Hundreds of people will head downtown tonight to experience Lane County’s artistic talent in the First Friday Art Walk. The event will run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Visitors can browse 15 different galleries and “heart spaces” – cafés or coffee shops – featuring local artists, said Douglas Beauchamp, executive director of the Lane Arts Council.
“The spirit is we offer a menu of options, and you choose whatever you want,” he said. “It’s the biggest monthly event downtown.”
The council will lead participants on free guided tours of the artwalk. The tours take visitors to three special stops, according to the Lane Arts Council’s Web site.
The first stop on the tour will be outside the north side of the Hult Center for a dedication ceremony of the Japanese American Memorial Garden and Sculpture. One sculpture depicts a girl waiting for the train that would take her away from Eugene and to a concentration camp. According to the Web site, the statue was modeled after Michi Yasui Ando, a former Japanese-American University student who was forced to leave Oregon for the camp because of an executive order in 1942.
The second stop on the tour will be Jacob’s Gallery, located on the lower level of the Hult Center, for the Mayor’s Art Show. Of 450 pieces submitted to the show, only 58 were selected to be displayed. Visitors to the Eugene Celebration in early September voted on which piece should be the winner of the Viewer’s Choice Award. That award will be announced and presented tonight, according to the Web site.
The third and final site on the guided tour will be the 17th annual Salon de Refuses at the New Zone Gallery, located at 164 West Broadway. This gallery showcases 256 pieces of art that were not chosen to be in the Mayor’s Art Show.
Along the tour, participants will have the opportunity to meet the artists and ask questions. The tour not only builds recognition for the artists, but also the owners of the gallery, Beauchamp said. The Lane Arts Council has been managing the monthly art walk for nearly 10 years, although it first began in the early 1990s.
Opus6ix, located at 22 West 7th Ave., will feature a group exhibit titled “Mostly Fully Clothed.” This display will run from today through Oct. 8. The exhibit features 44 figurative and fiber-art pieces, sculptures and paintings from five local artists.
“It’s kind of whimsical,” said Brenda Lloyd, an employee at the gallery. “Generally on the First Friday Art Walk we have anywhere from 300 to 600 people on that evening. It’s more of a social event than a sales event.”
Another anticipated exhibit will be “Envisioning a World Beyond War.” The exhibit, presented by Beyond War, a local nonprofit organization, will feature 46 drawings done by Eugene residents at the Beyond War booth at the Eugene Celebration. Both children and adults contributed to the exhibition, and the common theme was: We all live on one planet and share mutual understanding, said volunteer and event coordinator Anne Millholen
“They’re all from the heart,” she said.
The organization is also encouraging passers-by to come in, sit down and draw.
This exhibit will run through the month of October.
Here on campus, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is offering free admission from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. the first Friday of every month.
For more information on the First Friday Art Walk, visit the Lane Arts Council Web site at www.lanearts.org.