DETROIT — “What in the hell is all of this?” she asked.

A prominent Detroit banker — well put-together, confident and dynamic — it seemed as if she had her whole life figured out. In 1993, Jenenne Whitfield, executive director of the Heidelberg Project, turned down Heidelberg Street and never returned to the bank where she once hobnobbed with white-collared executives, crunching numbers and wearing power suits.

Instead, she met a whole new world.

A little place nestled and tucked away in the heart of inner-city Detroit, Heidelberg Street remains humbly dilapidated, really only recognized by those who have gone in search of its magical wonder. Sticking out like a sore thumb, five to six houses are splashed with brilliant colors. Polka-dots, larger-than-life grinning faces and car hoods meet you as you enter — almost as if someone’s garage had just exploded. Dozens of shoes dangle aimlessly from the top of a tall, barren, tree. It’s unreal — like a scene from “Alice in Wonderland” come to life.

Tyree Guyton, artist and originator of the Heidelberg Project, an idea to renovate Detroit housing in a creative new way, called it art.

The City of Detroit called it trash.

“What would make you take polka-dots and put it all over a house?” Whitfield questioned Guyton that day she turned down Heidelberg Street by chance.

“Why would a contractor paint a house one color?” he responded.

“Because it’s supposed to be one color,” she answered.

“Is it?” he asked.

With challenge after challenge to her notions of aesthetics, Guyton forced her to confront the truth of what his project told. “In 1986, I was standing on the porch of the polka-dot house — I looked out here, and I saw it,” said Guyton. “I saw the possibilities of what art could do for this neighborhood. And guess what — it don’t have to be pretty. But how can I take something, and make it work to the point that people will come from all over to see it? I am getting inside the minds of young people, and making them think about life — and learning to see the beauty that exists, when there’s chaos. That’s what I’m doing here.”

The area surrounding Heidelberg Street is historic. Guyton grew up in one of his projects, now titled “The Polka-Dot House.” His grandparents moved into it in 1947, when the neighborhood was one of the few areas where blacks could live in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Guyton was only a little boy during the 1967 riots, which he recalls vividly. “I remember tanks and helicopters — right there,” he pointed to the corner of the block. I looked at an empty lot, surrounded by decrepit houses and buildings. “When we were having a war in Vietnam, we were having a war in the city. The city never recovered. Just look around,” he pleaded. “Just look.”

His voice boomed, and his intense eyes almost seemed as if he was staring into his listener’s soul as he talked passionately and intently about his project.

“When you look at Tyree’s work,” said Whitfield, “you can understand why some people would be disturbed by it. He says that art reflects life — and life is not always pretty.” The words God and war were painted haphazardly on pieces of car parts and sides of houses. Dismembered dolls hung downtrodden from shopping carts. Yet his art, though seemingly grotesque and haunting, paradoxically conveyed a child-like playfulness and hope. There was a life in it — a vigor that shone past the wretchedness of pain and ugliness that had poisoned his soul and neighborhood for so many decades.

The man was merely protecting the inner child within him. He was desperately trying to hold it tight — guarding it from being trampled on again. It had been beaten one too many times by the toils of poverty and racial segregation. His soul was weathered like many of his art pieces. But he had let a glimpse of that light shine through.

“What you see here is a reflection of the people,” he said dishearteningly, “the people look just like this. You have to become tougher — you put on this thick skin.” Guyton declared.