— छह हज़ार उनतीस —
Shobhit and I did
our second Capitol Hill Art Walk last night. We skipped last month because the first and best stop on the walk, "The Loft" at the Coldwell Banker Bain location on 14th & Madison which is all of a block from our place, hosts the same artist for two months, and we already saw the last artist in March. So, we didn't bother in April, but then we came back in May.
With all the different neighborhood Art Walks we've done now (
nine so far, this Coldwell Banker Bain event remains the best, at least in terms of free refreshments. They once again had
a whole spread on their kitchen island, complete with a vegetarian pasta dish in a heated bowl; there was another heated bowl but that one had marinated meatballs in it. There was also a tray with cheese and crackers and sliced meats (the latter meaning Shobhit wouldn't touch any of it), and a cocktail pitcher, this time with cider and vodka rather than the spiked fruit punch they had last time (Shobhit asked if they still had the bottle of vodka he could use to punch it up a bit more; he was apparently told "We don't do that anymore"). During neither time we've been there have I taken a photo of the dessert spread, and maybe I should have; there's another, smaller table over by the staircase but still near the kitchen island, with a tiered stand of chocolate confections. This time they also had small bowls of m&m's and little cups you could dish them into with spoons, which I had a hard time not eating.
Yesterday was a pretty big calorie-intake day for me as a result of both last night's Capitol Hill Art Walk and Gabby having taken the team out for lunch at Moto Pizza; I usually just have a protein bar or something similar for lunch. But, even after we moved on from Coldwell Banker Bain to other stops last night, there was what seemed to be a record number of places with snack spreads. At least three other places at crackers and cheese and that type of stuff; Ardor Home had both that
and wine on offer. Scream Salon took the pointedly different route of a table full of single-serve bags of chips and candy of the same vein; neither Shobhit nor I partook in any of that.
But I'm getting ahead of myself; we don't want to leave Coldwell Banker Bain just yet. There's a woman who works there named Karen with whom Shobhit and I both chatted with at length at the March event, and she immediately clocked us when we came in around 5:15 last night, coming over to chat with us and welcome us back, and tell us she missed us last month.
The conversation with her was illuminating in rather odd way, because she asked what we've been up to, and this naturally led to all our travel plans being discussed, and Shobhit mentioned that I recently turned 50. It was in this context that I mentioned I still need to make an appointment for my shingles vaccine, and she said, "I don't do well with vaccines." Probably (and rightly) predicting that this would make us suspicious of her political views, she said she's not at all an anti-vaxxer but vaccines tend to make her really sick.
Then again, she said she hasn't had any vaccines for 35 years, saying she used to always get the flu shot but they always made her really sick and so she said "Why do I keep doing this to myself?" and stopped. That's fine, I guess I get it. She did say she got the first covid vaccine, so I guess she made an exception for that—thought I didn't get clarification as to whether she got the full series of the double shots at the beginning or if she only got the first. She told us she's had covid three times, including
before getting vaccinated, having gotten super sick in February 2020.
The stuff she shared about this was kind of wild, though. She said she got really sick and it was super scary, but she also said she had a wine tasting she'd paid a lot to go to and so she went
even though she was sick and couldn't even taste the wine. (I might have questioned whether she was sure she had covid at the time, when no one had access to covid tests, but the no-taste detail makes it pretty clear she had it.) I guess she didn't think, or didn't care, about how wildly contagious it was, especially at that time? All I could think of was the huge number of people who had to have caught covid from her, when she knowingly went to an event while sick.
I suppose, to give her the benefit of the doubt, far less was known about covid in February 2020. She may have concluded that's what she must have had well after the fact; people didn't start truly taking it seriously until a month after that. But still, going to an event while knowing you're really sick is a wild thing to do in my opinion, even if skipping the high cost of the event was apparently not refundable.
I didn't even get my drink until after chatting with Karen, but I did go out of my way to look at all the posted paintings by the single artist they were hosting: he goes by "
Niko" but is apparently also Dylan. I really liked a lot of his art, and there was one particular piece, small but very cool, called
Crouching Dragon, which Shobhit very much encouraged me to buy even though honestly I think we've bought too many paintings at these things—but, I did buy it. It was his first sale of the evening so he was very excited, and had his mom take his photo with us and the painting that I bought.
This "Niko" guy is apparently going to art school here at University of Washington, having come here from outside Dallas. I'd love to have gotten more details about his family situation, because we got what felt like several pieces to what ultimately was a very unfinished puzzle: we were told he was the "nephew" of one of the women who work there at Coldwell Banker Bain, and his mom was also there, but she lives in Long Beach, California. Did he grow up with his dad in Texas, or what? And when we met the "aunt" shortly before leaving, I naturally referred to his mom as her sister—but she was like, "My sister? Oh you mean my wife?" Okay, what? I guess they're in a long distance relationship, I guess? But, if she's married to this guy's mom, wouldn't that make him her stepson? I guess if it were a scenario where they got together when he was older, perhaps it felt more comfortable to use the term "aunt" than "stepmother," except that those are two very, very different things.
The guy told us he's 24, and that he had started on
all of these paintings—there had to have been between one and two dozen on display—in March of this year. I was astounded; he's both deeply talented and very prolific. He was also very tall, and kind of adorable. He got pretty cozy with us when his mom took our picture, and I only noticed later that he posed with his tongue stuck between his teeth, something I noticed him doing a few times even when photos weren't being taken. In any case, he was super excited to be making his first sale of the night, which made us feel even better about making the purchase.
— छह हज़ार उनतीस —
— छह हज़ार उनतीस —
Capitol Hill Art Walk is scheduled between 5 and 8 p.m., and we made the rounds to a good 21 locations—basically everything on the map, with the exception of the Frye Art Museum, which is more out of the way than any of the others and we did that last time; I didn't see the need to walk all the way down there again.
There was a few places participating for the first time, which was a big part of what made it worth doing again this month—even if we were just at Coldwell Banker Bain for the first 40 minutes or so. Probably the most notable new places we visited were
Ardor Home, an upscale furniture showroom (this one had the wine as well as snacks) over by Salt & Straw; and
CENTRL Office, a coworking space we didn't even know existed on 11th Avenue between Pine and Pike. That one also had snacks, and pretty good ones too.
I don't often find myself in coworking spaces, and that business model feels very of-the-moment to me, the kind of thing we have a lot of these days and will probably have less of as time goes on. I wonder how long this one at that location will last. But whatever, they had some
very cool art on display there, and also a pretty cool
outdoor deck area there as part of their third-floor space on 11th Avenue.
When I thought we were done at that space, after maybe 10 minutes (they also rent it out for events, so Shobhit made some work-related inquiries of his own), I thought we were going down the elevator, and didn't even clock that Shobhit had pressed the number to go to the roof level. This was above the fifth floor so it would qualify as the 6th, at what we discovered to be a pretty wide,
rooftop terrace I was pretty thrilled to discover we had access to. There were views in every direction up there, including
of Bobby Morris Playfield at Cal Anderson Park, right across the street on Pine.
Even better, there were views of the skyline to the west and southwest—hence the photo at the top of this post, in which you can see the great view from there
of Pride Place on Broadway only two blocks away, where Laney lives. Or at least, she'll be living there for the next two weeks, until she moves out after living there two and a half years.
I got 11 photos at or from that rooftop visit alone, which really contributed to the evening's
full photo album amounting to a solid 50 shots. That's quite a lot more than the 23 shots I managed at the Capitol Hill Art Walk in March, but last night turned out to be a lot more photogenic overall, in terms of locations as well as the art itself. I'm really glad we went.
Another place we went to that we didn't last time was called
Reverie Ballroom, in the Oddfellows Building on Pine, which has long been close to where I live but I've only been inside once or twice. We saw two different places where dance classes of some kind were happening, but also a bar off to the side, which had lots of cool art hanging but had a very cool vibe and design of its own; I'd go back there for a drink for its own sake. They have
really awesome tabletops with paintings or collages, all of them unique. I was quite taken with the space, and couldn't believe I'd never seen it before. That place is all of five blocks from where I live.
Anyway, we had several stops even after that, and we made the rest of the rounds pretty quickly, making an effort to get back to Coldwell Banker Bain just before 8:00 thinking maybe we could take our painting—which they had asked to keep hanging through the evening—at that time. To our surprise, the space was even more crowded with people this time, so we did have a couple more snacks but decided to wait until today to go pick up the painting.
Now that we've done a few neighborhood Art Walks more than once, I feel like I can rank them for how great they are. Pioneer Square, long the most popular, is rightly so: that one is unequivocally the best, with the easiest means of walking around to venues and with typically the best art on display. But, I kind of feel like Capitol Hill Art Walk is a fairly close second, and I can see doing that one yet again. Belltown Art Walk is also pretty good, so I would rate it third; U District Art Walk was "bleh" enough that I was happy just removing it from my calendar—ditto Central District Art Walk, which places dead last, due to its small number of participating venues that are placed far too far apart to feasibly make it a "walk."
Of the ones we have actually done, Downtown Art Walk is kind of in the middle, and several of that one's venues crossover with Belltown. Art Walks we still need to check out include West Seattle (which appears very centrally located and with a lot of participating venues), Mercer Island Art Walk (not a lot of venues but all conveniently within walking distance of the Light Rail station), and Bremerton Art Walk (a potential fun excusion using the Fast Ferry).
As for last night, we went home and I spent some time editing, uploading and tagging photos. Then we watched this week's episode of
Hacks on HBO Max before I went to bed.
— छह हज़ार उनतीस —
[posted 12:36pm]
