First Thursday

I love having great weather when fun things are happening downtown.  Every first Thursday of the month, art galleries in Portland stay open late and pour free wine for people like me who can't afford art but like to look at it.  Eddie and I did the art walk a few months ago, but we didn't really know where to go and kind of missed out on some things.  It was still fun, but I was eager to get out and try it again.

We started out with a round of happy hour drinks at Three Degrees.  I just learned that their happy goes until 7pm which is great since most happy hours end too early at 6:00.  This place is at the end of the line of shops on the river by our apartment and we hadn't checked it out yet.  I gave their burger a try since it's half off during happy hour - and unfortunately they didn't have a discount on their mac n cheese.  Their mac is topped with goldfish crackers.  It sounds cute and yummy so I'll just have to bite the bullet and pay full price for it one day.  Anyhoo...  I was not impressed with the burger.  I've had fresher and better.  I certainly wouldn't pay full price for this, but $6 for a full size burger & fries is not bad.

Next we headed toward the art galleries we saw a few months ago (on 1st St. just south of Burnside).  I was sidetracked by the beautiful sunset and insisted on snapping a few photos.  This is a picture of the Hawthorne Bridge.

I was so happy to find the Attic Gallery open to us again.  This was my favorite stops the last time we went out because I fell in love with Lilli Faville's sculptures.  I think they are so fun and funky.  These ceramic dogs were on display again tonight. I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at them.

One of the galleries was closed when we walked by a few months ago but they were open tonight so we went in.  It's actually a chiropractor's office that apparently doubles as a gallery.  They were featuring illustrations from Dan Murphy-Hecht.  Eddie enjoyed these more than I - baby bottles & diapers meet war.  Interesting concept, but not my cup of tea. I just checked out the artist's website and he has an impressive resume - he's created some designs for the Rockband games and Guitar Hero II.  This was also a cool spot because Eddie and I were given free back & shoulder massages which felt so nice.

I was ready to head to the Pearl to visit the galleries up there because I had been told that's where the main event really is.  Eddie and I cut over on Everett St. and stayed there the rest of the night.  There were so many galleries back-to-back within a few blocks of each other on Everett.  My favorite stop in this string was the Werks Gallery.  They were featuring Chris Cole's Oceanic show mixing abstract art and kinetic sculptures.  This gallery was packed!  Everyone seemed drawn in by the kinetic sculptures.  If you click on his link, you'll get an idea of what they were like.  Every piece in the gallery fit in with the "oceanic" theme.  The sculptures were cool because they were interactive designs of fish with hand cranks that allowed the viewer to get involved and make the fish move.  Pretty cool.  I felt dumb though because it wasn't until after we walked around the whole gallery that I finally realized all the paintings I just saw contained fish.  Eddie got it right away, but to me these colorful works reminded me of old pog designs.  I just didn't look closely enough.

We finished checking out the galleries on Everett and decided it was time to head home.  We took our sweet time and meandered around the downtown streets.  We found a few fun things to take pictures of; notably the umbrella statue Eddie wanted to kiss.  Needless to say, it was an entertaining walk home.

I have another library book to review for my media mention.  I wish I had enjoyed the story as much as the cover.  That sounds rough, but Hillary Davidson's The Damage Done was not a polished story.  I understand that it's her first novel, but it had a pretty simple plot and tried too hard to hide the ending.  I think when the author tries too hard to cover their plot twits, it only makes it easier to guess where they are actually going.  It didn't help that I never grew attached to any of the characters.  That usually makes the story more interesting to read.