the makerspace

Ulysses ‘Babu’ Newkirk II is a Detroit-based teaching artist, community builder, and the Creative Director for the imagINe nation.
His “Babu” persona, his work blends technical education with a deep commitment to community stewardship.
Professional Background
- Day Job: By day, Ulysses works as a typesetter and prepress operator at Red Door Digital, a graphic communications service located in the center of Detroit, Michigan.
- Creative Director: In his spare time, he serves as the Creative Director for the imagINe nation, spearheading educational programs centered around “Motion Picture Studio Services” and “Technical Theater”.
- Diverse Practice: His wide-ranging professional practice includes roles as a Co-Curator, First Assistant Gallery Director, Build Team Consultant, Music and Cultural Historical Research Assistant, Graphic Designer, and Website Designer/Administrator. He also serves on the boards of several community organizations.
Community Ministry and “Art as Activism”
- The “Nerd Buffer”: Since the early 2000s, Ulysses has viewed his work as a “ministry” focused on caring for professional “Care Givers”. He describes himself as a “Nerd buffer” who acts as a charismatic intermediary between people of social affluence and the individuals who make the technology and 3D designs they rely on.
- Youth Education: He teaches his philosophy of “Art as Activism” in after-school and summer youth programs, shifting the focus of education from passive consumption to active creation.
- The Village Grandpa: He embraces the honor and responsibility of being a “village grandpa figure” in several Detroit communities, a title that heavily influences the mentorship model of his curriculum.
Infrastructure and Volunteer Work
- Equitable Internet Initiative: Ulysses works extensively with North End Detroit’s Equitable Internet Initiative, where his focus is on building and caring for community-driven communication infrastructure. This work directly influences his curriculum, particularly in teaching digital literacy and the “Right to Communicate”.
- 4H Club: He is also an active 4H Club Gold Volunteer.
- Community Communication: He frequently authors posts on local community platforms, such as the North End Grapevine i/o, to promote events like “Bubble day” and his 16-week “Learn the Art of Prompt Craft” program.
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imagINe a place for generations to collaboratively imagine
Tinkerlabs l3c
4 min read
1 year ago
Come by and tell me all the things you feel like we should do with the space
1 year ago
See Anya,
I warned you
You are not a master builder and
we were not your laboratory and
You didn't bring your 'A' Game!
You didn't do your homework: starting with Bobby Kennedy visited the North End and John Lee Hooker played at the Apex.
You bad mouthed the Great Hall of the People.
You don't know the people I've catered to and
you really don't care about the people I serve.
And you never understood the people that have spent time in my living room.
You left us to babysit your *Furniture to decorate his parties and photo ops. We were never his Observatoire ou Bureau de l'urbanité émergente. And the space capsule never levitated
Yes, Detroit community leaders have pimped art funders with underhand softball main gauche slider pitches for petty pools of cash like an eighties Janet song longer than you've been on this continent.
Yes! You got the people I've worked with and for paid to come to the block and do what they do everywhere else in the world.
But you're a talented decorator
Your children and your colleges learned and your students developed practices of their own, have become valued members of our communities, and have provided beneficial change to our neighborhoods
I don't know if you've noticed, but many of them are short and myopic women, they're focus is, was and always will be sustaining the geography for the next stretch of…
Wha'cha got now? I gotta lotta people now.
Hard for a guy my height to stand straight up under their ceilings.
But, your behaviour was typical of everyone in your ilk that has sought to install themselves and
impose their artistic expression on the Oakland Avenue Art Corridor and it's community of neighborhoods.
And your article is typical of an individual coming to the block to make a mark for themselves with the least actual investment in the geography humanly possible.
I mean honestly, who really wants to leave their creative legacy there? With those people and that pompous old Russian bear the Great Hall of the People of his Potemkin village, and his difficult negro Goy, that wants to build a basilica out of trash, always reminding you that
Fractals are a functional African aesthetic
I know your process is toxic.
But you might teach it.
"I'm your missing puzzle piece.
I'm your "Why?"
I love you jessica
NOT YOUR EXE, Sis.
Yes. I'm a horrible example of a Black Man who says, "I'm a horrible Christian." I'm the President of the haters club.
We don't hate people. But things they do can be ridiculous.
We clean up after the parties and we talk about what we find.
Carnival art is architecture, props can be art.
But compromising your craft, so that you could make party art to make some money, because your can write is an okay hustle.
But, unless you design things to be taken down and reused. It's just bad party art. It ain't architecture or urban design. And it's a really week social statement.
The people who wanted to work with you inside those timelines have gone on to complete more permanent projects in their guidelines and timeline.
Some of those projects are in the North end.
Others projects are ongoing and have expanded into growing inwardly focus business hubs and international destinations
The people representing the communities you worked in believed your abilities and connections would have produced something better than the shiny things you left behind and they held you to expectations outside your best abilities.
That's typical of them. Those same people are so reductive in terms of what they're own communities of creative crafters are allowed to express that the results are rarely worth a signature, let alone space in a portfolio.
Everybody else gotta be paid before they go on or at the end of the night.
Long ago , he told me himself, "I just want to take good pictures and be paid."
He'd have to pay me to say his name. He often left things in worse condition that he found them.
Thank you for explaining why you did what you did.
Let me know if you'd like to bring your talents and abilities to the table
https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/the-gift/595935/contradictions-of-a-benevolent-city/
1 year ago
Soulever
French verb meaning to raise, to lift up, to pick up
Page 8
Monetization / Programming
End of document
New verb
Témoin-nous
2 years ago
While I pray and
hope.
I do what normal people call work
But it's a kind of rest for me
2 years ago
I'm gonna follow
My heart, and if you follow the charts, to the plaques or the stacks
You ain't gotta guess who's back, you see
Red Door Digital
5 years ago
Who do you turn to for the best design and print team in the city? We have been serving clients for over 30 years. Give us a call.
5 years ago
We like Sacramento Knoxx too. He's been doing good work for the community in SW and elsewhere.
6 years ago
So, I'm looking for candidates to direct the department of, See! Wha'chu aughta do is
8 years ago
Site Down.
Red Door's website is down for the moment.
Look forward to a new, more secure, easier to use site with a lot of new great products and services.
Because some evil subhuman being keeps attacking our host site.
Please email us at ulysses@reddoordigital.com for quotes and pricing.
Thanks
Ulysses
11 years ago
Participating in the OAAC e.Commerce Management workshop as part of the O.N.E. Mile project.
11 years ago
Red Door Digital's phone and internet is down for repairs to external cable network. We humbly apologize for not being able to talk with you.
12 years ago
Coming soon: digital direct to garment and screen printing to our list of services



