Art Walk, July 2012

The first Friday evening of each month is Art Walk, with an ever-changing roster of artists showing their works in a variety of downtown businesses and other venues. Given Bellingham's climate, this often means walking in the rain, but tonight was perfect weather -- sunny and warm, with a gentle breeze.

We spent most of our time at The Lightcatcher building of the Whatcom Museum, where there is an interesting exhibition of 70 portraits of local residents by American artist Ray Turner. The curved Lightcatcher wall is as attractive inside the building as outside, and illuminated the images well.

We were also there for a Kulshan Brewery beer tasting, paired with food from the Cheese Meat(s) Beer cafe in the museum. Given the summer weather, I opted for a couple of glasses of excellent rosé wine, and left the beer tasting to Phil. We both enjoyed the small plates of house-cured lox on crispy bread with crème fraiche, strawberry sorbet, and red onion, and the braised lamb shoulder with anchovy, citrus, and tomatoes.

Outside the museum, we saw a bedecked bicycle that we thought Lady Findhorn would like (I liked the "That SUV makes you look fat!" sticker) and a notice reminding us of the other reason we came downtown tonight -- to see the exhibition of the winning photos of the 2012 Essence of Bellingham photo competition, including Phil's third place best of show photo out of more than 300 entries (click here for a closer look).

We both agreed that the evening felt like a mini-vacation, and we look forward to enjoying more local events, now that summer seems to be firmly ensconced!