The Shallow End

The Art Crawl

Last night, I went on an "art crawl." This consisted of meeting up with a bunch of snooty art collectors at an old folk's home (actually, the tagline for the art crawl was "more artsy, less fartsy" so really, how snooty could they be?), boarding a trolley, loading up with food and beverages (we each received an airline sized bottle of wine to drink straight out of the bottle...nothing says refined snooty art collector quite like drinking wine out of the bottle and 40 open containers in a motor vehicle), and taking a 30 minute ride from the suburbs down into the jungle that is downtown, aka The Crossroads, aka The Arts District, fka blight.

It's been awhile since I've posted any pictures, so in keeping with the theme of posting pictures of the back of people's heads (seen here and here), how about a picture of us boarded up on the trolley and "rearing" to go:


Our destination? The Review studios, home of a wonderful art magazine publishing company and several large artist studios. Our tour was mostly hot and sweaty, in an old industrial warehouse (no air conditioning) that has served as a dairy and fire extinguisher manufacturing plant, but not at the same time. All of my energy was spent trying to cool off and refrain from passing out until I was safely back on the trolley. Once back on the trolley, we got air conditioning and a collector's review of what we had seen at The Review. I was surprised when the collector said that, of all the "up and coming artists" we had seen, this one was his favorite (click on the photo to enlarge and appreciate this work in all its glory), and the only one he would consider collecting. This piece sells for $6,000. No joke. I nearly used the "art" to wipe the sweat off my brow...yes, those are towels. I had a hard time relating to this woman's artwork although she was the most technical, the most intellectual and the most impressive of all the artists we visited. I guess I'm just missing the point (which she said had to do with texture and precision and texture and...that's all I remember).


My favorite was a small watercolor portrait of a black woman sitting in front of a window, painted by Lonnie Powell, a talented figure painter. I had seen his work before and knew he was more than just an "up and coming artist." Just out of curiosity, I asked how much he would sell it for. $2,500! *choke* Alrighty then. I guess I don't need it that badly.

Overall, it was an interesting evening, but really, the most memorable part of the evening was the extreme heat and compassion for the artists who have to work under such extreme conditions.

posted by Gwynne @ 11:02 AM