Honeybee Mama / Web 2012 / First Friday Art Crawl

Jul 13, 201207:00 AMHoneybee Mama

First Friday Art Crawl

Last Friday night we were looking for something adventurous to do, but needed to NOT spend money. Even though we wanted to keep a tight reign on the purse strings, it was Friday and we did not want to sacrifice fun!

After tooling around online looking for things to do, and getting some suggestions from friends we ventured to the Brady District for the First Friday Art Crawl. Once a month, the art galleries and other venues in the Brady Arts District open their doors late and offer refreshments to the public.

I so love Downtown Tulsa. Just the old buildings and all the stories they hold is enough for me to wander around and be happy for days.

I love the collection of creativity revitalizing Downtown and the Brady Arts District. Not all of the places we passed were kid-friendly, to our standards anyway. No one was turning children away, but we just didn't trust our kids little fingers to many places we peered into! It was still lovely to walk past and enjoy the scenery and people.

Once I started seeing wine and cheese plates, I started wishing we'd chosen this adventure for a date night. Then I caught my littles admiring the artwork, and didn't look back for a minute. 

Then, once they started admiring that cheese plate, I had to pull them away before they devoured the whole thing! We were glad to move along and see other artists along the street. The boys were fascinated by this jewelry made from beautiful stones and twisted copper.

The highlight of the evening was definitely visiting Tulsa Glass Blowing Studio. When we walked in, they were in the process of making a vase and we got to watch the whole process!

Putting it in the fire...

Rolling colored glass into the clear glass...

Showing us the color change and telling us about his vision for the finished piece...

Teamwork! This was amazing. One guy turning the vase and cooling and shaping the glass, while another guy is blowing into it. Crazy!

It was hot in there, so we took a little break to get some air, a drink and visit with another artist. He was putting together lots of little pieces of colored glass in between two small squares of clear glass that he'd later heat so all the pieces would melt into one. So cool!

Some of the art pieces were expensive, but there were many smaller beads and other decorative pieces that were affordable and great for souvenirs or unique gifts.

Here the professional glassblowers are all working together to begin finishing the piece. 

Aidan found out one of the men showcasing his work that evening was raising money for college to major in glass blowing, so he dug into his wallet and collected 28 cents. It happened so fast I didn't catch the exchange, but it was so sweet!

Alec could have cared less about donating money. He just wanted a Popsicle to keep cool!

They finished! It was a beautiful vase. The made a glass fish and connected it to the bottom of the vase before heating the glass and spinning it really fast to flare out the edges. As I'm sure you can tell I was really fascinated by the whole process!

There were several other places open to the public for the evening, but by the time we got done at the Glass Blowing Studio, we were pretty hot and pooped and needed to get the littles home for bed.

Next time, we're leaving the littles at home and making it a date night!

 

See you around town!

Honeybee Mama