First Thursday in Boise

There were lots of arts events going on yesterday for First Thursday.  The biggest event was the annual Modern Art event at the Modern Hotel.  My friend and I decided to avoid the crush of people (thousands of people trying to see art in small hotel rooms) and did not go to the event this year.

Instead, I wanted to visit all the City of Arts & History Department's Artist in Residency suites (AiR for short).  Here is the description of the program: "The 8th Street Marketplace Artist in Residence (AiR) program selects emerging and established artists for six-month residencies in donated commercial office spaces in downtown Boise."

The spaces are open on First Thursday and also Saturdays 12 - 5 p.m.

The first space we went to was under the Renewal Consignment shop.  It was a little bit of a maze getting to the space.  It was a large space and great if you needed to work on sculptures or large works.  But it seemed too dark to me.

Then we went to the 8th St. & Broad locations.  For the Northrup building, it is best to enter from the Broad St. side. The studios are upstairs.

Tuesday night I was helping to package prints for the Leftovers III print exchange and got to talking with Cassandra Schiffler, another artist.  I found out she is one of the current AiR artists and I told her I would try to stop by.

She is in this building with several other artists in the same space.  There are some large common areas and the artists each have their own little room to work in as well.  Although the ceilings are little low, the space is very nice and has good light.

Below is Cassandra in her studio.

To the right of Cassandra are some little painted blocks.  She is working on this great idea for next month's First Thursday where she will have painted blocks that visitors can rearrange to get a sense of how the objects relate to each other and the negative space surrounding them.  By moving them around, one can discover different relationships of the objects and what kind of compositions may or may not work well.

Of the four artists in the space, she will be featured next month.  All of the artists had work up this month.

Below are two of Cassandra's small, very affordable paintings.  There was a whole row of these across the wall.  I'm guessing the painting is maybe three inches square (not including the black border).  Also displayed were some of Cassandra's great prints.

Another artist in the space that I know is Theresa Burkes.  She works with all kinds of different media. Below she is explaining about the collage in progress that is on the table.

She also works with encaustic and does monotype prints.  I especially liked these three encaustic pieces.

Kate and Sarah Masterson were the other two artists in the space and also had interesting work.

In the same building, the Idaho Book Arts Guild had some workshops going on.  Below Kathleen learns how to make an envelope book.

Across 8th St. in the Mercantile building, there were two more studios.  One was being occupied by a film maker creating a documentary.  The other was being occupied by costume designer, Star Moxley.  She had created an installation piece in the space.

Our art adventure also took us to the Basement Gallery.  Then, we were done for the evening.