ArtWalk
April 30th, 2009 | By: Fred Nystrom
When the idea of hosting an Art Walk along Front Street was first broached in 2000, Michael Johnson remembers saying “You can’t have a ‘WALK’ with only one stop and since downtown Issaquah only has one gallery. That is just a gallery opening.”
Thank goodness the idea didn’t stop there. Ever resourceful, Michael was challenged to figure out how to have more stops so that this “artists meet residents” concept would become an actual event.
Michael’s creative answer was to ask downtown businesses to consider hosting an artist either in the lobby or other areas of their building. This “ah-ha” moment accomplished two goals, it created multiple locations where artists could show their work and introduced the visitors attending ArtWalk to those participating businesses. It gave attendees a reason to walk into a business where they might otherwise never have gone.
The very first ArtWalk included seven businesses and one gallery. By the time the 3rd year of ArtWalk was in full swing, there were 26 participating businesses and two galleries.
Artists’ have exhibited in hair salons, real estate offices, coffee shops, a chiropractic office, a martial arts studio, a bank, restaurants, a wine bar, furniture store, floral shop and even in Fischer’s Meats (that had to be a first!).
In 2002, there were three monthly ArtWalks. In 2007, they expanded to five, all scheduled on the first Fridays from May through September. From the beginning, the Issaquah Arts Commission has supported and underwritten ArtWalks. The hours of the event have also been expanded from two and a half hours to four hours between 5:00pm to 9:00pm.
Live music is the other main component that was added in order to create a more festive environment. Initially there was only one location for music. In 2008, one of the ArtWalks had 11 live music performances going on during the walk.
ArtWalk Issaquah, the official name for the events, has hosted artists from four years old to a spry 92. Local students are involved in every ArtWalk and many times school bands have performed earning money for band trips and equipment.
The increasing number of people attending attests to the success of the ArtWalks. The first year, artists were lucky to see 200 people. That number slowly grew over the next seven years to 2008 when the number of people attending was estimated to have exceeded 2,000 for most shows.
Music on the Streets
An exciting off-shoot of ArtWalk is called ‘Music on the Streets.’ As we previously mentioned, live music has long been an integral part of ArtWalk. Most attendees agree that the music gives the event an extra element of energy and liveliness that could not be had when just showing art. It keeps people at the event longer and brings them back time and time again. As a way to further foster that ‘artsy’ feel in Issaquah and continue to establish Issaquah as an arts destination, Michael began to place musicians in various downtown Issaquah locations throughout the summer. In 2007 there were 25 individual performances for Music on the Streets. In 2008 there were 50 concerts with performances every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night for three full months. Once again the Issaquah Arts Commission provided a grant as seed money for the development of the Music on the Streets program.
Michael continues his efforts to keep the arts alive in Issaquah and is the ArtWalk Issaquah Director as well as the Music on the Streets Director. These efforts have taken 35 to 40 hours a week of volunteer time. In February the Arts Commission agreed to a stipend for Michael to assure these programs continue to grow. So when you see the big charismatic guy with reddish hair and two cameras around his neck, be sure to give him your thanks for all he is doing to make this a wonderful community.
