Early Life and Formation in a Post-Industrial Landscape Mike Kelley, born in Wayne, Michigan, in 1954, emerged from the gritty landscape of post-industrial Detroit – a city steeped in both creative energy and economic decline. His upbringing within a working-class Roman Catholic family profoundly shaped his artistic sensibility. His father was in charge of maintenance for a public school system; his mother was a cook in the executive dining room at Ford Motor Company. These familial roles instilled in him an early awareness of societal structures, labor, and the complex realities of the Amer…