We went to our local gallery Artscrawl last night. I love Artscrawl and we made a plan to go to three different galleries. First on the list was Chroma Studios Gallery. Their featured artist this month is Nick Harmon of FHAB Concepts.
Nick’s work is amazing and really needs to be seen in person to be completely appreciated. He did their floor and also filled the main gallery with his amazing acrylics. He uses materials and techniques that just vibrate – they are so gorgeous and light-filled. And he is adorable (I should have gotten a picture!) and cool and sweet also. And he is so excited about his craft and you can see that he is constantly thinking of ways to expand and innovate his work. His enthusiasm made me want to run home and turn on my encaustic griddle!
Next we went to Matrix Fine Art and New Grounds Print Workshop & Gallery – Matrix/New Grounds is my favorite gallery in town (I should say galleries as they are two different entities – with the same owner). As usual it was a visual feast. They always have new work, always have a great crowd, and always have printmaking demos which amaze me. I love printmaking – but don’t think I have the patience or attention to detail to delve into that medium. Will and I swooned over the work of Shinji Ando who had a solo show in September – I’ve been visiting his prints ever since..
Our last stop of the night was Arthaus 66 – a relatively new gallery that we had never been to before. I had bought two of the owner’s prints through a silent auction at another gallery in December and wanted to check out their featured artist who I had heard about. There was no one else in the main gallery when we got there. We walked in and the owner poked his head out from a back room and without saying anything to us – immediately ducked back into the back room. Apparently a family with two little kids and a minivan were not considered prime art buyers to him. After that fabulous unwelcome we quickly cruised the gallery and left.
On the way home I talked to Chris about the Shinji Andos prints again and we decided to go buy one!! Matrix and New Grounds have an awesome layaway program so I went back and agonized on which would be the perfect one and chose the one you see here, put my money down, and soon this lovely, lovely piece will be in our home! I had so many people congratulate me on my purchase as I went through the gallery with it- seeing the obvious bliss on my face. I felt like I’d won the lottery! This is not my largest art purchase dollar-wise – but it’s my largest gallery purchase and it feels important – important that I am buying something that I will have for the rest of my life – and that will feed my soul everytime I look at it!
Let there be light!
I want to officially apologize for the bad impression of ArtHaus66 Gallery that I gave you Raine. What happened last night had nothing to do with who you are. Many of our best art buyers are families with children, and it is part of our mission statement to make art accessible to everyone. I clearly caused offense when none was intended, so again I sincerely apologize.
I wrote you an email to see if I can make up for your bad experience somehow. I hope you take me up on it!