Great night for an art walk: Downtown Auburn fills with artists, art lovers for Art Walk 26

Granite Bay artist Allison Armstrong is a part-owner of Persimmon Art Gallery in Auburn. Though she attended the Auburn Arts Commission's Old Town Auburn Art Walk in June, Friday night's downtown event marked her first appearance. Armstrong's painting, "Wedding Flowers," was chosen to grace the Art Walk marketing poster. It was a painting she did for daughter Brittany. The bouquet of flowers were from Brittany's wedding and included scattered lemons and limes "left over from the bar," Armstrong said. Brittany had a glistening jewelry display set up just steps away from her mom's stand of smaller paintings and greeting cards. "She just moved up from Southern California so I thought it would be fun for her to come and get her foot into the art community," Armstrong said. Armstrong hoped to later walk up Lincoln Way "to see what Michael is up to" at General Gomez Arts. Michael Hafferty, 27, raised in the small Sutter County town of Meridian and now a resident of Auburn, had most of a wall hung with his oil-on-vinyl portraits. David Burns of General Gomez Arts said proximity is what stands out about the Auburn Art Walk, which featured 27 artists at 18 locations up and down Lincoln Way, onto High Street and down to Central Square, where Johnny D & Roxanne Pointer provided the sounds for the weekly Music at the Square. "The way the community gets to walk around and get exposed to a lot of different art," said Burns, whose studio also hosted the works of artists Dennis Hopkins and Annie Preece. "You get to see an artist's pairing with merchants downtown, so that brings more exposure. I think it's fabulous." "You get down here, you can see a lot of art as opposed to driving all over town," said Hopkins, who lives in Grass Valley. And there's a lot of great artists downtown. They're like everywhere, more than you know. It gives you a good chance to get out there and realize how many talented artists there are in this community, and it gives us all a chance to shine." Down at the Art Park, Armstrong wondered what Hafferty was up to. Well, up Lincoln Way at General Gomez Arts, Hafferty said he recently has been portrait painting and working with light. Hafferty spent time talking with several art walkers – as well as Preece – in front of his many portraits. "They're all of my best friends. I love each one of them for different reasons. This is the last one I did: Thornton," Hafferty says, pointing to one. "It's the most successful. It is really exciting and I was able to use the pigments in a really cool way. Of course, this is my fiancé so I just adore it." All the portraits are of "real people," Hafferty says, "my best friend Sophia, who lives in Hawaii; my best friend David, who lives in San Francisco; and my best friend Naomi, who lives in Newcastle. I have best friends in every corner." Hafferty, 27, said he became serious about art in seventh grade, "when I stopped going out for recess to stay inside," though his parents would say he became interested "as soon as I could hold a crayon." He attended the Old Town Art Walk in June, "and it was just phenomenal. And I met a lot of local artists, and I made a lot of friends." Hafferty said he looked forward to the downtown event for months, saying, "I've heard it's where all of the local artists go to show off what they're most excited about." Back at the Auburn Art Park, Armstrong was busy punching tickets for those who stopped at her exhibit. The tickets, she said, "encourage people to visit as many locations as possible." Having all seven punches earned ticket holders an opportunity to win art bucks toward buying art from an artist.