The Indy Indie Preview Party took place on Wednesday, January 26, 2011, from 6 to 9 p.m. at 26 E. 14th Street (14th & Penn Downtown). The Indy Indie Artist Colony is a new live/work community for artists, that features a street level gallery showing resident artwork. The Colony is managed by Philip Campbell who is also the Gallery Director. This night claimed to be the largest gathering of the year and maybe it was, but when I arrived, the gallery had a little more than a dozen people wandering around and the majority of those were with Indianapolis Downtown Artist and Dealers Association (IDADA). The two large rooms making up one of the newest gallery spaces in the downtown area was less than inviting. Having been in a position for several years of putting together gallery shows myself, I only say this because with such a small crowd not one person said "Hi" and welcomed me into the space. Had I been an outsider to the gallery world I may have felt uncomfortable, even unwelcome in a venue that has great potential for future gallery shows. The art work inside the space is great, street level just around the corner from the already well established Harrison Center for the Arts (www.harrisoncenter.org), which will help bring a crowd out on First Fridays to this new space. The Colony is not a new concept to artists, living and working together has been going on long before our time and has been a great success. Like many things in life, creating art together has often been more successful than being a recluse. However, for several artists this method works well, so I won't downplay working alone. Like many great 14th century architects, working in seclusion provided you with the security that your art and designs would not be stolen, but how I see it, if you do something well, no one will be able to copy your creations.

The building stands at a great living location for convenience to all the downtown attractions; to top it off, the "Green" movement is taken on by the building developers in several ways. My favorite was keeping the renovations to a minimum and reusing as many original features as possible. The vintage 1926 resident quarters had a bit of an old world charm. It was nice to see that they weren't gutted and replaced with cheap fixtures from a mega hardware store. Campbell said, "Every city in the world that has become successful banked on culture." I hope that more buildings like the Colony will entice people to move into this area for the sake of culture. Now, in my opinion the building was very rough around the edges, which I believe makes it a perfect space for young and upcoming artists. Had this been opening as I was finishing my undergrad in painting and photography I would have jumped at the chance to live in a place that was not only affordable, but would give you opportunities as artist that you may have to struggle to find elsewhere, such as available gallery wall space to show your work.

While checking out the artwork by artists I have yet to meet, I ran into a friend who has a studio next to mine at the HCA. He mentioned to me he had just found out about the opening event a couple of days ago through an email sent out by the HCA. We got to talking about ways you can find out about some of the arts-related events in the city and one is through IDADA. One can download an app for First Fridays onto your phone. I was having some technical difficulties with the application downloading on to my iPhone, but I am looking forward to getting this one working. Although most First Fridays I am working away in my studio and visiting with guests, it is still nice to stay in the know of what is going on around the downtown area. Another great site is the Indianapolis Arts Council (www.indyarts.org) to check out what is going on around town, not only in just the visual arts, but also the performing arts and much more.

The website available for the colony wasn't working while I was writing this article, but for future reference here is the information in case you would like to check out future events. www.indyindieartist.com or contact phil@IndyIndieArtist.com.