On the first Thursday of every month, Seattleites flock to the streets of Pioneer Square for the city's central and oldest art walk, which offers opportunities to stroll, sip on wine, and attend as many gallery openings as possible. But, in most cases, the shows are up for longer than just one night, and the historic neighborhood is a great place to check out art any day of the year. So, below, we've compiled the most promising exhibits that are having opening receptions on December 5—complete with a Google map at the bottom. You can also find more options on our First Thursday calendar, including second receptions for shows like Paul Rucker: Forever and shorter-term events like the one-night A.Oei Fashion Show or Communal Apposition: Works from within PCNW. For art in other neighborhoods, check out our complete visual art calendar.

Ann Marie Perkins-Rosenberg: The Great Return (To the Source)
This local, nature-influenced artist creates mixed-media works incorporating ethical taxidermy and pen-and-ink drawings in earthy, symbolic, mystical designs, like an ouroboros figure made with a real snakeskin.
Mortlake and Co.

A Circle Around the Sun
The gallery displays new works by member artists, such as proponent of "Bubblism" Marcio Diaz, encaustic monotype painter Caryn Friedlander, mixed-media photographer Yuko Ishii, sumi-e painter Alan Lau, and abstract oil painter William Song. If you're feeling some inter-holiday gloom, your eyes will appreciate the lightness, exuberance, energy, peace, and mystery of these creators' new pieces. 
ArtXchange

Leaves from a Book of Hours
The gallery displays vellum pages from a 1501 Horae, Book of Hours (a type of prayer book owned by wealthy people in the Middle Ages) printed by Jean Poitevin. Feel awed by the survival of this precious devotional artifact, illustrated with lush wood-engraved panels.
Davidson Galleries

Madeleine Cichy: A Body as Big as This Room
There’s really nothing like a beaded curtain. Retro and typically hung in doorways, they announce the arrival (or departure) of a family member, a friend, a pet, often still clanging together long after that person has passed through them. In Seattle-based artist Madeleine Cichy’s solo show, she will be exhibiting watercolor and acrylic works on paper of beaded curtains, finding a “new way of approaching responsive environments and bodily presence.” JASMYNE KEIMIG
Specialist

Margaret Chodos-Irvine: Corral
Chodos-Irvine joins 12 identical white men's dress shirts into cloth rings in this examination of the "psychological shell" provided by formal garments. These interesting soft sculptures evoke questions of language, culture, connection, and self-protection. 
Method Gallery

Natural History: Botanical and Naturalist Subjects
Who doesn't love botanical and faunal illustration? This exhibition presents work by the 16th-century engraver Andres Lagunas, illustrator of the Dioscorides Anazarbeo, Acerca de la materia medicinal ("the Anazarbeo Dioscorides, on medicinal matter," 1555). These are accompanied by other hand-colored engravings of natural subjects. 
Davidson Galleries

Northwest Mystics 2019: Women of the PNW
Twenty-two women artists working in various media, from music to sculpture to video, pay tribute to gallery owner and Northwest School maven Zoë Dusanne with performances, installations, and "lighted animatronic motion-sensitive 'flowers' that seem to speak directly to visitors."
CoCA

Playground
The Tropical Contemporary collective—made up of self-described femmes, queers, kinksters, and people of color in Eugene, OR—explore fantasy, play, and their vital role in society through mostly two-dimensional artworks. They interrogate the concept of spaces of play, hook-ups, and loitering, whether in person or online. 
SOIL

Shift Artist Members Group Show: Best of Shift
Discover some of the finest work from the 21 members of this artist-run gallery, like Ken Barnes, Leah Gerrard, Patrice Donohue, and other talents.
Shift Gallery

Stonington Celebrates 40: 40th Anniversary Group Exhibition
Celebrate 40 years of top-notch Northwest Coastal and Alaskan art with a Native focus as this excellent gallery hosts a group exhibition. There is awesome talent on view here, in everything from Preston Singletary's Wood Carver's Totem to Maynard Johnny, Jr.'s Heron Paddle to Paige Pettibon's caləɫali Altarpiece, the latter a fascinating merging of European painting tradition and Lushootseed language.
Stonington Gallery