The murmur becomes a roar
Last September, I wrote about Oakland Art Murmur, the first of the month happening with all the galleries open, music, food, people, just a ton of hipness oozing over the streets.
Friday night, we went again, and it’s bigger, better, hipper than before. The area is booming, with more and more galleries. Old buildings are being refurbished into super-modern display spaces, or funky retro display spaces, or car repair facilities that become display spaces on first Friday.
There seem to be a number of large spaces divided and sub-divided into little tiny spaces where people are selling their creations. Some of it is what you would traditionally call “art”, much of it isn’t. There are specialty foods, jewelry, clothes, decor items, anything you can think of that can be hand crafted and made individual and special.
I could dance in these, I think
I liked the hand made shoes, and the shoemaker:
Hardly the stooped cobbler of rhyme and fable. And nary an elf in sight.
You can make art out anything; this guy is just using old wood:
I really like this for the corner of a room.
Sometimes, the locale is the art. This is some kind of old industrial space turned into a Tiki lounge.
The medium is the message? The location is the inventory?
I enjoyed being there, for whatever reason the place exists.
Art Murmur is a giant street party–even if they do frown on taking your beer/wine outside. I noticed that a high percentage of the artists were young and female, for whatever reason. Some of the art is great, some isn’t’–but that’s why you go to a lot of galleries, look at a lot of artists, see whose work resonates with your style. It’s a pleasant, interesting way to spend Friday night, and even cheap if you don’t see something you just have to have.
