November First Friday

This weekend was First Friday, and though we had fewer than the 1000 visitors of last month, the many who did turn out seemed more directly engaged with the art. In our building, we had a show downstairs of the remarkably prolific Ryan Blair. And a group show upstairs in the Three Flights Up Gallery.

Of particular notice from the group show, was Chase Adams, a young artist who's appropriating and modifying Thomas Kincaid puzzles to create "apocalyptic landscapes" with "phantom monuments and dead-end wormholes." I hope to have some images of his work that I can link to and talk about soon.

Also, of note, was the work of Liz Nixon, whom I know as the manager of Reruns, that great little shop on Market Square Mall (where I consign most of my clothing). Liz is another Knoxville by way of Los Angeles and back to Knoxville transplant. She was exhibiting mostly photos of some of the work she did while in the video production department of Shanghai University. Her brightly colored photos were evocative of film stills and were taken mostly of street scenes as she wandered through Shanghai.

Of course, there were other art openings downtown that evening that unfortunately I wasn't able to attend because of my own open studio. I do plan to take in the shows this week when the galleries reopen. Tomorrow, I look forward to seeing the new show from the Center for Urban Pedagogy exploring our local urban design and development at The Art Gallery of Knoxville.

I've been very fortunate to find that much of the work and many of the ideas buzzing around the city right now are resonating with my own interests and ideas about human interactions with place and environment. I look forward to my adventures through the city this week.