First Friday
In an effort to promote the local art scene and bring people downtown in the evening to somewhere other than Fremont Street, the city hosts a little street festival on the first Friday of every month. Most of the downtown galleries have shows happening, and there's live music and hip organic food to eat, and it's altogether a very happening (albeit nascent) art scene. The Madame and I have been meaning to check it out since we moved here, and we finally got around to it last night.
There are several venues around the "Art District" that have First Friday functions, but we decided to check out the main event at a place called the Arts Factory. The Arts factory is a big converted warehouse with seven or eight galleries inside, and the place was packed. Many hipsters and scenesters were spotted sipping wine and appearing passionately disinterested. It was definitely happening.
We had come down to see about acquiring some new pieces for our collection to occupy some of our new blank wall space. While most of the stuff on offer was well out of our price range (being real art and not just posters of real art), we did manage to buy four pieces that fit well within our budget. All four of the pieces are giclee prints (don't worry; I didn't know what that meant until I found the Wikipedia either), and the first two are beautiful, vibrant works by an artist named DiCandilo. They are "Stairs of Greece III & IV," and you can check them out at his homepage.
The other two pieces are by a local comic book artist named Jerrell Conner. They are two portraits of characters from his graphic novels that he's done in the Art Nouveau style of Alfons Mucha. They are phenomenally unique and remarkably unusual; having them hang in my living room is going to be very cool.
And then finally, there was a documentary filmmaker who had been working very closely with Tupac Shakur shortly before his death. The gallery was filled with beautiful, large photographs of the poet, each with a brief description of what was happening around the time it was taken. If they weren't $800 each, we probably would have bought one and sent it to Nip-Nip, but since our art budget had already been handled by our previous acquisitions, it just had to roll by. But Nippers, if you're reading this: the pictures are outstanding and you should definitely consider buying one. They really are fantastic.
There are several venues around the "Art District" that have First Friday functions, but we decided to check out the main event at a place called the Arts Factory. The Arts factory is a big converted warehouse with seven or eight galleries inside, and the place was packed. Many hipsters and scenesters were spotted sipping wine and appearing passionately disinterested. It was definitely happening.
We had come down to see about acquiring some new pieces for our collection to occupy some of our new blank wall space. While most of the stuff on offer was well out of our price range (being real art and not just posters of real art), we did manage to buy four pieces that fit well within our budget. All four of the pieces are giclee prints (don't worry; I didn't know what that meant until I found the Wikipedia either), and the first two are beautiful, vibrant works by an artist named DiCandilo. They are "Stairs of Greece III & IV," and you can check them out at his homepage.
The other two pieces are by a local comic book artist named Jerrell Conner. They are two portraits of characters from his graphic novels that he's done in the Art Nouveau style of Alfons Mucha. They are phenomenally unique and remarkably unusual; having them hang in my living room is going to be very cool.
And then finally, there was a documentary filmmaker who had been working very closely with Tupac Shakur shortly before his death. The gallery was filled with beautiful, large photographs of the poet, each with a brief description of what was happening around the time it was taken. If they weren't $800 each, we probably would have bought one and sent it to Nip-Nip, but since our art budget had already been handled by our previous acquisitions, it just had to roll by. But Nippers, if you're reading this: the pictures are outstanding and you should definitely consider buying one. They really are fantastic.
posted by Buckwalter at 9:50 AM
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