The People's Gallery


FourSeatsAndWoodCrafts, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

So tonight I attended the opening reception of The People’s Gallery. It was packed. It was mobbed. There were a lot of people there.

It was held in downtown Austin, right along Lady Bird Lake, at 2nd Avenue in the beautiful new City Hall building. The building itself is a three story modern building, mostly pretty stone with copper accents. The artwork was hung all over the place-upstairs, downstairs, by the elevators, by the restrooms, in the lobby, in the hallways…you get the idea. The place was dripping with artwork-and it was good artwork too. I have to say that I really enjoyed the show and that the quality of the work was very high, even for a large show with large scale artwork in it. There was a lot of media there as well but, hopefully, I managed to avoid most of them. I did accidentally walk past several setup video crews so, hopefully, I’m not on any TV channels (here’s hoping, right? I hate ended up on TV because I usually sound like an idiot and, oh and, I think that’s about it-idiot sounding is enough to scare me away from most TV appearances.) Did I mention that there were a lot of people there? Crowded, yes, indeed.

I ran into a few folks I know-Neil Coleman from the wonderful Projex Gallery in Austin was there as was my favorite “cupcake” lady Pam from the wonderful Studio 2 Gallery. I also saw my favorite pastel artist Maria Lyle and a few other folks I knew or recognized from some other art shows and just hanging out around town. There were at least several hundred people there (I did say it was crowded, yes?) and, the best part? I found out that my piece is in a conference room, on the 3rd floor, almost visible immediately as you get off the elevators (the conference room I’m in is almost all glass, so that’s pretty cool.) I’m in a same room as a very cool encaustic piece, which is nice and my work was very well received, which is also, well, nice.

It was a fun event. I’m glad I got to go, glad I got to play a small part in it and mostly very glad I got to enjoy some free parking and an evening downtown on an otherwise mild, nice night. Yes, I could think of a million more horrible places to be than under the stars on a pleasant evening, sitting in downtown Austin watching the neon lights twinkle into the night sky. Couldn’t you?

Oh, and, on the way home? I drove right past the evil terrorist attack sight-the office building that was hit by the plane earlier this week. It was horrible-lots of broken glass but, at the end of the day, Austin will overcome. I’m confident of that.

Until next time…

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