A really great Friday evening

This past Friday a friend and I met up to go support an ex boy of hers in one of his art shows, or so I thought. She was in one of the pieces and we were curious as to how he would render her in still life. We decided to go right after work and I met her at the Ogilve train station and we walked over to Halsted and bussed it to Pilsen. Exactly at 6 we walked into this small art gallery that was completely empty save the art on the wall and after looking at the photo/stamping of her and glancing at the other pictures, I was sort of like....'umm, ok how long do we have to stay?' It was a small gallery, more like a small room and the ex was not yet in appearance but there was a table in the back hosting cheese, crackers, cookies and red and white wine. Liz helped herself to a glass of red and I took some cheese and wondered if we were 'supposed' to just yet.

Thinking he would appear at any minute, we began to more closely examine the art, each piece was devoted to an ex of one of the two artists displaying their work. Her ex had actually taken photographs of his girlfriends and made large stampings of their images, the stamps themselves were of numbers significant to the nature of his relationship with the particular woman in question. For my loverly friend, it was a date significant to the ending of their relationship. It was creative and awesome. The other artist whose work was in the room was a woman-her exes were represented by photographic prints with a quote underneath, something the guy had actually said to her during the course of the relationship. I could go into how powerful it was, intriguing, but I never considered myself an art critic. I liked it. I did.

While waiting for him to show, we stepped outside and saw another gallery across the street. Through the window were people dressed a little fancier than we were, all drinking wine, and the art in that room looked like sculptures. Liz and I wondered if it cost money to go in there and as we strolled a bit further down the street and she lit a cigarette, we concluded we did not belong there. We did not mind because it was a warm enough evening and we have no place to be.

But then on our right we realized was yet another gallery. With people inside. With beverages and an aim to look at things. Hesitantly we buzzed the buzzer, thinking if they didn't want us we'd find out soon enough. Turns out they did, or rather, the door was not locked. We walked in and were greeted with several ceramic pieces of art, very spatial and colorful, on the walls and mounted on square stands. A kind and smiling lady offered us refreshments and told us about the two artists in the gallery, who were also milling about answering questions. In the back of the room another artist's stuff was on display, textile pieces, felting, beeswax and bronze pieces all evoking fairly strong emotions from me. A gorgeous little toddler was putting on a show as his mother spoke to an elderly couple and a woman very SATC Charlotte-esque wearing a fabulous ensemble talked quietly to a group in the front. We conspired, Liz and I, and decided she was the gallery owner. When we walked out of this one the sidewalks were now filled with people. Finally we accepted this was a 'thing' and we began our exploration in earnest. Visited several more galleries, (there were at least 10 I think) and talked to a few artists, weaved in and out of people nearly as art-like as the art, made a dinner out of chocolates, cheeses, strawberries, runts and other snacks even ran into a few people we knew.

We did make it back to her ex's gallery and chatted him up a bit, met his wife and eventually left for a real meal slightly north of there. It was delightful. I saw some really amazing things.
It's called 2nd Fridays and is basically art gallery after art gallery opening it's doors to the public and rolling out new....art. Once a month every month apparently. I am so going to do this again.