scenes from the broad ave. art walk

 

When I was just out of high school and coming into Midtown Memphis from East Memphis, I spent a lot of time with 'art academy' kids on Broad Avenue.  There was a biker bar called Fred's Hide Out where bikers, punks, art school kids and dead heads would all hang out.  They happily served drinks to young girls like myself.

The street has indeed evolved.  It still has some of the 'edge of nowhere' charm about it, but because of a few forward thinking folks who have bought buildings in the last ten years, the street is home to lots of artists, crafts persons, the Urban Arts Commission, a decent bar and a new diner.  Memphis is really starved for this type of transformation, one that seems to have integrity and quality behind it.

About the pictures.  The top one was from a show at Odessa, where it looked like someone cleaned out their dressers and closets and hung all their crap on the wall.  I'm not sure who the artist was, but always the voyeur, I enjoyed looking at the 'this and that' of someone's life. The second photo is from Gadsby Cresson's exhibit of bike rack prototypes at Urban Art.  And the last one is from the Rozelle Artists Guild wonderful sketchbook show.