Things to look at

Look What I Did!
Originally uploaded by V'ron

First, I have to brag. Sunday was chilly out, plus I was a bit tired from playing the night before, but I got it in me that if I didn't clean out the garden beds now, I would have to do so on some beautiful day where I'd rather be hanging and playing with the kids and grilling steaks. So I filled a dozen bags of yard waste with last fall's leaves (I don't rake them all, they're cheap mulch and this winter, we needed it!) and pruned the roses and raspberries. My sore lower back paid for it Monday, but it's done! All I have to do is plant!

Anyway, this weekend is Gallery Night and Day, and there's plenty to see, especially if you have a bent toward music, as I do.

• The annual CoPA (Coalition of Photographic Arts) is always good, and it's again at the PH Dye House at 320 E Buffalo. My Cream City Photogs colleague, Monica Gerds, is one of many excellent photographers who will be exhibiting in this show.


• If you're in the 3rd Ward anyway, there's plenty to see in the Marshall Building alone. The ArtMail group has a show in the lobby, co-sponsored by teh Shepherd Express. ArtMail is a neat concept that I'm glad I heard about: go to the Art Mail Website and sign up and then you'll get a lovely email at least weeekly featuring a work of art and information about the local artist. I've seen a lot of great stuff in my email box as a result, and can't wait to see this show.


• More Flickrites at the Light Ideas Gallery, also in the MArshall Building. Suzanne Garr & Byron Becker will be presenting "Our Worlds As Seen" and just from what I've seen at the Light Ideas site, this is woth a stopin s well.


• Upstairs at Gallery 218 in the Marshall Building will be the usual 218 Suspects, but with music by Janet Schiff and the Danglers' John Sparrow, and that alone is worth the walk up those stairs. Really, between all that, the usual excellence at the Grava Gallery, and the always wonderful Elaine Ericksen, it's worth the hassle of finding a third ward parking place near Water and Buffalo just for the Marshall Building, period.


• Further South, in Walker's point, at Galley 218's old digs, namely 218 S 2nd, is Nedobeck's Diamind Ink gallery, with a pile of musicians who are also amazing visual artists. Case in point, Mike Fredrickson will have paintings there, Jim Eannelli will as well, and they'll fit in nicely with a handful of John Lennon's prints. (Yes, that John Lennon.) A lovely night of visual artists turned musicians -- or was it the other way around?


• At the same place, Johnny Washday has a display of cigar box guitars he crafted. From his myspace blog: " Last winter I read about how early blues guitar players made their first instruments using primitive tools and & supplies at hand. I had to see for myself. Using only a buck knife, file, and manual hand drill, a cigar box of recycled maple... [and other items] ; I was able to fashion a playable 3 string version ... the plan was to make playable art for friends and family." Over the winter, he ran into a luthier friend of his, and together they fashioned a few dozen. "I am very proud of these as they will most certainly outlive me." Which, of course, is kind of the point of any art, no?


• Then just open your ears, head to Club Anything, and catch a good rock and roll chick night, with Roni Allwaise fronting the wonderful Guido's Racecar (with the aforementioned Washday on bass), followed by Liv Mueller fronting the equally but differently stunning Dark Horse Project.

I already posted earlier this week about Saturday, but besides Binky Tunny playing at the Whitefish Bay Sendiks (and that will be worth it for the culture clash alone!), Record Store Day at both Atomic and the Exclusive Company, and then an evening with Dr Chow (at O Keefe's House of Hamburg), as well as Transistor Royale and the Liam Ford Band at Lulu. I'll be just as exhausted after this weekend as I was cleaning up the yard!