Art crowd gathers downtown for summer Gallery Walk

The downtown area drew a large crowd Friday for an evening of community, food and art with a Hoosier twist.

The Gallery Walk, a quarterly event that features exhibit openings from downtown Bloomington galleries, started at 4:30 p.m. Friday and went late into the evening. Art enthusiasts braved the sticky heat and ducked inside eight galleries on and near the Square to meet local artists and view their work.

Galleries drew in patrons with live music, food and wine to show off their July art exhibits in a variety of media, while patrons browsed for art and enjoyed the atmosphere.

Martha Moore, co-owner of pictura gallery, which participated in the event, said past Gallery Walks had great success and she was expecting several hundred people to walk through her gallery that evening.

“They agree to stay open late, have food and present new work,” she said.

Other participating galleries included Bellevue Gallery, By Hand Gallery, Gallery North on the Square, the John Waldron Arts Center, Tutto Bene Gallery, Prima Gallery, Wandering Turtle Gallery and Gifts, and Gallery North on the Square. While pictura gallery featured only photography-based art, others, such as the John Waldron Arts Center featured media as diverse as oil painting and woodwork. Still others, such as Prima Gallery, had works from pottery to acrylic to sculpture and inkjet photography.

Gallery North on the Square, a co-op gallery with about 20 member artists, featured work from its members as well as a special exhibit by members of the Bloomington Watercolor Society.

Gallery North President Carolyn Rogers Richard said the Gallery Walk had brought in an outstanding crowd.

“We’re delighted with the public response,” she said.

Other galleries were thrilled by the amount of local talent they were able to showcase.
Prima Gallery Director Marcy Neiditz said her gallery’s July exhibit featured, among other local talent, two printmaking professors from Ball State University and one printmaking professor from IU. It also had the work of international artists among its 20-plus featured artists, Neiditz said.

“It showcases our local-and-beyond talent,” she said.

Anna Walker, gallery director at the John Waldron Arts Center, also described a display in her gallery as having a “twist.”

Other galleries featured artists who put a spin on Hoosier culture.

Wandering Turtle’s featured artist John Eric Hawkins of Winona Lake, Ind., used landscapes common to the Hoosier eye – rocks, rivers and trees – but with a variation on the common nature portrait: They featured naked women.

He also did work in pastels, then put a twist on them by taking pictures of them and turning them into photographs.

“Where I’m currently working is treating color purely as emotion,” he said.

Daniel Orr, one of pictura gallery’s featured artists and the owner of FARMbloomington, said he was trying to capture the spirit of Southern Indiana via one of its cultural motifs: the farm.

His “Seasons of the Farm” exhibit, also featuring artist Gretchen Sigmund, featured photography of local produce – some from his own farming and gardening and some from other Southern Indiana gardens.

Orr said although this was the first time his photography was formatted and plated to the extent pictura gallery had made it, he also has work hanging in Bloomingfoods Near West of his produce and food he has prepared.

“I saw part of my childhood fading, and I wanted to capture it,” Orr said, noting that the nature of farming is changing.

“I’m not afraid to make a political statement.”