Michigan Theatre, 2013

Philip Jarmain grew up near London, Ontario, with part of his childhood spent in Switzerland and Ireland. There were also many family trips to Mexico. His mother is a textile artist and fathers an entrepreneur. A childhood love of storytelling led to early fascination with film, photography and cameras. dShort dramas shot with an 8 mm wind-up camera were a passion. Later, his training was in film (Vancouver Film School), and for some years he worked in lighting for feature films and episodic television, and after that as stills photographer for film.

While establishing himself as a full time artist in photography, Jarmain supports himself as a commercial photographer specializing in conceptual advertising, based in Vancouver, where he lives, and Toronto. In this area he is a recipient of multiple Lürzers Archive and Communication Arts awards as well as other international honors.

Detroit’s Michigan Theatre is widely known for its haunting mutilation from world class movie palace to an elaborate and faded parking garage. Ironically the site of the Michigan Theatre has major automotive history attached. A Michigan Historic Site tablet is affixed to the building, describing the site where young Henry Ford worked on his quadricycle in 1896, having to break down a wall of the structure to get it out onto the streets. 30 years later, the Michigan Theatre and Michigan Building opened on the site, providing the finest entertainment and ten-stories of world-class offices to the world. The theatre was sold out on opening night, with ushers trained at West Pointe guiding patrons up the marble stairs, past European antiques and into one of the 4,000 seats. Rapp & Rapp of Chicago designed the French Renaissance styled structure, complete with the finest furnishings and cherubs in the plaster work. One of the largest Wurlitzer organs built had its home in the Michigan, which also boasted its own house orchestra. What was known as one of the finest theatres in the city of Detroit screened movies until it started a decline in the late 60s, parallel with the city and downtown decline. Many operators attempted to run the large palace, failing to attract more than a mere few hundred to the thousands of seats. By the mid 1970s, a dinner theatre was tried, and finally in 1976 rock concerts took over the theatre, known as the “Michigan Palace.” Rockers descended on the worn yet elegant interior to rock out to Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult, David Bowie, and others. Within a year the interior was trashed, and ran to the ground. In 1977 the current owners of the building turned the luxurious theatre into a three-level parking garage, leaving what they could as a cost saving move.