Last thursday night was my friend Michelle's first art gallery in Downtown Orlando. It was at a club/lounge place called 57 West. They have been having gallery hops downtown every third Thursday of the month and this club is one of their stops. It helps local artists get their work out there and they only pay commission if they sell any pieces. We had an awesome time! It didn’t go quite how I thought it would but it was an incredible yet short night--good thing as Michelle and I had to work at the clinic at 730am the next day.
My boyfriend David and I got there right around 6pm which was when the gallery showing was. It was supposed to be 6-9p but the place was also a bar/lounge so they were open for more than the exhibit. Michelle showed us around and pointed out where all her paintings were. There weren’t many people there yet so we got a drink and sat down to chat as we waited for others to arrive.
Once more people arrived and the rest of our group I started to walk around and took some photos but since it was also a lounge the lighting was pretty terrible. Good thing a friend came who is in school for photography so she had a better camera and skills. I played with several settings and got a few good shots but I soon left it to the more experienced--plus the band finally came! That was the first interesting thing that happened: the band playing was melodic dissent (local band) and it turned out that David knew the lead singer. The play sublime-reggae sounding stuff (love!) and promised to open with "Badfish". They had to do sound check and as we were waiting Michelle's husband G arrived. David and I were getting hungry and thought about leaving but apparently the party hadn’t started. G was over at the bar and as we went to say bye he brought over a bottle of vodka, bucket of ice, and mixers. He came over and counted heads, went back to the bar, and brought back enough glasses for us all. He asked us all to grab a few things and head upstairs to the loft area. I saw Michelle as I was carrying a mixer and glasses, gave her a silly grin, and mouthed "oh no!"
It was really cute because she hadn’t seen her sister in a long time and the family surprised her by arranging to have her sister show up from New York!
Drinks were made and passed around, they didn’t taste very strong at all. I still had a buzz from my martini when I first arrived but I really wasn’t feeling anything from these drinks. In fact, the bottle was almost gone already! G said he thought it had been watered down. He took a swig right from the bottle and immediately knew they had diluted it!!
They went downtowns to talk to the bartenders and manager--the situation was remedied and a replacement bottle was sent back up. The band was awesome, I knew all the songs they covered and really enjoyed their original. The drinks, finally fully alcoholic, left us silly and smiling. I felt like we all connected really well, especially because we stayed almost all night with Michelle and her family. Not to mention when we tried to leave G convinced us to stay another half an hour. David and G really hit it off and will probably goof around in G's home studio sometime. When Michelle and I talk about our dudes they always have so much in common.
One of the artists/rich dudes/gallery hopper/reiki-dude was crazy trashed and super hilarious as he walked around talking to everyone with his girlfriend’s bright blue silk scarf around his neck. He was talking about light from within and making it big. He was a funny soul--strange but nice.
Finally we could no longer ignore our hunger and grabbed some pizza a few blocks away. I was in bed by 1230a and back at work by 7:40a. A little tired but ok.
Great night, art, people, music. Ah, happiness.
Check out my etsy shop!
www.etsy.com/shop/craftafarian
AND
Michelle's website
www.artbymichellemelendez.com
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