30th anniversary of Gallery Walk celebration set for first Friday
For decades, the first Friday of every month has seen an event called Gallery Walk happen in downtown Hot Springs. This Friday’s Gallery Walk will be a special one though, because it is the event’s 30th anniversary.
To celebrate, the Hot Springs Area Cultural Alliance will serve birthday cake next door to American Art Gallery, which, under a different name, participated in the inaugural Gallery Walk.
Mary Zunick, executive director of HSACA, said that Gallery Walk making it to it’s pearl anniversary is “awesome,” noting the monthly event played an important part in the town’s history when it started all those years ago.
Gallery Walk was the “beginning of downtown’s revival back then,” she said. “If these buildings hadn’t been occupied by galleries, what would have been in them?”
The event started when an Italian artist named Benini and his wife Lorraine started recruiting artists and curators to come to Hot Springs in the 1980s, she said, noting their efforts “brought life back to downtown.”
She said the event inspired the creation of many other things in Hot Springs such as the Hot Springs Jazz Society, The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and what would eventually become the HSACA.
Zunick said Gallery Walk is an event that has something for everyone from art novices to experts. For this week’s event, 16 locations will be participating, each with a featured artist, to allow people to see a wide variety of art. All kinds of artists participate, everything from water colorists to knife makers have been seen at the event.
The artists also benefit, she said, since there are many art galleries all over the country that have amazing works of art, “but how often do you get to visit with the person who created it?”
Zunick said another “neat” aspect of the event is the wide range in the ages of the artists, from as young as 18 to people over 80. The youngest artists participating are with Cutwell 4 Kids.
She said seeing the youngsters from
C4K participate in Gallery Walk is great because “that’s our next generation … they will create the art that will be created for these galleries (in the future).”
C4K will have two featured artists this Friday, Rayshaun McNary and James Avery.
Zunick said the event will have a fun and casual atmosphere. The birthday cake will be cut at 5 p.m. when Gallery Walk starts. The event will end at 9 p.m.