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https://www.seattleartwalks.com/
After last night, I now have
six different photo albums dedicated to Seattl Art Walks, last night being our first
Capitol Hill Art Walk, which we can easily see doing again. The more we do these, the easier repeats will be; even though we'll see a lot of the same art, a lot of the art will also rotate, and we'll have a better sense of where to go and what doors to enter for certain venues. A lot of times they're somewhat hard to find, in off-set doors to stairs either to second or third floors or to basements of buildings. We met one guy last night, at
Steve Jensen Studios—it was indeed Steve who we met—who told us he's been in that space for 45 years, which was kind of amazing. The entrance was on 10th Avenue just off of Pike, all of six blocks from where we live. I never knew anything about it. Steve said he's not usually open to the public but decided to participate in the Art Walk, and the space was huge and filled with tons of pieces, many of them made by him. I asked if he could tell me how many of the pieces were his and he couldn't get any more specific than basically "a lot."
Anyway, it was a while before we got to that venue, actually. One of the many cool things about Art Walks is that otherwise unlikely or unexpected venues participate. It could be a business of any kind that is not even close to an art gallery, but they feature art and artists on their walls and participate. For example, our first stop on our walk last night, and probably the most fun: the
Coldwell Banker Bain that is now located on 14th and Pike, literally one block from The Braeburn Condos where we live—this is the company that Laney's friend Bob worked for before retiring, and was our real estate broker when we moved into the condo. People working there actually knew who he was, even though he retired some time ago.
There were maybe three venues that had free refreshments on offer, but Coldwell Banker Bain had
the best spread we have seen at any neighborhood Art Walk venue to date—not just in the number if options, but includin a really delicious pesto pasta,
and a jug of fruit punch with vodka in it!
There was a woman there named
Karen Abbey—easy to remember because of her two first names; she said some people actually call her Abbey. I chatted with her for quite some time, about Bob for a bit, but then a lot about Shobhit and his arts community connections and then my being a film buff. She said she used to go to movies a lot more but doesn't have time for it anymore. But, she once lived in Los Angeles herself, and worked for a time as an entertainment insurer, which was fascinating.
Most of the time I was chatting with her, Shobhit chatted with a Black woman. I had left my cocktail on the table while I was chatting with Karen, and Shobhit drank the rest of it. We both took another drink for the road when we left, and this was on top of adding some extra vodka to our first drinks. This meant Shobhit had two and a half drinks, and was buzzed enough that he was pretty irritating for the next twenty minutes or so as we walked to other venues. Thankfully he didn't do anything embarrassing at Coldwell Banker Bain, at least not that I noticed. Before I chatted with Karen, I wandered the very nicely designed office space looking at the very eclectic art by a single painter who was being showcased—Karen told me they tend to showcase the same artist two months at a time—and while I did that Shobhit was chatting with another agent in the kitchen. I don't know what they chatted about but I'm certain Shobhit gravitated toward him because he was cute.
We must have been there a good 45 minutes as our first stop, and
Capitol Hill Art Walk is ostensibly scheduled 5 to 8 p.m. My suggestion had been to go down to the Frye Musuem since it was furthest south and work our way back, but Coldwell Banker Bain was so close we went there first; then we went to a photography studio on 12th & Marion, which was a quick stop. And from there we went to the Frye Museum, where we spent maybe 15 minutes, if that. On the way there we cut through the Seattle University campus, and we found a labyrinth that wasn't technically a labyrinth but Shobhit walked it anyway—it was just a windy little path that takes you on a single-option path to the center.
We got into a big argument after that, because Shobhit was not satisfied with a single thing I said when he asked what our route would be going back. The whole conversation was utterly bonkers-stupid, and I was plenty clear enough about it and even gave multuple options, none of which did he think were specific enough. He acted like "zigzagging" would be inefficient, except that these fucking venues do not all exist in a straight line—if we want to go to a lot of them, then zigzagging is inevitable. He finally looked at the online map himself, declared we would be doing "a backward S" (which meant absolutely nothing on its own), and we wound up going next to a place I had already suggested but he just shouted me down. I wanted to pull my fucking hair out.
Things settled down soon enough. I think we went to at least 10 venues, most of which we had never been in before. Most of the places were along 10th and 11th, and we worked our way north along those until we got back to Madison, which we took up to 15th and then back home. I then went to watch this week's episode of
The Pitt in the bedroom while I edited and uploaded the evening's photos. I came back out to the living room to watch
Abbott Elementary but headed to bed after that.
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— पाँच हज़ार नौ सौ नब्बे —
I just finished my biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen, so that meant I could not go up to the Rainier Square lobby lounge to read my library book like I do most other days. That's totally okay though, I love that Karen and I have never stopped our regular lunches, even though they're almost always virtual and have been since the pandemic.
Today we actually spent probably a little more than half the hour just talking about all the Art Walks Seattle has. She knew the Seattle art scene has grown a lot over the last couple of decades, but also had no idea there were so many Art Walks. She wondered if there was one in Magnolia, the neighborhood she lives in—but that's one of the more residential, less-vibrant neighborhoods we have; it was pretty predictable that they do not. Ballard does, though, and that's just north of her. All the Art Walks have their own web pages, but
SeattleArtWalks.com lists them all in order of their monthly day of the week.
I suppose it tracks that Pioneer Square happens earliest in the month, as that's by far the oldest. That's on First Fridays. Central District is next, on First Fridays, but I'm not sure Shobhit and I will even try that one again; it had too few participating venues spread over way to wide an area, with often unreliable operating hours. Capitol Hill and West Seattle are both on Second Thursdays; that was what yesterday was—maybe next month we should try West Seattle. The venues there are much more concentrated in a straight line along California Avenue, so Shobhit won't have to lose his shit over what direction we're walking.
The plan was for Danielle to come up and join us for Belltown Art Walk tonight, this being the Second Friday. I still need to get confirmation on this, though; to many of our astonishment, it actually snowed this morning—not a huge amount, but it was actually accumulating as I walked to work this morning. I took several photos. The closer I got to Downtown the more it was just wet on the ground, snow in the air but nothing building up. Anyway what I don't know is how the weather is down in Renton and whether it will discourage Danielle from coming as planned. I hope not; I was looking forward to going with her.
Anyway, Karen and I talked about a few other things, including how Shobhit is doing, and she was delighted to hear he's already gone on another audition. Dave has been home from the hospital for nearly two weeks but apparently Anita, their daughter, was hospitalized with a kidney stone over this past week. They really need a break, it sounds like.
My break is over now though, and I need to post this and get back to work.
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[posted 1:06pm]
