FEATURE
ArtWalk of life
■ Downtown Eugene will
liven up every Friday when
art galleries stay open late
to show off opening shows
By Diane Huber
for the Emerald
Jacobs Gallery employees are re
painting walls eggshell white and
midnight blue. Local artists Megan
O’Connell, Libby Wadsworth and Re
becca Urlacher are measuring wall
space, examining angles and carefully
placing their works of art in prepara
tion for today’s First Friday ArtWalk.
The first Friday of every month,
downtown Eugene livens up when
local galleries stay open late to show
off their opening shows, local mu
sicians play on the sidewalks and
the Lane Arts Council leads a tour
of the galleries. Students can begin
their evening meandering through
local art galleries, snacking on
cheese puffs and learning about Eu
gene’s local art scene.
“The purpose is to coordinate
(the galleries’) openings, then pro
vide a tour,” Lane Arts Council Di
rector Douglas Beauchamp said.
“The focus is to highlight the visual
art downtown.”
Usually 100 to 200 people partici
pate in the free monthly tour of four
to six galleries, he said.
Today’s tour begins at 5:30 p.m. at
Scan/Design Furniture. The gallery
will feature local clay artists, photo
graphs by Adrienne Adam and a
woodworking demonstration by
Ben Ferrell.
The next stop is Criterion Gallery
for a look at beginning artist Jean De
nis’ oil and pastel portraits of peo
ple, trees, landscapes and still lifes.
Criterion’s manager Ronda Cobb
said the gallery has been participat
ing in the ArtWalk since January.
First Friday
ArtWaiktour
5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. today
Stop #1: Scan/Design Furniture,
856 Willamette St.
Stop #2: Criterion Gallery,
35 W. Eighth Ave.
Stop #3: Jacobs Gallery, lower level
of Hult Center
Stop #4: Vivace Gallery, 207 £. Fifth Ave.
Alsoopen late, but not part of the tour:
White Lotus Gallery, 767 Willamette St
Circle of Hands, 1030 W. Broadway
New Zone Artist Collective at the
Downtown Lounge, 959 Pearl St.
MobelwetKs, 180 E. Fifth Ave.
Maude Kerns Art Center,
1910£.15thAm
Source: lane Arts Council
“In a way, it brings customers into
the gallery. It’s a way of advertis
ing,” Cobb said. “And it helps the
artist at the same time. ”
Jacobs Gallery will be the third
stop. The gallery is a “main stop” in
almost every ArtWalk,gallery assis
tant Corinna Freeman said.
Jacobs Gallery has no permanent
artists, she said, which gives it the
opportunity to reorganize the inte
rior with each new show.
“Every new exhibition is an op
portunity to completely change the
space,” she said. “We involve the
artists, look at the artwork and see
how it will be best displayed.”
O’Connell and Wadsworth decid
ed to display their paintings, tablets
and letterpress printings together at
Jacobs Gallery because they say
their work connects well together.
“We are both interested in the vi
sual qualities of language by open
ing up interpretation and question
ing the authority of the declarative
nature of text,” O’Connell said.
“You believe what you read and
you believe what you see,”
Wadsworth added.
O’Connell and Wadsworth ques
tion these principles through their
art, she said.
For example, Wadsworth breaks
up longer words that have words
within them. “Titillate” is broken
into a grid of three words: “tit,” “ill,”
and “ate” in one of her pieces. She
often incorporates diagrams, phras
es and grids into her paintings.
“I’m interested in words becom
ing visual objects,” she said.
O’Connell primarily uses pas
sages from Virginia Woolf’s novel,
“Orlando,” because of Woolf’s ex
ploration of the “rules and codes” of
gender, which she said relates to
rules of language.
“The way she forms phrases and
words really speaks to me,” she
said. “The challenge is trying to put
those in a contemporary context.”
Rebecca Urlacher will also show
her porcelain forms at Jacobs gallery.
The tour will conclude around
8:30 p.m. at the “Vivacious Gardens”
show at Vivace Gallery, which fea
tures a variety of outdoor sculpture.
Beauchamp encourages people to
continue the tour on their own to oth
er galleries in town that also coordi
nate their openings with First Friday.
For example, Maude Kerns Art
Center will be open from 5 p.m. to 9
p.m. to display its group fabric show.
Freeman of Jacobs Gallery said
she the ArtWalk appeals to a variety
of people.
“It allows anyone in the commu
nity to get into the local art scene,”
she said.
Diane Huber is a freelance reporter
for the Emerald.
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