As I sit here reflecting on this past weekend, listening to The Picard Song and eating some chips and salsa, I can’t help but think what an amazing few days it has been. The weather has been perfect, I played a lot of disc golf, and most importantly, Friday had perhaps the best First Friday experience I’ve ever encountered.

My evening started at 5:00 PM when I rode my bike down to the College of Design to check out the student work, as well as the things posted by Alumni of the College as part of their 60th Anniversary celebration. Studio Collective was Friday, and as part of the celebration, they had a competition to see who had the best looking bikes in the following categories: Scraper, Fixed Gear, and Open Category (anything goes). All this explanation is really just setup for describing the bike ride – due to a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions (bike competition at studio crawl, beautiful weather, great shows, First Friday, a scavenger hunt), First Friday was hopping like I’ve never seen it!

The bike ride, which has been growing in popularity as the weather has been improving, was a record breaking event – we had over 100 riders at one point! In the above picture, there are 93 bikers, smashing the previous high mark of around 60. Some were estimating that there were as many as 120 bikers at one point. Anyone who saw us ride by will agree that it was totally massive. Now, to the artwork.

Since we were a little late leaving Studio Collective, we met the big group of bikers at FM Gallery, but as soon as we got there we were heading out again. We, the late guys, missed the show at RebusWorks – Epic Battle, a showcase of local artists David Eichenberger and Casey Porn. I totally regret missing it, but I’ll make it by there sometime and you should, too!

After FM, the bike armada went up to Design Box, where they were showcasing the posters of Jeff Williford of the NC Museum of Natural History, as well as several benches made as a part of the Have a Seat, NC! project for bus stops lacking proper seating. I helped design and build one of them, it was outside and I was so busy marvelling at the inordinate amount of bikers that I forget to get a picture of it. Oops!

After DesignBox we headed to Lump, where they were showing the work of Christopher Coleman. I didn’t get a lot of time in this gallery either, because there were so many bikers that we had to go inside in shifts.

Now to my favorite part of the night: Hargett Street. In the Morning Times you can see work from the Bain Project, a totally cool event that has been covered extensively at New Raleigh. It is various artists’ work based on the interiors of the now defunct Bain Water Plant in South Raleigh.

After this, I hung out down in the Fish Market to check out the Senior Show for graduating Seniors in Art and Design – pound for pound one of the best shows I’ve seen down in the Fish Market.

Several large paintings by graduating senior Heather Hardison

A chair designed and fabricated by graduating senior Enrique Dominguez

Portrait paintings by graduating senior Julianne Gonski

Plush toys and a adult sized rocking horse by graduating senior Anna Myers

DJ Yes! Sputnik and Critter – Critter’s work is in the Morning Times. Check it out!

Enjoy, and see you next First Friday. Let’s shoot for another record crowd!