04
Oct
I spent my summers in Phoenix when I was a kid. The rest of the year I was in Vermont. It’s amazing that after my parents divorced, the only custody deal they could figure out was for my brother and I to spend summers in 115-degree heat and winters surrounded by several feet of snow. Maybe that’s the reason I’m rarely uncomfortable in heat or cold.
This time around, the Valley of the Sun has been full of surprises. Friday night, Ally, Steve and I made pizza at home and then hit First Friday. I used to go to a similar celebration in Portland: the first Friday of each month, the arty area of each city opens up its galleries, and beckons citizens to come out, one and all, to see what great (and not so great) art is being created and shown in their city.
I was excited, as I’ve been able to visit a few museums on this trip—the Portland Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the San Francisco MOMA—and I was looking forward to seeing a what the locals were up to.
As anyone who has attended a First Friday anywhere knows, part of the evening is looking at art, and part of it is the scene. There’s great people watching, especially because there’s a high hipster count whenever art and self-promotion come together.
But first, I must digress. We used one of my favorite new developments in Phoenix to get downtown: METRO light rail. My dad was a car salesman when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of searing summer days driving from dealership to dealership, listening to guys talk about Kelly Blue Book values. I remember Phoenix—and Scottsdale, where my dad lived—as a place of cars.
I’m not sure what the old man thinks about light rail, but it did what it was designed to do: it moved a lot of people across town without having all those cars on the road. There were times during our trip it was packed, and others when it was quiet. I’ve taken a lot of public transport on this trip—the street car in NOLA, buses and a tram in Portland, the blue line in Chicago—and I have to say that I love public transport.
When we finally made our way to the artistic fringe of downtown Phoenix, most of the action was on a long strip with studio spaces dotted along the sides. It was packed, mostly with young people, who were out checking out paintings, photography, sculpture, and, of course, each other.
At one point there was a row of houses that held some of the coolest, most lively work. Each house had the feeling of being a little collective, with four or five people showing work. A lot of it was youthful, urban, and influenced by illustration. A lot of the photos I posted here are from one house that had a lot of large, wild, colorful Anime-style canvases. So many artists take themselves too seriously, and this was a great example of someone having a lot of fun. And I noticed that more people hung out in this house than any of the others.
After all the visual art, I couldn’t help but dip into Revolver Records. The tiny independent record store was packed with new and used vinyl, and looking at the walls made me salivate. It felt great to soak up all the energy from seeing so many classic and obscure titles and then walk away. (That’s my way of saying I’m too broke to buy anything.) And the photo in this set couldn’t be more perfect: right as my finger pushed the button, a classic, bespectacled hipster kid turned my way.
On the way home, there was a taco truck we had seen on our way in. It was tucked into a little parking lot near the light rail stop. They had a big white truck, a grill, a table with sauces, and a tent with four picnic tables out. I’d say the clientele was 90% hispanic. There was steam and smoke billowing up from the grill. The scent of carmelizing flesh was heady. But at that point, I had already eaten a pizza feast, a tamale downtown, and drank my fair share of beer. Did I wimp out? Sure. Am I starting to feel all the excess of the last few weeks? Perhaps. But there have been so many tacos since then, let me tell you….
