Art Walk

Last Friday, my girlfriend and I went to the art walk downtown. We started down on Montana Ave because there are five studios right by each other, although one studio had a sign saying he was having hernia surgery so he wouldn't be there. But anyway, we went to the other four starting with the Toucan Gallery. Most of the art there were paintings, which for the most part were good. There was some cool ceramics and some crazy sculptures that danced. There was some photography at this studio as well. Not a whole lot and nothing that I can remember. Which doesn't mean that the photography was bad, it was just the first place we went to that night and it turned out to be a long night, but that is besides the point. The next gallery we went to was a photography studio but they didn't seem like they were too involved in the event so we just glanced in. They had a lot of portraits hanging on the walls and they also had some cool woodworking in the front, which I would like to get into some day, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. Next we went to the Tompkins Tanner Degenhart Fine Arts Gallery. No photography, but they did paint a lot of landscapes and natural scenes. I was particularly fond of the Indian Paintbrush painting they had on display. The last studio we went to on Montana Ave was the Prodigal Gallery, I wasn't a fan of the art but the owner's little dog Mungus was cute. After that we hoofed it over to the CTA Atrium Gallery on N. 23rd St. This was a cool building and they had some pretty excellent art and photography on display, which they were auctioning off. The building is also an office for an architectural design firm and they had some cool photos of different buildings that they have built and designed around the country. Next, we went to the McCormick Cafe which apart from the free cookie wasn't worth going to. I've said before that I'm not too interested in abstract photography, with some exceptions, that being said my tolerance for abstract art is even less and that's all they had on display. The last place we went to before Carter's was the Transformation Spa & Wellness. I don't remember who the photographer was but they had some pretty amazing photos on display. There were three in particular that I liked one was of a willow tree, another of lily pads and flowers and the final one was a massive 4' x 5' (rough guess) print of a stream in WA state. The stream was really nice, you could tell that they had used a long exposure in the low light setting. The water was streaking and some of the ferns were blurry from the water hitting them and everything from the wet rocks down to the moss was in great detail even with such a large print. All in all it was a good time and we will probably try to go to the next show, which is on Friday, December 4 from 5 to 9. If I haven't convinced you to go yet, they also have free wine and snacks.