Downtown Logan to get artistic facelift
The Spring Gallery Walk, hosted by the Alliance for the Varied Arts and Utah Public Radio, will be held on Main Street Friday at 6 p.m.
Jenny Allen, marketing coordinator for the AVA, said the goal is to show the people of Cache Valley the arts, whether it be music or paintings.
Not all the art at the gallery walk will be from professional artists, Allen said. Some of the artists will be students from USU, as well as other schools.
Vicki Berry is a volunteer coordinator for the Gallery Walk for St. John Episcopal Church in downtown Logan. She said the church is hosting various students from different schools, so they have the opportunity to showcase their artwork.
“These students don’t have the opportunity to showcase their art to others, often they only can do so in the classroom,” Berry said.
Berry said St. John’s will be hosting USU’s Artsbridge program and five public schools in the area: Adams Elementary, Mountainside Elementary, Hillcrest Elementary, Edith Bowen Lab School and Willow Valley Middle School. USU students will be showcasing a musical selection, and other students will be showing visual arts.
This spring, 12 different businesses will be participating in the walk, showcasing various professional artists and students.
The AVA Gallery will be hosting Cache Valley high school students, Allen said, because it’s a way to give them experience in a gallery.
“Often it’s their first initial experience with the way a gallery runs, so they aren’t just thrown out with no experience,” she said.
The AVA also holds an annual art show for high school students, which starts each year at the Spring Gallery Walk and ends a month or so later.
The AVA organizes four gallery walks a year, and Allen said the AVA center has been organizing them since at least 1991. She said the galleries focus on the arts, to promote more awareness of the arts and to excite people about the various art forms in Logan.
Allen said the AVA contacts all the businesses that have participated before, and asks them if the event is one that interests them. She said not all businesses participate every time the gallery walk happens, but some businesses participate consistently, such as Fuhriman’s Framing, who is hosting Jerry Fuhriman’s coyote cartoons at the event.
Allen said his cartoons are “fun to look at” and instantly recognizable.
Julie Barker, who works at Global Village Gifts, said the store is showcasing various pieces of art from Haitian artists, and will be donating 25 percent of the proceeds to the artists.
The art that will be mainly showcased at Global Village Gifts is made from cleaned oil drums, which have been recycled and made into various pieces of art, Barker said.
Global Village Gifts is run completely by volunteers, Barker said, and each time the gallery walk happens, employees decide what to showcase based on what they find interesting and what they believe will interest the public.
“We have a display that shows the process that the artists use when making the various pieces of art,” Barker said. “Often what we choose to showcase is just something in the store.”
Barker said business always does really well after a gallery walk.
“We get hundreds of people who come through, and so many ask us how long we’ve been here. The exposure we get from the event is great,” she said. “This is a great way for us to educate people about fair trade.”
Barker said that since the gallery walk is free, not everyone comes with money for the evening, but people come back or tell others about the stores they visited.
Maps of participating stores can be picked up at any location at the gallery walk.
– april.ashland@aggiemail.usu.edu