First Fridays East begins with exhibits and reception

Where can a University of Richmond student spend a night wandering through rooms full of intriguing artwork while tasting delicious food and becoming a socialite? Two UR Downtown coordinators hope that the answer is First Fridays East.

First Fridays East, a three-month spring feature of the First Fridays Art Walk, expands the event to Broad Street's downtown eastern corridor through four key locations: University of Richmond Downtown, the Library of Virginia, St. Paul's Episcopal Church and CenterStage.

First Fridays East is an example of how UR Downtown aims to live into the Richmond Promise to offer a distinctively integrated student experience. UR Downtown coordinators Liz Riggs and Judy Mejia hope to tie together the university with the city through arts, culture, academics and social enrichment.

Last Friday's event began with an exhibition called "Surface Tension: Pattern, Texture and Rhythm in Art from the Collection," which showcased student art work from a Richmond design class and students from three local schools: Overby-Sheppard Elementary, G.W. Carver Elementary and William H. Fox Elementary. The elementary school students explored rhythm, texture and movement by using crayons, water color, pencils and paper to create images of the abstract to their own twists on the classic Cinderella. Richmond students created digital poster collages that were representative of their life experiences and individuality. Surface Tension is on view through May at UR Downtown and the Joel & Lila Harnett Museum at Richmond.

UR Downtown coordinated with the Library of Virginia, St. Paul's and CenterStage to create a walking circuit to each site. At UR Downtown, guests enjoyed the collection during conversation and the upbeat musical stylings of Shake & Howdy, a bluegrass duo featuring David Kuo and Richmond's own Barry Lawson, associate professor of computer science. Gregg Kimball, director of the Library of Virginia, welcomed the extension of First Fridays further down the eastside of Broad Street. Kimball said he was hopeful about First Friday's ability to breathe more life to the downtown area.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church offered a dessert reception and a silent auction where visitors could bid to purchase local art ranging from quilts to acrylic paintings to gift certificates donated by the Visual Arts Center. Susan Brooks set up the entire event and her husband, Philip Brooks, spoke of the event's main focal point: to donate all proceeds from the auction to charity.

The event ended with a free performance of "Othello" by Richmond Shakespeare at Richmond's new performing arts complex CenterStage.

First Fridays East continues on April 2.

Contact reporter Laila Hart at laila.hart@richmond.edu