If It's 1st Friday, It Must Be Time for More Art

(Restored bench and stairwell in the El Paseo Building on North Palm Canyon.)

The first Friday of the month is a time when the art galleries in town often have openings and little artist receptions. Not as established as the 1st Friday Art Walk in Palm Desert, nevertheless the galleries in north Palm Springs are interesting and are providing a sort of renaissance in that part of town.

Tonight we went to four galleries: James Jensen, Michael H. Lord, Continuum and Michael Weems. The first gallery, James Jensen Studios is located in what is known as the El Paseo Building that was built in 1926-27 at 800 North Palm Canyon Drive. This Spanish eclectic complex is built around a courtyard with many decorative features typical of the period. This complex originally included the El Paseo Theatre that served as the City Council Chambers from 1944-48. Recently remodeled by the Los Angeles-based Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the building also houses a newly-opened Design Within Reach store in addition to the Jensen studio, along with another retail/studio space that is currently vacant and for rent. Attracted there by a show of an artist I had met a few months, we went to see "Zoomorphic," the work of Timothy Kroe, who was using James Jensen's studio for his exhibition.

(Carlo D'Alessio's work filled the first room of the Michael H. Lord Gallery.)

From there we moved north to the Michael H. Lord Gallery that recently opened at 1090 North Palm Canyon Drive in an architecturally-significan building built in 1929 as the garage for the El Mirador Hotel. At 6,000 square feet, the gallery is the largest in Palm Springs and shows museum-quality work. When we first went there this past fall, they had not completely the entire gallery space and so we went there so Steve could see the expansion that I had seen a month ago. However, we were pleasantly surprised to see that one of their artists, Carlo D'Alessio, had his show extended. In addition, the gallery director informed us that they will also be using the large space for chamber music concerts. Another successful rehabilitation of a great classic building.

Our last two stops of the evening were two smaller galleries located in storefronts at 388 & 384 North Palm Canyon Drive. The first one was Continuum, which recently moved to this location from its original location further south, where the charcoal work of Dan Pyle was being shown. I had originally seen this artist whose work at a distance vitually appears almost photographic-like. It also turned out that one of my friends, Dagmar Post, was working in the gallery and it was great to catch up to her too.

(Pompeii Vase Horizontal from the Michael Weems Collection with flowers and without.)

Lastly we stopped in to see Michael Weems and his collection. Turns out that he was introducing his jewelry collection this evening, and hosting a lovely gallery party. An accomplished artist/craftsman, he has turned his attention to metal work after working for many years in glass. He takes old car parts that he finds abandoned and reshapes them into both large scale pieces, as well as smaller objects like vases, bowls and jewelry. (We'd actually seen a couple of his larger works at the Michael H. Lord Gallery earlier). One of his pieces that he called "Pompeii Vase Horizontal" was especially striking and something that we could imagine on our dining room table as a centerpiece. So after a couple of pieces of huge sesame encrusted ahi tuna we walked out with the piece that will now grace our table for dinner parties.