Friday, March 28, 2008

Gallery Walk . . . And Movie

Snow, sleet, rain, wind, temps dipping down to the low thirties, and the evening of the downtown Bellingham Gallery Walk!


Starting our tour with the non-juried show at the Allied Arts of Whatcom County's gallery, the variety of art submitted was well displayed. I particularly like the bold colors used in the paintings depicting some of the buildings of the old Geogia Pacific Plant, Bellingham's old Court House building that now houses the Whatcom Museum of History and Art, and of the Elizabeth Park Fountain - a colorful collection of landmarks of the town of Bellingham. My favorite piece in the Allied Arts show, however, was the textile art on display by my friend, former country dance lesson carpool girl-talk gal and fellow textile artist/quilter, Jan Mustain. Nice job, Jan!


Passing several more displays of paintings by various local artists in the shops and windows along Cornwall Avenue, we hurried through the rain and sleet to my favorite, the Blue Horse Gallery, in Bay Street Village. As we walked through the rain, quite surprisingly, we could see a few remaining, faint images from the last Chalk Art Festival still fading on the sidewalk, bringing back warm images in my mind of August days as I meandred around the downtown streets to watch the different artists creatively blending their chalks to create their art on the sidewalks.


Interested in viewing the paintings and photography inspired by the Blue Horse Gallery's Brittany and Lore Valley artist trip currently showing, the walls were impressively covered in scenes from the French country side, cafes, shops and more. Reminiscent of my own travels in and around Paris, I thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the big travelers' group album stuffed full with their photos and momento from their trip to France.


After meandering through some of the other galleries on the main and second floors in the Bay Street Village building, somehow we ended up going down a dimly lit, back stairway and heading down a long hallway that finally led us to an exit. I could not resist snapping these pictures of the very cleary marked "Fire Lane No Storage" signs brightly spray painted onto the walls in this hallway, and of all the stuff stacked and stored along its sides - just under those "Fire Lane No Storage" signs.



Not sure where we would end up as we passed through the door under that exit sign, surprisingly we were right back in the center of the main lobby of Bay Street Village!


~~~~~

And Then a Movie

~~~~~

Tonight's movie, "Into the Wild", a very well directed movie by Sean Penn, was based on a true story and the book by the same name, which I had read a number of years ago. A touching story, a young man eventually comes to the tragic realization that "happiness is only real when shared" (words, I feel, worthy of my ponder).

~~~~~

It was snowing hard as I left to drive home. As I approached home, I was relieved to see that the snow was changing to sleet and rain in my neighborhood. The forsythia almost sparkled, drenched in the cold rain, under the street lights along my parking lot.


~~~~~

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting!