The artist Ben Beres curates the monthly shows at Joe Bar, a great neighborhood coffee shop on the north end of Broadway, so when his March show fell through, it was on him to find somebody else.
Instead, Seattle legend Jeffry Mitchell found him. Mitchell happened to attend a different art opening at Joe Bar at the end of February and offered to do a giant show of drawings—and he has.
Unannounced and unlisted (until just now), there are 38 drawings by Mitchell on display at Joe Bar.
They went up late last night, and eight of them have sold already. They're stacked in grids up the high walls. They're hung outside the bathroom doors, next to the creamer, alongside the staircases.
The opening is Thursday night from 6 to 9 pm, during Capitol Hill Art Walk, and it's going to be a feeding frenzy, because each drawing is only $175. If you want one, you'd better get over there.
I just trudged over in the rain and bought one myself. Wait, do you collect? The answer to that question is basically: very rarely (I have fewer than 10 pieces by living artists after 20 years in the business), but you can read more about how I handle it on the Daily Serving, which recently asked me to comment on my philosophy around critics collecting art. It's changed some since this, basically because I felt like I was holding myself back from a conflict that didn't exist, provided I had certain limits. Do you agree?
