Midtown’s favorite intersection, Cooper-Young, is hosting an art tour the first Friday that has been growing in popularity.
The Cooper-Young art tour is from 6-9 p.m. down Young Avenue all the way to North Cooper, featuring 18 different locations.
“Each location has visual arts,” creator of the art tour Jay Etkin, said. “ Some have music some have dance some are a combination of those things and it goes on through the evening. Some of the shows extend for the whole month, but the actual opening of the tour is the first Friday of each month.”
Open to the public, and l maps are available at the participating art tour locations.
Etkin is the creator of the art fest and has a huge history working on festivals, creating special events and tours.
“My history includes helping to create the Old South Main Trolley Art Tour, Etkin said. “Now that I am at Cooper-Young I simply looked around one day, and thought how do I create a tour in a neighbor that is not considered a art neighborhood or district. The way to accomplished that was to simply ask businesses in Cooper-Young if they would give me a wall or several walls to create pop-up galleries.”
Choosing Cooper-Young as the area for the art tour was quite easy for Etkin. He lived in the area from 1989-1999, and the vibe from the area never left Etkin’s heart.
“This is the second time I am in Cooper-Young,” Etkin said. “ There were not that many things here when I was first here in 1989, but I like the feel of the neighborhood. I grew up in New York City, and it kind of reminded me of a small Brooklyn or queens neighborhood. I connected with the neighborhood back then in 1989.”
The Cooper-Young art tour features art from many artists, but mainly features art from local artist like Norman Soskel.
“I am affiliated with Jay Etkin’s gallery and he asked me to participate, so I got together a series of works and will be putting them in there,” Soskel said. “It is kind of an extended gallery for Jay. He curates all these individual places, and decides which goes where.”
Not only do the businesses that feature the artwork of the artists benefit from added traffic through their establishments, the artists also benefit from it as well.
“I live in Germantown, and many of the things I have exhibited before have been in that area,” Soskel said. “I think art tour hits a different group of people then some of the other art organizations that I belong to. So for me the exposure is a good thing.”
Soskel is not only a featured artist on the art tour he is also a participant of the event.
“It was great except it was a cold night,” Soskel said. “ We started at the Cooper-Young association and worked our back stopped at a Sicilian restaurant, Strano one door down from Jay’s gallery and we stopped in there and we decided to make a reservation for our wedding anniversary couple of weeks from then and we went on and met some other people we knew.”
