A Walk on the Art Side

Last night I had a chance to check out Art Walk Jacksonville. It was much more than I expected.

Art Walk is quite an interesting experience and it helps bring people to Downtown Jacksonville. It was an area that had sorely been neglected but the renaissance that it has experienced is amazing. Art Walk happens the first Wednesday of every month and invites many visual and performing artists to show off their work in many lofts and office buildings in the downtown area. If you haven’t been or are ever in the area – it is a free event that feels very SoHo.

The Walk sponsored by Downtown Vision, Inc., features thirty-four venues of makeshift galleries, performances, food and spirits. The best part about it --it's all free!

My journey did not start at the first stop on the map but at JMOMA (The Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art). I recently joined the museum and hadn't had the time to really check out the spot. I was glad I did. Although the first two floors had some interesting pieces, it was the third floor that took my breath away.

Radcliffe Bailey is a musician, artist and professor living in Atlanta, GA and his exhibitions at JMOMA were passionate expressions of feeling and insight. I appreciated his art, especially one featuring Afro-Beat Legend Fela but the thing that took my breath away was his mixed media piece STORM AT SEA. This installation was a wooden installation that was so dynamic that as I stood looking at this masterpiece the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The exhibit was a depiction of the Middle Passage (Africans journey to America via slave ships) one of the ships and its arrival in the “New World” which housed an elevated African Icon. The most poignant aspect was a blank page set for sheet music sitting unassumingly at the end of the work. The page said simply, “Long Live the UNIA”. I was in awe. This man is so far beyond his time. I can’t wait to meet him. Genius. I stood their looking for quite some time watching the confused masses meander by confused. I wonder if they had any idea what they had witnessed. Probably not.

I continued from spot to spot around to the other galleries and “art spaces” downtown. I say art spaces in that some of the buildings that are under construction allowed their spaces to be used for exhibition. This eclectic funky mix gave the evening ambiance. In one spot there was a mat, a crew of break dancers and a DJ that performed gravity defying stunts to some break beat, electronic and dance music.

I even saw the organizer of the Art Walk and one of my former co-workers Karen Barnes at one of the spots. Check her and a friend out in the photos. She has really found her niche bringing things like this to Jacksonville.

Now any one who knows me knows that I love great eclectic gourmet cuisine, which is why CHEW caught my eye. CHEW has not officially opened its doors yet one of the owners, Jason Parry, graciously gave me a tour of the spot and I am waiting with baited breath for the Grand Opening. My sneak preview of the menu proves that this is sure to be a new Downtown Hotspot. All of the specialties are cured and created in house and they are slated to offer “eclectic elegance on the go”! I can’t wait.

While there I also ran into one of the coolest cats on Earth – Shelton Hull. Shelton and I used to hang out in High School and even then his mind was on another level. This guy started Section 8 – an arts and entertainment magazine and currently writes a column in Folio Weekly Magazine called Money Jungle. Check him out.

After several uneventful stops and meeting some cool people just walking on the street. I ended up at Boomtown Theatre to check out the sing along. Great food, good wine and an interesting stage show. You can thank co-owners Stephen Dare and John Allen for giving Jacksonville something unlike what you will find anywhere in the world.

I know from all theses experiences, this really doesn’t sound like Jacksonville but it was.

All of these experiences. These are Jacksonville. These things coupled with low rates of minority-owned businesses. Having the highest murder rate in Florida. High instances of HIV/AIDS in the minority community. Low high school graduation rates and an increasing disparity between haves and have-nots. All of these things are Jacksonville and in essence it is a microcosm of the world.

I choose to take those wonderful experiences and use them as fuel to make a difference. Even now as the high school that I attended struggles with administrative issues and charting a truly uncertain future (I’ll address that later), I know that the little I can do here will make a global impact if only I do my small part.

As an actor, I love art. I am, in the basic sense of the word, an artist. My art does not define me – it completes me. Does this mean that I have the responsibility to make the world a better place? Of course. A place more feasible to share my art.