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I got way more photos than I expected out of yesterday's outing with Shobhit after work, when we went to First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square:
56 shots! A good 16 of these were at a place called Railspurs Studios, where only 13 photos were taken of art; we discovered their open-air rooftop, which meant I cross-posted these shots to
a separate photo album so I could organize those into my
Rooftop Bars and Restaurants and more specific
Seattle Rooftop Bars and Restaurants collections. (We didn't eat or drink anything in this space, which we went into to explore the art; they did have a couple of bars though, so that made the space qualify for these other collections.) There was even a great moment when we could see a rainbow high in the sky over the tall buildings in Pioneer Square next to the stadiums, so I got a couple great photos of that.
Anyway, even without the 16 shots taken at RailSpur, I'd have taken 40 others; that alone would have been close to
a record number in my Pioneer Square First Thursday Art Walks collection, although the 42-shot album that kicked that off in September of
last year was actually more specific to a visit to the Seattle Art Museum and featured only 7 shots from the Art Walk. Last night would be by far the most photos I've taken during the Art Walk itself, an unexpected thing given this was my
sixth time attending it in the past year. But, three of those times were combined with visits to the Seattle Art Museum, which also happens to have Free First Thursdays and thus coincides nicely with First Thursday Art Walk. I actually did look up the Seattle Art Museum website last night to see if maybe we'd want to go there again, but there was nothing new opened since we last went, in July, so we didn't bother.
I've been trying for months to get Danielle to come up and join us for the First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square, which is easily the best and most popular (not to mention
by far the longest-running) of Seattle's many neighborhood art walks, and she did join us once for Belltown Art Walk,
back in March, and seemed to have a pretty good time. I tried in July but she wasn't able to make it, which was just as well because that month was the most muted First Thursday Art Walk we had ever experienced; we concluded it must have had to do with people being distracted by World Cup stuff. August couldn't happen because Shobhit and I were in Amsterdam, but I texted Danielle last week to see if she was working today, and she said she wasn't. She seemed moderately interested, but when I texted her yesterday morning to follow up, she said she has window cleaners coming and maybe she could have them do the interior first so she could leave.
Stay tuned was the last thing she texted me, and I haven't heard from her since, not even after I texted her 16 photos of the amazing stuff we saw last night, which was probably the best experience of First Thursday Art Walk Shobhit and I have experienced to date.
This would be for two very key reasons: first, the discovery of the RailSpur Rooftop; second, we got specific recommendations of stuff we probably would not have found, from a gallery worker who ran into us on the sidewalk after we left Gallery B612. She complimented me on my Washington State earrings and my makeup, then asked where we were headed. "To find more art!" I said, and she asked if we wanted any recommendations. Absolutely!
The next couple of stops were from her recommendation, including both RailSpur, which she had recommended; and a "paint-off" happening at a place called
Court in the Square, which we had never heard of or been to, over on 2nd Avenue—which we typically don't go over too much during Art Walk because there is so much to see already, mostly along 1st Avenue and a bit along Occidental Avenue and in Occidental Square. The art was not that special at Court in the Square, to be honest with you, but the space was; the two
guys painting were still fairly early in their process, and there was a
DJ wearing a baby bjorn, a new and fun sight to see. And this was all in the inner courtyard within a tall, glass atrium connecting two old Pioneer Square brick buildings. The gallery lady had mentioned that the event over there was scheduled to last until 11 p.m. (most of Art Walk is scheduled 5 to 8 p.m.), so my guess is it had much more of a party atmosphere later in the evening.
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I will say this, though: even aside from the very cool new spaces we saw—which I am noting for future Art Walks to be sure to return to, if they are still participating—a lot of the art we saw yesterday, even in venues we've been to many times, was unusually great. My favorite of the night and Shobhit's favorite were different paintings but at the same venue, Gray Sky Gallery, which we stop in every time: I
really love the abstract Seattle cityscape painted by
Brooke Borcherding, who paints a lot of similar scenes and I have loved many, but this may be my favorite to date. I'm kind of aching to buy it, I love it so much, but I don't have $3,850 lying around. Ditto the $3,500 for Shobhit's favorite,
Life is Better in Color by
Magdalena Cooney. Cooney apparently usually paints in more drab, black and white colors, but this one is super vibrant with pink, blue and green. It really is beautiful. (These two paintings are at the top and middle of this post.)
Shobhit and I actually ran into a couple of neighbors from The Braeburn, at the very first venue we went into,
GO'C Studio, which is actually an architecture and design firm on the fourth floor of a Pioneer Square building, accessible only by stairs. There's usually a guy outside the secured-entry main door to the building to let in people coming for Art Walk, but there wasn't any this time; we only got in because of a guy who happened to be leaving. Usually the guy working the door is from a participating studio on the second floor, which was not participating this month.
Anyway, we got to that door, and this guy standing there said, "Matthew?" I looked at him and did not recognize him at all, until he re-introduced himself as Nico, who had once come to Action Movie Night.
Ohh. Somewhat ironically, Nico did not seem to recognize Shobhit. Then Nico asked if we were there for the Art Walk, which he was too; when we went in after a guy was leaving, Nico came in after us. Later, inside the venue, we were introduced to another neighbor, who apparently lives right next to Nico on the 7th floor, with a roommate (who was not with him) in the corner unit. I guess Nico and this guy, whose name is Tansy, had become friendly and were coming to this Art Walk together.
We actually chatted with them both for a bit up there, Tansy even longer. We learned that the other guy has the parking space right next to ours in the garage. I chose not to mention all the junk they have in their space along the wall, which annoys me a little. We talked a lot about the elevator repair project scheduled for early next year; the East building has only one elevator (the West building has two) and it will be out of commission for the
five months it's going to be worked on. I guess we'll get some extra exercise going up and down the stairs. Shobhit and I are in a better position than Nico and his neighbor: we're on the fourth floor and they're on the seventh (top) floor.
He had also asked us if we'd done Art Walk before, and boy have we! Shobhit said we'd done it six or seven times, and I said, "Not quite that many." I realized later that Shobhit has walked a bit around it on his own a couple of times while I was doing other things, so he technically has done more of them than I have. For me, yesterday was
the sixth. Again, though, three of those were on days where I also went to the Seattle Art Museum and really spent more time there, but, it counts!
We also saw the work of two different artists who were were told would either be showcased or would be back for a talk over the next month or two. I need to look these up and possibly mark my calendar. I'm really hoping to make it back for First Thursday Art Walk in October, though that could prove slightly tricky given the first Thursday next month is the very first day of the month, and also happens to be the night before we leave for Albuquerque, so we may want to spend some time packing. Our flight leaves at 10:11 am the next day which means we'll want to be to the airport by shortly after 8:00 a.m.; we won't have a lot of time in the morning before needing to leave. I'll see what I can figure out, though.
We usually stop at Mirabelle by Orphée when we're down there, it's a really great French bakery that never disappoints. Orphée himself wasn't there this time, a slight bummer, but the woman working there kind of made our day: I went in to get a hot chocolate to go, and Shobhit really deliberated on whether to get a croissant. He ultimately decided not to, but when the lady brought me my hot chocolate, she brought
two pastries and handed them to Shobhit, on the house! I noticed her packing them into their individual paper bags, and I won't deny it crossed my mind that she was doing that for us, but then I kind of thought:
No, why would she do that? But then she did! One was a chocolate croissant and one was a savory pastry with goat cheese. We were both amazingly delighted and appreciative. We thought later about how it was the end of the day (they usually close at 5:00, they stay open until 8:00 during Art Walk, it was like 7:45 when we went in) and they probably would have just thrown it away anyway, but that didn't make us any less touched by the gesture.
We started on the savory pastry as we walked away down the sidewalk, where we each got one bit out of it until, when he was trying to pass it back to me, we immediately dropped it on the ground. "Fuck!" I said, very loudly. Oh well. It was free and we both got one bite out of it. We then went straight to the chocolate croissant, which was fucking amazing. Seriously, I can't think of anything anywhere in Pioneer Square that I would recommend more for any reason than Mirabelle by Orphée.
We caught the RapidRide G bus home, and I spent the next hour editing and uploading the evening's photos to Flickr. And then of course organizing them into albums and collections. It's what I do!
— छह हज़ार तिरासी —
[posted 12:34pm]
