Ambling the Downtown Art Ramble

Mosaic walkway, downtown mall

I mustered for an evening off the ranch on Friday, heading into Las Cruces for the Downtown Art Ramble.

As the name implies, the Ramble is an art walk held the first Friday of every month from 5-7pm.  A surprising number of people were out checking out paintings, photography and sculpture at participating galleries.

The Museum of Art featured three exhibitions. I particularly enjoyed Chicanismo by Gabriel Perez -- tremendous use of color in his abstracts. Rumor (or the front desk, actually) has it that the museum will have more adult classes in the fall, so I may be spending more time there.

MVS Studios, location of the silent auction
benefiting The Ink. 

The portraits of women by Michael Ponce at the Branigan Cultural Center were gorgeous and full of personality, clean lines and insight, and were my preference over his skull and inkwell Shakespearean-ish stilllifes.

MVS Studios held a silent auction to benefit The Ink, the local art newspaper, which based off the crowds of people happily writing in bids on lovely works, should have pulled in a healthy sum. The band playing outside helped lure in passersby.

Section at COAS Books

Downtown also sports a great bookstore, COAS Books, I was pleased to discover. It has a little bit of everything, and a lot of fiction -- fine news, since I am dabbling in creative writing again.

Revitalization is still in process downtown with construction still underway on parts of Main Street and some doors shuttered.  But it was lovely to see so many people out oohing and ahhing at art, rambling and ambling.