Posts Tagged ‘Visual Art Studio’
Awesome Art & Warmer Weather = An Amazing First Fridays
Posted by Christina in Uncategorized on March 29th, 2010
First Fridays Art Walk / Richmond, VA
April 2, 2010
The next First Fridays Art Walk will continue to bring Downtown alive as the April 2, 2010 event will feature a wealth of activities, including an award winning public art installation by renowned architect Peter Culley, anticipated anniversary celebrations at 1708 Gallery and Gallery 5, plus numerous exhibitions, lots of live music, artist demonstrations and vendors, and always, the unexpected. And the forecasted warmer weather will certainly make the event a popular one. Along with free entertainment, visitors to First Fridays will find unique shopping opportunities, highly ranked restaurants, and some of Richmond’s best hotels in the surrounding area. Downtown is Richmond’s top cultural destination for a night on the town or an exciting creative weekend getaway.
April 2nd is notable as the second installment in a three month-long effort known as, “First Fridays East.
” This exciting spring project is a new collaboration between Curated Culture and some of Downtown’s top cultural venues located just east of the heart of First Fridays, between 6th and 9th Streets, including Library of Virginia, Richmond CenterStage, St Paul’s Episcopal Church, and UR Downtown. Each venue will feature a variety of free activities and entertainment between 5:00pm-8:00pm on April 2 and again on May 7.
Visitors to “First Fridays East” will be treated to powerful exhibitions, artist talks and demonstrations at the Library of Virginia and at St. Paul’s, while a diversity of great live music will be featured at Richmond CenterStage and UR Downtown.
CenterStage will present a night of local jazz with the Richmond Youth Jazz Guild Small Ensemble, Richmond Jazz Composers Alliance Quintet, and the Richmond Youth Jazz Guild Large Ensemble, and UR will host the University’s Bossa Nova and Samba Ensemble (featuring Kevin Harding on guitar) as well as The Octaves, UR’s all-male a capella group. As with First Fridays, “First Fridays East” will feature something for everyone!
Free parking is available at St Paul’s Episcopal Church beginning at 5:00pm. Free parking is also available at the Library of Virginia parking deck from 5:00-8:00pm.
Highlights of the upcoming April 2 First Fridays Art Walk:
- “Light House 1: Jackson Ward, RVA” – lighted public art installation to be reinstalled at Visual Art Studio parking lot (208 W Broad St). Created for the original 2008 InLight Richmond event organized by 1708 Gallery, “Light House” was the award winning piece, and is a representation of a Jackson Ward house, but is seen only by the glowing presence of the interior and exterior at night. It is produced by an extensive team of artists led by Peter Culley, head of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts expansion project, and this reinstallation is part of the celebrations leading up to the VMFA’s grand opening. http://www.spatialaffairsbureau.com/
- “First Fridays East” – Start off your First Fridays evening with special events in the eastern area of Downtown between 5:00pm-8:00pm at the Library of Virginia (artist demos & exhibition), Richmond CenterStage (live local jazz throughout the night), St Paul’s Episcopal Church (exhibitions & tours of the historic Tiffany windows), UR Downtown (live Bossa Nova & Samba music.)
- Richmond CenterStage will also be hosting a Food Drive for the Central Virginia Food Bank, so bring plenty of cans goods to help those in need in our community.
- 1708 Gallery celebrates the 20th Anniversary of their popular Annual Art Auction. “Home is Where the Art Is” will feature a diverse range of artworks by 70 artists. This is always a not-to-be-missed event in the creative community since it’s a great opportunity to acquire sought after artists while supporting Richmond’s oldest nonprofit galleries. Honorary Chair of this year’s anniversary celebration is Alex Nyerges, Director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
- Gallery 5 kicks off a month-long celebration of its 5th Anniversary with a special photography exhibition featuring work by a dozen photographers celebrating the gallery’s last 5 uniquely creative years. Live music, theatre, and poetry to accompany the exhibition.
- Richmond Public Library (Main Branch) celebrates National Poetry Month with the 2010 Brodie Herndon Poetry lecture at 7:00pm, featuring Kathleen Graber, author of the book Correspondence and winner of the 2005 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize.
- Quirk Gallery artist vendors – a variety of artists and crafts vendors can always been found at the parking lot located next to the wildly popular shop, Quirk.
- Reggae group, Unity Sound, will perform at Metro Sound & Music for a free CD release show.
Get your can to First Fridays
Posted by Christina in Special Events at First Fridays on December 4th, 2009
..and help us gather urgently needed food staples for the Central Va Food Bank (FeedMore) at our first Food Drive at First Fridays tonight.
We’ll be set up along Broad Street to make it easy to find, at 208 West Broad Street (just west of Comfort restaurant) outside the gallery, Visual Art Studio. Come say Hi and drop off your donations between 6:30-10pm.
Can you imagine how much food we could gather if everyone who attended First Fridays donated something? Man! I don’t know how I’d get it to the Food Bank, but we’d deal. This is one of those good problems to have, no? I’d like this to be an “annual” event so we’ll work up to that level. For now, grab a can or two from your pantry or hit Ukrop’s on the way Downtown.
Here’s what’s needed most:
- Canned tuna, salmon, chicken and ham
- pasta sauce (canned preferred)
- rice and pasta
- canned vegetables and fruit (these are preferred items because they’re healthy of course)
- hot and cold cereals
- peanut butter
We should do this more often than at the holidays, but the holidays can be such a depressing time of year for those in need. It’s incredibly sad to learn that 1 in nearly 6 people go to bed hungry every night from lack of food. This is simply criminal. These are our neighbors, and in these difficult economic times, I’m sure we know someone, unfortunately probably many, that need a little extra help. FeedMore provides food for a tremendous amount of organizations and food pantries across Central Va so we’re talking about helping many people in need. I hope you’ll consider sharing.
A few of our participating venues are also getting into the spirit and holding Food Drives too!
- Metro Space Gallery is giving you a little incentive to share by entering you in a drawing for a beautiful Print from Cannonball Press (their featured exhibitor this month from NY) with the donation of 5 items tonight! (open 6-10pm tonight)
- Linden Row Inn is offering Free Valet Parking when you donate 5 food items!
- Lift Coffee Shop is giving away a small Free Latte with every donation to the Central Va Food Bank (every day!)
Thanks in advance for your help in making our Drive a good one. If you forget to grab a can tonight and are heading to the Christmas Parade tomorrow (12/5), the Food Bank will actually have stations set up all along the Parade route for your convenience. Now how easy is that?!
For more info on how to help at any time, check out: http://www.cvfb.org