Started in August, Capitol Hill's latest artwalk takes place on the second Tuesday of the month. The "2Tue" was created by the merchants of the Pike-Pine corridor "to let people know that we have various shops here, not just bars and restaurants," said Amy Ellsworth, who runs Stitches, a yarn and sewing shop at 711 E. Pike St.
Ellsworth began putting art on her walls last summer "to brighten up the walls." She was approached by her retail neighbor, Audrey McManus from Babeland, about creating an artwalk event. Despite the vast number of artists and art venues on Capitoll Hill, the neighborhood has lacked an artwalk. Several recent efforts at creating one simply did not take hold.
"We wanted to do something for the community," said McManus, who is the marketing-education coordinator for long-established feminist sex toy shop. "And it draws people to this area. The first couple of artwalks were pretty much the regulars from the neighborhood, but at the last one, I was hearing from people who said that they came here just for the artwalk."
With Babeland's contribution of performance art, the Capitol Hill artwalk appropriately has an edgier, more adult vibe than artwalks in Pioneer Square or Ballard.
"We hosted a bondage artist in here, doing what she called erotic macrame," said McManus. This month's offering at Babeland (707 E. Pike St.), will be the live burlesque dancers The Von Foxies as well as a video slideshow by Iris Stevenson based on one of Babeland's more popular items.
"We really wanted to do performance art in our space," said McManus. "It just seemed applicable to us."
Other spaces are showing more traditional art. Ellsworth looks for works by artists who have not been able to have many gallery shows. "I would love to do shows of textile-based arts, but we have other things as well. I like to give the space to artists who have not had many shows," she said.
In December, Ellsworth will host an artist whom she originally saw at an Artworks show. "Artworks is a youth arts group, that encourages artists between the age of 14 and 22. They just had a show based on the textile arts and I was inspired by their work," Ellsworth said.
McManus said that she loved the opportunity to walk between the different spaces and discover new artists in the neighborhood.
"I really like Dylan Snow's work at Retail Therapy. He had this piece about words and the entire space was covered with words on paper," she said.
This month, both Snow's work and that of artist James Short will be on display at Retail Therapy, 905 E. Pike St. Photographer Short has created wall art by using inkjet prints to create what he calls "hyper-minimal, often times multi-layered, subconscious extravaganzas."
Artist Sean Fear will display his latest work at Galactic Boutique, 1213 Pine. In Fear's world of funny creatures, he uses expressive images and graphic lines to convey "graphic story telling through lucid images."
Besides the usual reward of wine and cheese at various stops along the artwalk, McManus said merchants have organized a scavenger hunt with a prize basket for the winner: "We created a little incentive for people to go to all the places on the walk-it's a great gift basket!"
Other participants in 2Tue include Zero Zero Hair Salon, 1525 Summit Ave., Kaladi Brothers Coffee, 511 E. Pike St., Salon Chemistry, 723 E. Pike St. and Retrofit Home, 1419 12th Ave.
For the last stop, McManus suggests the Faire Gallery Café, 1351 E. Olive Way.
"They have awesome stuff on their walls and they are always open the latest. So people tend to drift down there and then sit around and talk about what they've seen."
This month's 2Tue takes place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14, on Capitol Hill.
To learn more about this month's offerings and keep up on future 2Tue happenings, check the artwalk's site on MySpace: www.my space.com/2Tue.
Rosemary Jones writes about arts and entertainment for the Capitol Hill Times. Reach her at editor@ capitolhilltimes.com.
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