The Raven Café has added a new beast to its collection, and it will furiously protect your bicycle while you’re inside.

Crafted by Detroit-born, Algonac-raised Port Huron native Warren Doss, this bike rack is a mixed-media piece that combines re-purposed metal, butter knives, a motorcycle tank, copper tubing, sheet metal mig-welded, silver-soldered and braised together. The driftwood that this monster of a bird is perched on was found at Marysville Beach. Doss burned it with a torch, sanded and stained it, and finally coated it with shellac.

Most days Doss can be found at Delta Industrial of Chesterfield, where he’s worked on and off since 1996. He was introduced to the welding industry by his older brother Dave. While having earned a great deal of welding experience at Delta Industrial, Doss feels he’s plateaued and now applies that knowledge to his fine art creations. He hopes to eventually make the transition to full-time artist, however he doesn’t feel comfortable calling himself that until he can dedicate the time and energy that the title deserves.

While on the topic of Doss’s art, he also has a large painted piece on display at the Raven. Doss describes his art as “spontaneous.” Paint is his preferred medium because it lends itself to conveying his ideas quickly. He is most creative early in the morning and late in the evening “when the rest of the world is asleep.” Doss is participating in an art show at The Loft Fine Art Gallery in Mount Clemens with a group of 5-7 artist, dubbed “The Creative Coalition.”

In 2002 Doss attended the Recording Institute of Detroit, where he received certificates in recording engineering with a producer credit. He uses these skills in his music project “White & Wong” with his friend and brother-in-law Chris Becker, whom he has been making music with since 2002. Near constant fixtures of this musical project, which Doss describes as spontaneous/experimental, are fellow miscreants Tim Kresevich and Pauly Zimmer.

Within Doss’s musical pursuits he is a circuit bending hobbyist. Circuit bending is the creative, chance-based customization of the circuits within electronic devices, such as low voltage battery-powered guitar effects, children’s toys and digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. When producing music, Doss often starts with a circuit-bent beat and then builds on it.

Doss apparently doesn’t sleep, as his creative endeavors don’t stop with art and music. He also writes poetry, which he describes as “therapeutic self-help.” He utilizes this form of expression to remind him of who he really is, to burst the bubble of societal norms that demand conformity. Doss says he lives in them when he has to, but it’s an uncomfortable suit he shrugs off when he can.

The Raven bike rack is located at the rear of the building, and is Doss’s largest metal project to date. He is now more receptive commission-based work after the initial positive response to the bike rack. Interested persons can e-mail him at dossmetalworks@gmail.com

If you’ve been paying attention (or haven’t been, but have ventured into the Raven on a Wednesday night) you know we show films upstairs weekly. They vary in theme and genre depending on the current season, upcoming holidays, reboots in production, anniversaries, etc.

This summer we’re doing things a little differently. To account for the longer days and the location of our screening area (directly against a window), we’re starting our movies at 7:30 p.m. instead of 7:00.

We’ll be featuring classic Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episodes. For the uninitiated it’s a comedic experience that features a dude marooned in space and forced to watch campy B movies. To maintain his sanity he builds himself some robot friends. They keep him company and provide commentary on each movie as it plays. It’s a riot!

Grab a friend (or Trumpy), a tasty beverage and come check it out. You could be doing stupider things.

June
6/14 – The Movie
6/21 – Werewolf
6/28 – Boggy Creek

July
7/5 – The Giant Spider Invasion
7/12 – SoulTaker
7/19 – Manos: Hands of Fate
7/26 – Time Chasers

August
8/2 – EEGAH!
8/9 – Final Justice
8/16 – Hobgoblin
8/23 – I Accuse My Parents
8/30 – Prince of Space

It’s National Library Week and, coincidentally, I’ve been updating our Kid’s Corner with new things inspired by our local libraries.

Weekly my children and I patronize one of our local libraries (our favorite is the St. Clair County Main Library, but occassionally you’ll find us at Marysville or G. Lynn Campbell). It’s usually for their amazing Storytimes, but even when nothing’s going on we’ll spend a few hours their perusing books, doing activities and playing with their toys.

The first shelves we visit at the library are the new and featured books, so at the Raven we rotate our children’s collections quarterly (ish) – choosing appropriate books for the proximal seasons and holidays.

Always looking for ways for my wee children to work on their fine motor skills, we love the magnetic tabletop games (found at Marysville Library), so I picked up a few of those (no pieces- parents rejoice!).

Finally, new to the kid’s corner, will be a fun lil’ wooden tea set. This one is a no-brainer for the Raven. Little people having pretend tea parties. TRES ADORBS!

When spending quality time with your little people, please consider bringing them to the Raven – it’s magical place for making magical memories.

If you haven’t visited our local libaries lately, you should! They have lots of great stuff going on. http://ebw.tv/more-than-books/

We have new artists displaying their work at the Raven. In addition, we have purchased a few new thought-provoking prints centered on social commentary. I have also pulled a few of my old dusty peaches out of the archive to hang. For me, art is like a child: I create it, I love it and then I send it out to the world.

As an ambitious young pup I was fortunate enough to be aided by members of the community to get my work out there and sold. This kindness has stayed with me and now, as a business owner with lots of expendable wall space, I love to have original art up. To pay it forward, when an artist sells work at the Raven the business does not take a commission. Only 10% goes to the employee who facilitates the selling of the piece, the rest goes to the artist.

Artists currently showing work in our Café include:

Warren Doss – Painter, welder, musician… a real renaissance man!

Carol Mason (MASON MADE) – A resident of Croswell who makes all sorts of arts and crafts (often aided by her handy husband Dean Mason), including decorated wooden boxes, candles, jewelry, wearables and so much more.

Cecil Williams – The Blue Water Area’s crown prince of stained glass, Cecil has pencil drawings on display as well. He has entire series hanging in the Raven’s upper-level balcony . The current series illustrates seminal Detroit rockers the MC5 in saint-like depiction.

Joanie Parmann Roehl – Marysville High School art teacher and resident, Joanie has been making art for many years. She along with her students are responsible for many of the gorgeous murals at Marysville High.

Lee Hillis – Marysville resident and stained glass enthusiast. Lee has been dabbling in art since high school. Over a year ago she apprenticed under Cecil Williams at Studio 1219 and fell in love with the stained glass medium.

John Henry – An AMAZING artist, and dear friend of ours, John recently passed away and gifted us a few Poe-inspired pieces before he died. He has an posthumous art show coming up July 5 – 29, 2016 at Studio 1219.

Jody Parmann (me) – Port Huron resident, co-owner of the Raven and Marketing Specialist. I’ve been making art since I can remember. I work in many mediums and many styles. It’s just fun to get messy, and sometimes I make cool stuff in the process.

Technically it’s not missing, per se, we’re getting a new one! The old girl was up there for many years doing us proud, but she needed to be put out to roost, so to speak.

Rick Russel

We’re having local blacksmith/wood carving artist Rick Russel create a new one for us. You’ve probably seen his work around town and didn’t know it. He’s one of the artists responsible for the gorgeous leafy railings in front of Studio 1219, the art gallery just down the road from the Raven.

Originally from Marysville, Michigan, Rick has traveled the northwest as a young man and apprenticed under a prolific metal smith in Oregon. He is currently the VP at a fencing and fabrication company in Warren. He’s a busy guy, as you can imagine, so he only occasionally gets to indulge in fine arts projects such as this. The projects that excite him are the ones that beautify his hometown and present unique challenges for him as an artist.

Stay tuned – we’ll keep you updated as our new raven nears completion.