Art by new artists, great food, belly dancing, great music, great friends, it was a fun filled Friday for Blogblah!!!

And the last shall be first, as it says in the Bible…

I bought a Watermelon Slim CD at his release party at Kathy Reynold’s Sober Grounds coffee house last night and I’m listening to it on the laptop whilst I write this drivel. Damn good blues. Da-um good. The house was packed with folks jacked up on coffee and Slim and the Workers knocked ‘em down with a great performance and great music. Wow! What a wonderful way to end the evening. Saw about a dozen folk I know rockin’ out. Joked with Pinky from the Snakeshakers about her being a blues singer out listening to blues on her time off. She’ll be playing at Sober Grounds in another week or two (forget which, but I’ll plug her if I get a chance). I’ll have to say my Armani suit was NOT in keeping with the general motorcycle Teeshirt and jeans attire, so dress casual.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the evening…

We gathered as ususual at the Paseo for coffee, drinks and desultory discussion of matters sexual. Somehow on friday, the talk always goes to sex. This Friday, the table was dominated by too many males for the talk to be very interesting. Just the usual lockerroom stuff without the feminine finesse we usually get. As the women started showing up, SuzArt and the Debster for example, we decided to do the Friday art show first of the month openings.

The first place I went was across the street to Sowzierre, Diane Coady’s place. She was showing some works by Paul Wingo that I really liked and as soon as I get the next little piece of cash together, I’ll buy at least one. The pricetags were too low not to take advantage. Diane says Wingo is not well and undergoing treatment, so a little cash won’t be a bad thing for him, either.

Next, to the PAA space just north. Michael Wilson was showing some killer stuff and I took a minute to see her portfolio. She’ll be a collectable artist very soon. PAA also had their portraitist working on an oil of a lovely young black woman. I also still very much like the work by local attorney Garvin Issacs and hope to acquire especially a small piece with a modest price being shown there at ArtSpice.

On our way to my first visit in a very long time to IAO to see a couple of Austin artists, we stopped at Joy Reed’s JRB Art and I am SO glad we did. The Michele Mikesell paintings of human figures with bird heads were wonderful. I was completely knocked out by the cardinal and blue jay figures and the one with the yellow as primary color was without question the best piece in the show in my opinion. It wasn’t the first piece to catch my eye, though. A Jennifer Barron oil was posted on a closet door and it was an architechtural and design cityscape of a stairwell and I very much liked it just as I walked in. The Gary insisted we look at the photography of Melanie Seward to see one particular photo of a young man in the nude. “If I’m going to have ab envy, I want the rest of you to have it, too,” The Gary insisted. Joy is showing the works of a dozen new, young artists and I highly recommend the show, juried by Joe Andoe.

It was a little odd going back to IAO after my boycott over my last summer’s fit with the governing board. But, it was a new year and, after all, it’s not about the assholes on the board, it’s about the artists and the work. In this case, I particularly wanted to see Dana McBride’s work as she’s connected to The Oz. I was oddly drawn to the textural quality of the stained concrete work of the other artist showing (can’t recall his name right this second, dammit) and understood immediately why Dana was chosen to show her oils, brightly colored and much more in the way of round, feminine shapes than the male artists we ordinarily see. “Claude remembered” struck a deep emotional chord and if you don’t know why, then you aren’t likely reading my blog.

From there, about 8 of us went to dinner at Gopuram on west 23d street for both the India food buffet and the belly dancing. The blonde Jasmine with glasses had told me she’d be belly dancing and, of course, I had to go see. It was worth it. I love the Chicken Tiki Masala and the lamb korma and Nan with yogurt and dill sauce and … well … YUM!!! The dancing is in a separate room, but for a kick on a Friday it is well worth the effort. Young Jasmine was lovely, of course, as were the brunettes who led the dance troop.

This is when we went to Sober Grounds, to complete the circle of this post.

A successful evening by my lights.