Photos by John Nation
I made the left turn off Main Street onto Hancock at 6:25 on a breezy September evening. The car in front of me eased into the first parking space before the stop sign at East Market Street; I followed into the second space and the driver behind me slid into the third — just like we were in a caravan. Actually, we’d all hit on an opportune time to arrive for the 57th edition of the First Friday Gallery Hop, a monthly arts "happening" that coincides with exhibition openings and has drawn tens of thousands of revelers since its inception in December 2001.
The 600 block of East Market is the nucleus of the action, which stretches for 18 blocks in all — from Wenzel Street to 10th Street — with mass chauffeuring provided free via TARC trolleys on a loop course along Market and Main streets. It may be lost on the hordes of merrymakers who mill exclusively on this one block and approach the event as if it were a Derby Festival Chow Wagon, but the Hop was conceived as a mobile tour of all of downtown’s participating galleries and shops, and TARC promotes it as such.
Still, there’s an energy level reached in urban concentrations — a giddy feeling of "we are a city" — that makes many gab-happy people want to get to the hot spot and bivouac, and Market between Hancock and Clay is the bull’s-eye. As somebody would tell me later, with the hubbub building to a crescendo, "It’s the epicenter of Louisville tonight."
Market was mildly populated when I crossed the street and entered 1866-built Towne House Antiques, owned and operated by Shirley Romo and daughter Chris Crawford. "I think the Gallery Hop’s fabulous," Romo told me. "It’s brought a completely different group of people down here." From the looks of the 60- and 70-year-olds out on the sidewalk in pastel Bermuda shorts, I’d say she’s accurate.
"The one thing I think is so interesting," said her daughter, "is that it doesn’t matter what the weather is — we’ve had tornado warnings, horrible rainstorms, heat, snow, whatever — people still come out for it." Here’s one of many reasons besides art: I was famished and Crawford had prepared a hospitality table above and beyond the call of duty — country-ham salad, shrimp salad, marinated artichoke frittata, white-bean dip, curry spread and brownies.
The scenery changed from timeworn to contemporary when I popped into Artemisia to see what was on the walls. Good stuff — oils by Ray Kleinhelter, photos by Ted Wathen and watercolors on silk by Kim Huber. The dinner crowd, which would be heavy, hadn’t arrived yet.
Downtown’s galleries are a big Hop draw, but so are street-corner social scrums and retail shops like Red Tree.
The street scene was livening up, though. KC & the Sunshine Band’s "Shake Your Booty" blasted from speakers over the doorway of Tracee Dore Interior Design. Inside, about 10 Gallery Hoppers were looking over Dore’s wares, including, in the spirit of the event, small paintings by her and others. At one point, a line dance of a dozen or so female 20-somethings sauntered in for all of 20 seconds before deciding that wasn’t the place for them. I asked Dore if the crowding had caused any mishaps during her year and a half of Hops. "I’ve had red wine spilled on things before," she said. "I don’t serve red wine anymore."
Somebody told me not to miss the James Nachtwey photo show at the Paul Paletti Gallery in the 700 block, so I headed down there to see the renowned photojournalist’s powerful work. Leave it to Paletti; he has a knack — a passion, I should say — for digging up great photo shows. "We’re all very committed to doing what we do — bringing people into the galleries so that they can see the artworks, get comfortable being in an art gallery," he said. "Because a lot of people still aren’t. This is a way to demystify it a bit."
Should you visit his gallery, make sure to ask him to tell you the story behind his huge print of the famous Ruth Orkin photo An American Girl in Italy. It’s not a short story, but it is 100 percent fascinating.
To Market, to Market: 
From the informal pitch of a freelance sidewalk painting display (left) to the reverential hush of a James Nachtwey exhibition at Paul Paletti Gallery (right; that’s Paletti in the center), there’s plenty to see and talk about at the Hop.
I left Paletti’s with darkness settling in on the street. As the bells of St. John’s Evangelical Church pealed and a cook on the corner of Market and Clay sauteed fresh vegetables to promote healthy eating, I entered the densely packed interior of Red Tree, a store on the corner that sells old (and made to look old) furniture and home decorations. It is a people magnet. You can stand beside one of the inner doorways, waiting for the flow of Hoppers to thin out so you can enter a new room, and /files/storyimages/up retreating in failure. I won’t even talk about the checkout lines.
Outside, one of four TARC trolleys arrived from the west as a gaggle of Hoppers waited to board. Because only a dozen got off the packed trolley, not all of the waiters were able to get on. Four women left behind broke out in laughter. "We’ve lost our ride!" one facetiously lamented. "Where’s our driver?"
Only a fraction of Gallery Hoppers ride the trolleys, TARC literature notes, but an estimated 2,000 per Hop do.
I thought about catching a trolley to check out some of the western galleries — Chapman Friedman, Glassworks, the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft — but some jumpin’ music farther east on Market ("Papa Was a Rolling Stone," with horns!) lured me over to the Wayside Expressions Gallery on the corner of Market and Shelby. Amazingly enough, all of the musicians — and I mean they cooked — were homeless or in recovery, part of a Wayside community that’s a great example of how to bring people hope.
That 800 block, with Wayside, Scout, the Mary Craik Gallery (the woman is a genius with a sewing machine), Flame Run and the winery/wine bar Felice Vineyards, is destined to become a popular draw.
Before I wrapped up my First Friday night, I paid a visit to the place where a lot of the impetus toward the event was born: Swanson Reed Contemporary at 638 E. Market, where an exhibition by Bowling Green painter Ivan Schieferdecker was premiering. Ever the candid conversationalist, Chuck Swanson summed up his feelings about the Gallery Hop. "The thing I like best about it is that every art show we do is going to be seen by a lot of people," he said. "The artist is guaranteed that. Without it, nothing is guaranteed. And I like the fact that we can put on a show for the city as a group."
Does that mean, I asked him, that if he didn’t sell a single piece of art, he would still think First Friday was a good thing? "Well, we oftentimes don’t sell a piece of art," he said. "And I still think it’s a great event." n
