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Cultured Night on the Town
by Sophia de Sade Want to support local artists and enjoy a cultured night on the town? Seattle neighborhood Art Walks, like hidden jewels within the Seattle Landscape, now must be extracted and brought out into the light.
Edd Cox Open Studio 619 Western From Fremont to West Seattle, Ballard and beyond, communities are hosting grand art events showcasing some of the cities finest local works and a lively night on the town, all for free. Once a month on altering days various neighborhood galleries, artist studios, restaurants and retail stores open their doors to the public to view the opening shows for a variety of local artists. “Fremont’s community nature, already being focused on the arts, creates a wonderful gathering of involved events surrounding the Art Walk,” said Nathan Marion of Fremont Abbey Arts Center, a venue within the Fremont First Fridays Art Walks. Nathan also remarked with a provincial bias, “Fremont supports local and developing artists who are not yet showing in the big fancy galleries.” However, those same big fancy Pioneer Square galleries could be accredited with actually creating the first organized Seattle Art Walk decades ago. Simply by opening the galleries to the public after hours and coordinating their openings on the first Thursday of the month, they have spawned the cities largest and best Art Walk. “It is wonderful to see the locals enjoying the galleries in Pioneer Square…for the arts sake. It’s not a huge selling night but provides word of mouth exposure about the artists,” stated Adam Ross of D’Amamo Woltz Gallery, a very classy venue that held such pieces as Italian paintings by Gordon Galliano and glass work by Pino Cherchi titled “Architechtura” in October. The First Thursday Artwalk is now a major downtown Seattle event with free admission to the Seattle Art Museum and a carte blanche pass to fine Pioneer Square galleries, studios and arts centers. The historical Occidental Park hosts around two dozen local arts and crafts vendors in a street fair environment with plenty of music and the occasional outdoor movie presentation. “The Art Walk creates a dialogue about aesthetics, gives reason as to why they are important and allows the public to gain a real education,” said Edd Cox, a longtime resident of 619 Western Building in Pioneer Square, possible the most fascinating venue of the Pioneer Square, if not Seattle Art walks. The 619 Building is a living breathing studio and gallery space hosting around one hundred resident artists who regularly open their literal studios for the public to view on Pioneer Squares first Thursdays Art Walk. “First Thursday offers an interesting and quite accurate cross-section of Seattle: all ages, all different reasons for coming out... Seattleites in Teva sandals, young hipsters, business people… all around a positive environment,” stated Alexa Anderson a textile artists of 619 Western. The Urban Art Works Gallery, run by Jesse Brown, is one of the independent galleries located in the 619 building. It is an incredible non-profit organization that offers at-risk youth a chance to create art, take graphic design courses and get real job skills through their commissioned public art projects and will be hosting the Gage Academy of Art’s group showing in this months First Thursday Art Walk. Quaint ole’ Ballard’s “Second Saturdays” Art Walks provide a congenial atmosphere as coffee shop Cup Cake Royal, antique emporium Souvenir and vintage retail store 2020 shed their daytime image and magically turn into small scale galleries. “It is one of the few places where families and people who usually don’t seek out galleries, just come in to see what’s going on. There is a certain innocence of Ballard, and the crowd seems less jaded to artwork”, said Charlie Kitchings owner of the OKOK, one of the few fine-arts Galleries in Ballard. The OKOK consistently offers high quality exhibitions with a mod-party atmosphere. It is very hip for Ballard, often showing more avant-garde pieces like November’s artist Grant Barnhart show titled ‘Exact Change’ that Charlie Kitchings described as “Deconstructed Rothenberg paintings, a mechanical vertical conveyer belt and fifty metal rockets… trust me, it will all make sense when you see it”. For a slightly more adult or at least 20 somethings atmosphere, try out the Capitol Hill “2nd Tuesdays” Artwalk which started only last year. The lack of any established formalities allows for more freedom in the types of art on display. Toys in Babeland owner, Audrey McManus, described the Capitol Hill Art Walk as more x-rated including performance-art, burlesque and erotic imagery - art like this last months showing of photography featuring the “dazzling sexual power of the male body” by Kevin Brannaman at the Galactic Boutique. The Capitol Hill Art Walk runs a bit later in the night, plenty of music to accompany the art and even a big-kid scavenger hunt!
Faces Art Walk Hallway 619 Western “It gets people out exploring, gets them talking about art, forming opinions and relating to culture in a very unique way,” said Edd Cox a local artist, who has participated in the Pioneer Square Art Walk for the past twenty plus years. The neighborhood Art Walks make new art accessible to the entire community, provide an informal way to enjoy the fine arts and have an incredibly sociable atmosphere. “Not to mind the free wine and Costco cheese platters”, said James Searle, former Urban Artworks Artist. CORRECTIONS: It says that I am the owner of Toys in Babeland, which I am not. I organize the workshops and events at the Seattle store and am not even a manager here let alone the owner. It also says that I described the 2Tue: Capitol Hill Art walk as being more “X-rated” which I certainly did not say. I believe that comment was morphed from another article where the writer was trying to paint the 2Tue: Capitol Hill Art Walk as a more upbeat and young art walk. While Babeland does host 18+ events at the art walk, and Galactic Boutique occasionally has 18+ shows, I would hardly characterize the 2Tue: Capitol Hill Art Walk as being X-rated. Audrey McManus |
