Having never been to a gallery stroll in my life, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect Friday night as I took to the streets of Sugar House for their monthly Art Walk. There would be art, yes, and there would of course be walking, but beyond that I was as lost as a child in a supermarket.
Preparation for the event was agonizing, especially considering my complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Exactly how much walking would be involved? Some light strolling I could handle, but anything more might very well kill me. It was a Friday night, after all, and the end of a very hectic and exhausting week of classes. If the walk did turn out to be a hike, I would want to be prepared — with running shoes, of course, and a backpack brimming with water and trail mix — but that would run the risk of looking dorky and over-prepared if the night’s physical intensity wasn’t as demanding as I thought.
What was the dress code for events like this? Comfort is a major concern, but by nature an art walk calls for a certain amount of style, and the war between those two forces has been waging since Ancient Greece. The dead heat of summer hadn’t completely dissolved, and the 90 degree temperatures from Friday afternoon were still trailing into that evening, creating an added layer of stress. I had to find something to wear that didn’t vaporize me but could still keep me warm when the malicious sun finally decided to set.
After an hour of frazzled deliberation, I settled on a mint-green and cream striped tee, brown twill pants and a denim jacket tied around my waist in case it actually got cool. With that, I headed out the door. The first phase of my inaugural Art Walk experience was finished, making way for the cardinal question of the night: what on earth should I expect, and is the Sugar House art scene even any good?
The answer to the second part of that question: absolutely.
The streets of Sugar House were abuzz with gallery-goers, their wide eyes hungry for the next slice of quality art. Pieces ranged anywhere from black-and-white portrait photography to vibrantly textured, colorfully expressive and beautifully abstracted acrylic paintings to artfully recycled mechanical sculpture forged from auto-parts, bike chains and musical instruments.
The walk didn’t just consist solely of painting, photography and sculpture, however. Within the walls of local boutique Unhinged, Roxanne Ottley and Andrew McEuen showcased their line of wire and stone jewelry and decoration. Aptly titled Gorgeous Awesome, their designs play off of the natural beauty of the earth by embellishing rocks, geodes, fossils and crystals with copper sheet and wire.
“One phrase we keep coming back to is ‘perfectly imperfect,’” Ottley said at the Walk, “because the nature of Earth’s beauty is imperfect, but that imperfection is what makes it perfectly beautiful.”
Ottley and McEuen “took the leap of faith” in May of 2015 to start Gorgeous Awesome and have been going strong ever since. Both quit their full-time jobs to focus more on their work, a change McEuen said left them “struggling and living simply.” That simple life, however, is exactly what they needed to get their company going, because it gave them the time to produce at a higher capacity. Their chakra strands (hanging chains with various crystals corresponding with each of the centers of spiritual power in the body) take about two hours to make. Since they started, they have made upwards of 130 chakra strands. They have spent 260 hours on these strands alone, but that only accounts for a portion of their production, with necklaces, earrings and smaller hanging decorations a major focus as well.
Creations by Gorgeous Awesome are available at a number of stores in the valley (most notably at Unhinged, where their work will be available through September and possibly beyond), but they love custom orders as well. They are reachable by phone (801-808-2683 or 801-698-8248) or by email ([email protected]).
The Sugar House Art Walk takes place on the second Friday of every month (February through November) from 6-9 p.m. and showcases the ingenious work of artists from the local art scene. For a list of participating galleries and a map of their locations, visit sugarhouseartwalk.org.