegan-friendly options.
Where to stay in downtown Detroit
The interior of Book Tower
Courtesy of Visit Detroit/Sara Srinivasan
“A beautiful thing about Detroit is that nothing is more than 15 minutes apart,” James says. For a place to stay, a hotel downtown puts you a short drive from most places you’ll want to visit.
James suggests Shinola Hotel or Hotel Indigo, which reopened in 2020 after a $10 million art-infused renovation and is where visiting BLKOUT Walls artists stay. “The first painting you see as soon as you enter is my work, hands playing instruments,” she says.
The historic Book Tower Hotel is another James choice. A visit to the second floor reveals her 2019 painting Maya, Ode to Sweet Thang, which riffs on Barkley L. Hendricks’ famous 1975 painting Sweet Thang (Lynn Jenkins) by reimagining it with her own close friend as the subject, surrounded by the spirit of poet Maya Angelou.
James’ latest work celebrates childhood joy, painted on the ventilation tower of the tunnel connecting Michigan and Canada at the Detroit River waterfront in the new Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Centennial Park. The 22-acre park also features playgrounds, water gardens, sports fields, and walking paths.
Where to eat and drink in Conant Gardens
James made her mark on the North End, but another area shaped her formative years. “[Conant Gardens] was the first neighborhood in Detroit where Black people could buy and build and own their own homes,” the painter says.
Her grandfather was living in the North End when a landlord helped him buy a place in Conant Gardens, and her own father helped lay the bricks of the house she grew up in when he was 12. It was also where celebrated artist Halima Afi Cassells started the community garden that inspired James to experiment with outdoor art.
Lafayette Coney Island
Photo by Sylvia Jarrus/Afar
James enthusiastically suggests a visit to Conant Gardens for a taste of Detroit. The original Buddy’s Pizza “has a very strong bar,” she says. Taylor Made Burgers is “10 out of 10,” and she recommends the grilled shrimp and potato bowls.
“The Detroit thing you have to do is go to a Coney Island,” James says, referring to diners in Detroit named by the Greek and Macedonian immigrants behind them who were inspired by Coney Island. At Nevada Coney Island, she advises getting a chicken pita or quesadilla. While you’re there, check out her Waajeed mural—a portrait of the local hip-hop and techno legend—nearby at the corner of Ryan and Hildale.
Conant Gardens, like so many other neighborhoods here, reflects the city’s diversity and resilience. “In Detroit, we are confident people,” says James. “We are children of the South. We can get it done.”
