Olde Towne East Art Walk will kick-off its first event on Sunday, June 5, and will feature local artists, musicians, businesses and food. Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Thomas
Olde Towne East Art Walk will hold its first-ever event Sunday, featuring over 70 Columbus artists, businesses and galleries to celebrate the neighborhood.
The event will take place 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Parsons Avenue, spanning from 700 Bryden Road to The Mansion 731 Gallery at 731 E. Broad St. The art walk will host an outdoor market with local businesses, vendors and entertainers from surrounding Columbus communities one Sunday a month from June to November, according to the OTE Art Walk website.
“While this is a celebration of Olde Towne East, these vendors and artists come from all over the city, and in some way, shape or form you’re going to have a connection with one of those people, Alexandra Anthony, event director for the OTE Art Walk and 2014 Ohio State alumna, said. “There’s literally something for everyone out there interested.”
Anthony, who manages the 700 Bryden Community and The Mansion 731 Gallery, said there are several Olde Towne East art and food destinations between the two buildings, saturating the area with emerging artists and small businesses.
The walk includes four public art galleries on Parsons Avenue between Anthony’s two buildings, according to the OTE Art Walk website, and food trucks can be found along the walk. Local businesses — including Upper Cup Coffee, Black Art Plus and Cap City Tattoo will also take part in the event, Anthony said.
The event will also feature live painting, music, DJ performances, open exhibitions, tarot card readings, a Graeter’s Ice Cream Truck and artist vendors such as Nazli Brush, who said she designed the logo and map for the event.
Brush, an illustrator who specializes in drawings of iconic architecture, said she loves to draw buildings, especially in Columbus since she moved here from Turkey.
“Alex came to me and said, ‘Hey, you drew this lovely building. We have an idea for this illustration for the Art Walk, would you like to work with us?’” Brush said. “And I guess if someone came and asked me, ‘What kind of project would you like to work on?’, This was definitely what I would have wished it would be like. It was a great manifestation.”
Accompanying Brush as a vendor is mixed media artist Lynne Wise. Wise, who draws and paints to capture the day-to-day experience and moods of women, said she will be featuring new work and selling prints Sunday.
“We have such a great deal of local talent in the Columbus area,” Wise said. “This will give a chance not only for me to be seen, but for me to see others and then work with other artists and just kind of be inspired by them.”
After managing the office building and The Mansion 731 for about two years and longtime involvement in the arts and gallery management, Anthony said she came up with the idea of an art walk. She had planned smaller pop-up markets outside of 700 Bryden Community and The Mansions 731 in the past, but said she wanted to expand.
“Because I managed the buildings, I decided that there was so much art in Olde Towne East that it needed to have its own monthly event,” Anthony said. “People are excited about it, especially because we don’t really have much going on over here yet. There’s stuff in Franklinton and the Short North Arts District, but we’ve just been kind of waiting for our own thing in Olde Towne East.”
The OTE will occur July 10, Aug. 7, Sept. 25, Oct. 23 and Nov. 27 according to the walk’s website.
Anthony said she believes the event will give a space for emerging artists to be supportive of one another and to give something to the community.
“I think that Columbus is growing and with it, so are all the artists. It’s a very open and inclusive community, and everyone is very supportive of each other,” Anthony said. “It’s special to me because I live and work in this neighborhood, and I care about it so much. I want to see it grow.”
