NaBloPoMo Day 5: Smarty had an Arty Party

{Author’s Note, this post was actually set to publish yesterday, as part of my “post-a-day” commitment but I had unscheduled internet contretemps late last night and couldn’t get it out until today. Yep, hold on to your hoodies – that means you lucky peeps get two blogs in one day. Whoo hoo.}

Saturday night, David and I went to a gallery event.

Kai Lin Art, over in Westside, is owned by a dear friend of ours, Yu Kai Lin. We frequently attend his art openings, which are always fun and fabulous with an exceptionally diverse and interesting crowd. We’ve actually bought quite a bit of art from him as well. His gallery focuses on local artists and features a lot of up-and-coming creative minds with some amazing works in an approachable (at least for us) price-bracket.

I was checking Facebook Saturday morning, and I realized we’d received an invitation for an event that night.

KAI LIN ART HOSTS COLLECTIONS OF CONNECTIONS
A Night of Live Drawing
30 Artists drawing side by side | All works available for $75 each
Saturday, November 2nd, 2013
7:00-9:00pm

The invite went on to describe “Collections of Connections,” as an exciting evening of live drawing and music featuring 30 of Atlanta’s best artists and illustrators.

And what do you know, we had no plans for the evening and were totally open to music and live drawing! We were also quite open to complimentary beverages from Red Hare Brewery.

This photo was liberated, with love, from Yu Kai’s facebook page because my phone crapped its bloomers when we arrived and while it rebooted, I missed the most of the arty action.

Arriving at the gallery, we entered a room packed with artists – certainly way more than thirty – filling the long banquet style tables and spilling out to the floor, seated backed against the walls; pens, charcoal, acrylics flying as sketchbooks filled with vivid shapes and colors.

As pieces were completed, they were pinned to long clotheslines stretched around the room. The variety was overwhelming – everything from calligraphy and Escheresque line drawings to skateboard graphics and anime.

A jazzy four piece, El Quattro, popped out loungy beats and people buzzed around the finished art, snapping it up like candy.

I fell in madly in love with an awesome print of a fox dancing with goldfish by the very talented Amy Ashbaugh, but got scooped by a quick Betty with a ready checkbook. David however, successfully commandeered his favorite piece, by local artist and calligrapher Michael Mauldin.