Thursday, November 5, 2009

Good people in our community.

I went to Hamilton the other day, with my ever increasingly wild child and his need to be oh so destructive, to visit art shops to figure out what I had in my neighbourhood.  My time was limited and my aim unsure but I was still on a mission.

I wandered into Mixed Media a small independent art shop, working out of a heritage building on James St.N in downtown Hamilton. I had driven by it once a few months ago, when I got lost returning from a street devoted entirely to textiles(that's another story), the name had caught my attention and I wanted to check it out. So, rambunctious  boy in tow, I ventured to Hamilton from my sleepy Car Farm to check it out.  Mixed Media  was a little art oasis.  They had an eclectic mix of supplies and product that included local art from a rotating gallery of artists.  Dave, the proprietor was an incredibly friendly and informative guy. He was even kind to my son who was systematically destroying to entire store.  Dave deserves great things to happen at his wonderful shop.  It is artists and lovers of the arts like Dave that make the art experience so much better for the rest of us.  It is a kindness that makes me want to go back to his store.

Now, Dave told me a few not so secret secrets that day.  One, James St. N art community hosts a monthly art crawl on the second Friday of every month. All the art shops galleries and stores that participate in the event keep their doors open late so that you can tour about. It starts around 7pm and is entirely self directed. So, you can go to as many or as little of the shops as possible.  They also have a Facebook page with lots of great info as well.
Second, he told me about his neighbouring shop and fellow etsians White Elephant Vintage.  They have this great little shop with a mix of vintage items and handmade items from other local artisans, many of which can be found on Etsy.  I really wish I could have spent more time in here and got to take a better look but yet again the boy monster made it difficult to even talk to the girl, who I later found out from the website is co owner, about her great shop.

Now, I went on a monday morning and most of the shops that participate in the art crawl were closed. Which means that some of the other wonderful places Dave told me about I wasn't able to check out yet.  All the more of an excuse for me to go back on the 2nd Friday of this month and participate in the crawl.

I'm planning on attending the next crawl I hope to see you there!

2 comments:

  1. Now i've got that song stuck in my head.. "these are the people in your neighbourhood! in your neighbourhood! in your neigh-bour-hood" anyways, You know how much I love your work and your blog! I was presented with an award this morning and would like to pass it on to you! Just scroll down, it's the last thing i babbled about :)
    http://sassmowthdesigns.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-no-feature.html

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  2. Thanks Kat. I will get to this. I will but for now, it is sitting on the shelf so to speak waiting for the right moment to pass them out!

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