February 25, 2008
Walk this way | After seven years of steady growth, Portland's First Friday art walk has become a bona fide smash
Art gazing and wine sipping, two of the major preoccupations of Portland's First Friday Art Walk, have brightened the local economy. The event, which falls on the first Friday of every month, brings pedestrians onto city streets to stroll from gallery to gallery, or into artists' studios, to look at new exhibits and indulge in the wine and cheese offered up at most spots.
The economic impact of First Friday is in many ways direct and immediate ˆ you get people looking at art for sale and you get them into restaurants and bars after the event has wound down at 8 p.m. But there are other less obvious imprints the art walk has made on the city over the past seven years. It has, for instance, helped foster an inclusive art community that's welcoming to the public. It also has helped lay a fertile ground for more art-related businesses and night life venues to spring up, especially in the area known as the "Arts District" along Congress Street.
"[The art walk] creates a zeitgeist, a certain energy," affirms Andres Verzosa, owner of Aucocisco Gallery on Congress Street. Verzosa, along with the owners of a now-closed nightclub called The Skinny, organized First Friday in October 2000. Last summer, after informally managing the walk for years, he handed the event over to the Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance, known as PACA.
The transfer opens up an array of possibilities. Before, Aucocisco could not apply for grants as a for-profit business. And seven months into its new stewardship, the nonprofit PACA has already received $3,000 from the Maine Community Foundation, according to PACA Executive Director Catherine Valenza. The city this fiscal year also increased its support to PACA by $5,000 to $15,000, partly in consideration of its new art walk responsibility.
"There will be many more opportunities for us to promote it and receive money to sustain it," Valenza predicts. "As a business, Aucocisco had a hard time going around and asking businesses to support it. Whereas as a nonprofit, there is a much clearer directive that this is for the public good, and there are less concerns about potential conflict of interest."
PACA is now considering hiring a free trolley that could cart people from upper Congress Street to Munjoy Hill, a welcome aid during biting winter nights. (For more on the art walk's future possibilities, see "The art of art walks" on page 31.)
As First Friday prepares to grow ˆ and its organizers ready themselves for the inevitable need to convince foundations and individuals to donate money ˆ the event's city-wide importance will undoubtedly come under a bit more scrutiny. And galleries, studios, restaurants and bars testify that so far, the art walk has played an integral role in their businesses. Plus, it has brought a certain immeasurable spirit to the city.
"It's fun, free, low barrier," Verzosa sums up. When he first contemplated the idea of an arts-related community event years ago, he wanted it to be "egalitarian and democratic," luring people downtown who might not typically frequent galleries.
Daniel Kany, who owns an eponymous gallery on Exchange Street, says the event stirs a particular pulse in the city. "It is a broader cultural rhythm," he says, adding that the walk puts gallery-hopping on the level with movies, eating out or meeting at a bar.
Building a scene
Although no one has calculated the precise economic impact of Portland's First Friday, everyone involved is pretty much convinced of its benefits. When the event first started, it attracted about 100 people and at least 25 venues, Verzosa says. Aucocisco Gallery Director Virginia Sassman figures that at least 1,000 people now take part in First Friday. Aucocisco alone sees about 300 people on a typical First Friday. And usually anywhere between 45 and 70 venues participate by displaying art.
Sassman says, too, that she's heard informal estimates that the total annual economic impact of the event is $250,000, which includes art walkers dipping into bars and restaurants to top off the evening. Plus, Sassman points out that the gallery owners and artists who buy wine and snacks to appease the crowds also help local grocers and delis. In fact, some admit to spending anywhere between $40 and $100 per night.
"I always invest in wine and cheese and crackers and mixed nuts," confesses artist Jim Williams, who owns Mainely Labs Studio in the State Theater building. "Sometimes you actually lose money on First Friday. That is why I look at it as a marketing investment."
Townsend Real Estate, which opens on First Fridays as Gallery 132, might be the grand winner in the hostess category, if there were one. Originally, the office was spending $600 to $1,000 on First Fridays, which included a live band, according to owner Kathryn Townsend, who opened in 2004. The self-described art enthusiast says she's since cut back to $300 to $400 a night. "It is extensive," she admits. "And I toyed with scaling it down the last two times, but it's just not my style. We always go big."
But those venues that serve food as their main business and then display art on the walls as a side do very well.
Coffee by Design, a coffee roaster with shops on Congress and India Streets, sees a 25% spike in business on First Fridays, according to co-owner Mary Allen Lindemann. Part of the business's success lies in its location in the arts district. Although the walk has spread across the city, it remains largely concentrated between State and Preble streets, roughly a seven-block stretch along Congress Street.
Location ˆ including artsy neighbors ˆ is fairly critical to a First Friday bonanza. BiBo's Madd Apple Café, an American bistro you discover if you turn the corner from Congress Street onto Forest Avenue, didn't have much luck with First Friday when the restaurant first opened its doors in 2006. "The first summer it didn't do a lot," owner Bill Boutwell recalls. "We put out special hors d'oeuvres, and it was pretty much a flop." But then two new galleries opened nearby, Susan Maasch Fine Art and Sanctuary, a tattoo parlor and gallery space. First Friday customers at his restaurant jumped on average by 20%, Boutwell figures. "We found that this season our First Fridays have just been amazing," he says.
Though most restaurants and bars gain from First Fridays, galleries don't always see a direct link between the art walk and art sales. Many galleries have a set clientele, or appeal to certain class of buyers, and those people, if they even head out on First Friday, are not often going with the intention of buying a new piece. But gallery owners count on other ripple effects.
Daniel Kany says the $1,000 bucks or so he spends a year on free wine at his Exchange Street gallery sounds a bit crazy, but it's worthwhile. "I want 100 people in my door every day regardless of whether it affects my sales," he says. "A lot of our own marketing is viral, per person marketing. They walk in here, they're not going to buy anything, but they'll talk to people, or bring in their friends."
Beyond art
Kany also points out that First Friday serves as a primer of sorts to galleries, and this introduction can help lessen the trepidation some novice art collectors might feel about walking into one. "It's an important lesson, how people deal with businesses, and how you buy art at a gallery," he says.
More than restaurants or galleries, the biggest beneficiary of First Friday might be individual artists who invite passers-by into their studios. "The art walk is free, anyone can participate. So any artist, regardless of the money they have, can participate and sell work that night," Sassman points out. "I think the economic impact on those people is much stronger."
Williams, who opened Mainely Labs Studio two years ago, says he always makes money on First Fridays, anywhere from $5 for his greeting cards to $200 for prints of his colorful paintings depicting black Labrador Retrievers. His more expensive paintings are treated a bit differently, though. "I don't think I've sold a painting on a Friday art walk, but I know of at least four or five occasions someone has come through on the art walk and seen a painting, and then come back or called me and resulted in sale of original work."
Kany says, too, that sales or viral marketing aside, there's a sense of communal responsibility that underlies First Friday. The event is really a marketing tool for Portland. "The whole city benefits directly from people stopping in and making purchases," he says. "But also people are walking around town and getting to know it and getting to know different places."
Art walks are not unique to Portland. South Portland, Biddeford, Bath, Brunswick, Yarmouth, Belfast and Peaks Island all have some form of a regular art walk. And these towns join hundreds of communities across the country with their own version of First Friday.
Andres Verzosa says galleries have probably been collaborating to host public evenings since the 1970s. But that hasn't stopped Seattle from claiming, albeit tentatively, that it may have the oldest organized art walk in the United States. (Ryan Romaneski, executive director of Pioneer Square Community Association in Seattle, says Seattle's First Thursday originated in 1981.)
Verzosa says First Friday is built to grow. "First Friday art walk is art focused; however, it has a built-in audience," he says. "Other organizations and groups and individuals are able to tie things in on that day, on that night. It is a great way to build up an accumulation of art and culture events on the calendar."
The economic impact of First Friday is in many ways direct and immediate ˆ you get people looking at art for sale and you get them into restaurants and bars after the event has wound down at 8 p.m. But there are other less obvious imprints the art walk has made on the city over the past seven years. It has, for instance, helped foster an inclusive art community that's welcoming to the public. It also has helped lay a fertile ground for more art-related businesses and night life venues to spring up, especially in the area known as the "Arts District" along Congress Street.
"[The art walk] creates a zeitgeist, a certain energy," affirms Andres Verzosa, owner of Aucocisco Gallery on Congress Street. Verzosa, along with the owners of a now-closed nightclub called The Skinny, organized First Friday in October 2000. Last summer, after informally managing the walk for years, he handed the event over to the Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance, known as PACA.
The transfer opens up an array of possibilities. Before, Aucocisco could not apply for grants as a for-profit business. And seven months into its new stewardship, the nonprofit PACA has already received $3,000 from the Maine Community Foundation, according to PACA Executive Director Catherine Valenza. The city this fiscal year also increased its support to PACA by $5,000 to $15,000, partly in consideration of its new art walk responsibility.
"There will be many more opportunities for us to promote it and receive money to sustain it," Valenza predicts. "As a business, Aucocisco had a hard time going around and asking businesses to support it. Whereas as a nonprofit, there is a much clearer directive that this is for the public good, and there are less concerns about potential conflict of interest."
PACA is now considering hiring a free trolley that could cart people from upper Congress Street to Munjoy Hill, a welcome aid during biting winter nights. (For more on the art walk's future possibilities, see "The art of art walks" on page 31.)
As First Friday prepares to grow ˆ and its organizers ready themselves for the inevitable need to convince foundations and individuals to donate money ˆ the event's city-wide importance will undoubtedly come under a bit more scrutiny. And galleries, studios, restaurants and bars testify that so far, the art walk has played an integral role in their businesses. Plus, it has brought a certain immeasurable spirit to the city.
"It's fun, free, low barrier," Verzosa sums up. When he first contemplated the idea of an arts-related community event years ago, he wanted it to be "egalitarian and democratic," luring people downtown who might not typically frequent galleries.
Daniel Kany, who owns an eponymous gallery on Exchange Street, says the event stirs a particular pulse in the city. "It is a broader cultural rhythm," he says, adding that the walk puts gallery-hopping on the level with movies, eating out or meeting at a bar.
Building a scene
Although no one has calculated the precise economic impact of Portland's First Friday, everyone involved is pretty much convinced of its benefits. When the event first started, it attracted about 100 people and at least 25 venues, Verzosa says. Aucocisco Gallery Director Virginia Sassman figures that at least 1,000 people now take part in First Friday. Aucocisco alone sees about 300 people on a typical First Friday. And usually anywhere between 45 and 70 venues participate by displaying art.
Sassman says, too, that she's heard informal estimates that the total annual economic impact of the event is $250,000, which includes art walkers dipping into bars and restaurants to top off the evening. Plus, Sassman points out that the gallery owners and artists who buy wine and snacks to appease the crowds also help local grocers and delis. In fact, some admit to spending anywhere between $40 and $100 per night.
"I always invest in wine and cheese and crackers and mixed nuts," confesses artist Jim Williams, who owns Mainely Labs Studio in the State Theater building. "Sometimes you actually lose money on First Friday. That is why I look at it as a marketing investment."
Townsend Real Estate, which opens on First Fridays as Gallery 132, might be the grand winner in the hostess category, if there were one. Originally, the office was spending $600 to $1,000 on First Fridays, which included a live band, according to owner Kathryn Townsend, who opened in 2004. The self-described art enthusiast says she's since cut back to $300 to $400 a night. "It is extensive," she admits. "And I toyed with scaling it down the last two times, but it's just not my style. We always go big."
But those venues that serve food as their main business and then display art on the walls as a side do very well.
Coffee by Design, a coffee roaster with shops on Congress and India Streets, sees a 25% spike in business on First Fridays, according to co-owner Mary Allen Lindemann. Part of the business's success lies in its location in the arts district. Although the walk has spread across the city, it remains largely concentrated between State and Preble streets, roughly a seven-block stretch along Congress Street.
Location ˆ including artsy neighbors ˆ is fairly critical to a First Friday bonanza. BiBo's Madd Apple Café, an American bistro you discover if you turn the corner from Congress Street onto Forest Avenue, didn't have much luck with First Friday when the restaurant first opened its doors in 2006. "The first summer it didn't do a lot," owner Bill Boutwell recalls. "We put out special hors d'oeuvres, and it was pretty much a flop." But then two new galleries opened nearby, Susan Maasch Fine Art and Sanctuary, a tattoo parlor and gallery space. First Friday customers at his restaurant jumped on average by 20%, Boutwell figures. "We found that this season our First Fridays have just been amazing," he says.
Though most restaurants and bars gain from First Fridays, galleries don't always see a direct link between the art walk and art sales. Many galleries have a set clientele, or appeal to certain class of buyers, and those people, if they even head out on First Friday, are not often going with the intention of buying a new piece. But gallery owners count on other ripple effects.
Daniel Kany says the $1,000 bucks or so he spends a year on free wine at his Exchange Street gallery sounds a bit crazy, but it's worthwhile. "I want 100 people in my door every day regardless of whether it affects my sales," he says. "A lot of our own marketing is viral, per person marketing. They walk in here, they're not going to buy anything, but they'll talk to people, or bring in their friends."
Beyond art
Kany also points out that First Friday serves as a primer of sorts to galleries, and this introduction can help lessen the trepidation some novice art collectors might feel about walking into one. "It's an important lesson, how people deal with businesses, and how you buy art at a gallery," he says.
More than restaurants or galleries, the biggest beneficiary of First Friday might be individual artists who invite passers-by into their studios. "The art walk is free, anyone can participate. So any artist, regardless of the money they have, can participate and sell work that night," Sassman points out. "I think the economic impact on those people is much stronger."
Williams, who opened Mainely Labs Studio two years ago, says he always makes money on First Fridays, anywhere from $5 for his greeting cards to $200 for prints of his colorful paintings depicting black Labrador Retrievers. His more expensive paintings are treated a bit differently, though. "I don't think I've sold a painting on a Friday art walk, but I know of at least four or five occasions someone has come through on the art walk and seen a painting, and then come back or called me and resulted in sale of original work."
Kany says, too, that sales or viral marketing aside, there's a sense of communal responsibility that underlies First Friday. The event is really a marketing tool for Portland. "The whole city benefits directly from people stopping in and making purchases," he says. "But also people are walking around town and getting to know it and getting to know different places."
Art walks are not unique to Portland. South Portland, Biddeford, Bath, Brunswick, Yarmouth, Belfast and Peaks Island all have some form of a regular art walk. And these towns join hundreds of communities across the country with their own version of First Friday.
Andres Verzosa says galleries have probably been collaborating to host public evenings since the 1970s. But that hasn't stopped Seattle from claiming, albeit tentatively, that it may have the oldest organized art walk in the United States. (Ryan Romaneski, executive director of Pioneer Square Community Association in Seattle, says Seattle's First Thursday originated in 1981.)
Verzosa says First Friday is built to grow. "First Friday art walk is art focused; however, it has a built-in audience," he says. "Other organizations and groups and individuals are able to tie things in on that day, on that night. It is a great way to build up an accumulation of art and culture events on the calendar."
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