PEACH WEEKENDER

Gallery Loop, 419 Day set for Saturday fun

4/17/2014

Gallery Loop coincides with 419 Day on Saturday (that would be 4/​19), and the result is a whole lotta fun going on.

The family-friendly G-Loop will be Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m., while 419 Day events have various times.

First, the Loop.

Thirty participating venues include pubs with grub, studios, galleries, and businesses. Best parking is at Toledo School for the Arts (333 14th St., enter the lot from Madison Avenue) where you can pop into Gallerie 333 and enjoy a fine display of figure drawing by Paul Geiger, then hop aboard one of the four free University of Toledo buses. TSA is the bus-transfer point for two routes (a red and a blue route). Route information will be available at most venues.

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Buses will stop every 15 to 20 minutes in the Warehouse District, the Fifth Third Building, at Tenth Street and Jefferson Avenue, Uptown, the Collingwood Arts Center, and UT's Center for the Visual Arts.

Much of the action will be in the Warehouse District along South St. Clair Street, where galleries such as Jack Wilson's, Shared Lives, and the joenstas will have caboodles of art and crafts for sale. The same stretch includes Art Supply Depo, Sketchbox Toledo, and eateries.

Nearby are studios in the Secor Building (425 Jefferson Ave.), the atmospheric Schmidt Messenger Studio (340 Morris St.), and Gathered Art Gallery & Studios (23 N. Huron), always a hot spot where artists shape molten glass into beautiful objects.

A bus stop at 10th Street features three venues: the Davis Building and Launch Pad Cooperative galleries, and the elegant Paula Brown Shop, hosting a wine and craft-beer tasting along with work by Thurman Statom and six other fine artists.

At the north end of downtown is Art-A-Fair, the annual Prizm contest of its members' work in all media and poetry, in the lobby of the Fifth Third Building, 550 N. Summit St.

Adrian College students will show visitors how to make a relief print and their own linoleum and woodcuts will be exhibited at Studio M Printmakers, 320 N. Michigan St., near Main Library.

In Uptown, you'll find Maker's Mart, a one-day, pop-up shop full of indie crafts at 1717 Adams St. Open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., its 50 vendors produce clothing and fiber goods, jewelry, candles and soaps, purses, caricatures, hair and skin products, and more.

Nearby are The Attic on Adams and Manhattan's restaurants with specials (17th and Adams streets), and bunches of artists at Mad Ave Collective (1600 Madison Ave.) and Flying Rhino Coffee & Chocolates (436 13th St.). Truth Art Gallery will show its West African carvings (1811 Adams St.).

The Collingwood Arts Center will be open 3 to 8 p.m. and the action starts with a 3:30 historical tour by Pat Tansey, the center's founder. At 4:30 and 7 p.m. the Bird’s Eye View Circus performs in the theater with aerial stunts, fire eating, acrobatics, and stilt walking. At 5:30 and 6 p.m. Chris Bores, founder of Haunted Investigators, will lead a ghost tour.

And a game called Finders Keypers will be played. For $20 (it’s a fund-raiser), participants will get a key to one of the center's dozens of rooms: the trick is to find the door their key opens. Each room contains a prize and behind one door is an iPad.

Also on the loop is a beautiful display of Mexican majolica pottery at La Galeria, two miles south of downtown at 1224 Broadway St., 3 to 8 p.m. The 16 pieces, including five large murals made from tiles, were painted by contemporary artists who interpreted Cinco de Mayo, the day in 1862 when indigenous Mexicans in Puebla defeated French invaders. It continues through May 24, open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon., Weds., and Fri. Enjoy the many neighborhood murals while you're in the vicinity.

419 Day is a social media movement that’s gained traction in the last few years. Its aim is to show love for the community at large and local businesses, and this year cafes, comedy clubs, and more are offering $4.19 deals.

Using 419 Day to great advantage are the IGers of Toledo. They snap pictures and put them on Instagram, a social media devoted to images (see the 5,000 photos they have of our region at instagram.com/​igers_toledo#). With smart phones and cameras, they’re elevating Toledo's spirit one moment at a time, said Jeff Jones, cofounder with Brandt Chapman of IGers of Toledo.

The public is welcome to join any of their Saturday shoots, starting with 7:30 a.m. at the Oak Openings Preserve lodge where they'll head out to capture prairie, forest, and dune images until 9:15 a.m. From 10:30 to 11 a.m. they’ll meet on the Monroe Street steps of the Toledo Museum of Art for a group selfie. From 1 to 3:30 they'll gather in front of the Fifth Third Building on Summit Street, then head for urban shots of bridges, river, docks. And from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., they'll screen the day's photos at a party.

In the old Lagrinka neighborhood, Tim Ide has rented the Ohio Theatre, 3114 Lagrange St., for a music party celebrating the third anniversary of Miserable City TV, for which he and his two partners have made hundreds of films of local music, art, entertainment, and culture. Their films will be screened between musical acts that begin with the blues at 4, and continue at 6 with four hip-hop performers, an electronica group at 6:45, and rock bands from 8 to midnight, says Ide. Rosie's Italian Grille's food truck is expected about 6, and there will be free beer samples.

For more information on the Gallery Loop, contact The Arts Commission, 419-254-2787 or theartscommission.org.

For more information on 419 Day, go to facebook.com/​419day. Plus, to join the 419 fun on social media, use #419Day on Twitter.

Contact Tahree Lane at: tlane@theblade.com or 419-724-6075.