An installation piece called “Wedding Dance” grabbed us and ushered us in: Concentric chalk circles on a concrete floor strewn with white and red roses led to a giant metal bowl filled with water, while early recordings of romantic Italian songs wafted from speakers. The bus rolled on to the former city ice house, in the old warehouse district south of the city center. It wasn’t long ago, Tom told me, that Grand Avenue was so decrepit that “you’d need a tetanus shot to come here.” You still see lots encircled with razor wire, but on First Fridays it just looks edgy.Ī short walk away is Paisley Violin, a neighborhood cafe that serves sandwiches such as “jamon, mozzarella and roasted pepper.” A band called Cocorotica played a sort of Latin-funk fusion while a belly dancer in a monkey mask undulated around the floor below. So is Fillmore West Studios, a tiny, colorful house owned by three women, all photographers, who mentor students from nearby Arizona State University. Paper Heart is one of a dozen venues around Grand Avenue, northwest of the city center. That night, though, it was packed with viewers of local art including Corey Paisley’s “Pablo,” a giant eye done in neon and mixed-media, and David James’ nature photographs graced with gorgeous nudes. Most of the time, it’s a cafe-gallery setting with leopard-print sofa, Naugahyde booths, angular tables, and music, dance or spoken-word performances. neighborhood such as Venice Beach or Silver Lake. Sure enough, the shuttle dropped us at the Paper Heart Arts Venue, which would be easily at home in an artsy L.A. Their friend Ron commented that Phoenix is obsessed with turning itself into L.A., and others nodded in agreement.
I joined Hank, Tom and some friends aboard one of the free buses that shuttled among the First Friday destinations. Inside it’s desert-meets-Design-Within-Reach: charcoal-colored furniture topped with ice-blue glass, geometric carpeting and stucco walls painted beige, sky blue and chocolate brown. (Just off Central Avenue, it is a quick trip by bus or taxi into downtown.) Four stories form a courtyard around a cobalt-blue pool deck. Most of Phoenix’s downtown hotels are A-list (a Hyatt, a Wyndham), but the new, independent Clarendon Hotel + Suites, where I stayed the first weekend in March, proved worthy of the scene, despite its location in a nondescript stretch 2 1/2 miles north of downtown. New restaurants, too, have cropped up to serve this urbane crowd. But people do come out, as many as 20,000 on a single night, to browse, meet artists, hear live music, drink cheap wine and snack on bean dip in about 80 art spaces as diverse as ramshackle bungalows and historic structures. “And Phoenix is not a freak town.”Ĭlarification: The scene is not exclusively or even predominantly freaks. The first Friday of each month, dozens of galleries band together for a giant art fair. So I was skeptical when my cousins Hank and Tom described a flourishing alternative art scene around downtown Phoenix. It’s all very functional, perfectly livable but hardly cutting-edge. snob, but Phoenix has always struck me as a land of “a’s.” Establishments that sound natural with that article in front - a Quiznos, a Safeway, a Mobil station - grace every corner, amid sand-colored low-rise condos and the occasional empty lot.