RACINE — With summer just around the corner, First Fridays are back with a creative twist.
This year, local art businesses — including Hot Shop Glass, Racine Art Museum, Vintage & Modern Books and Artists Gallery — have teamed up with Downtown Racine Corporation to host a Creative Crawl.
Giving attendees an opportunity to explore the arts community, the Creative Crawl will act as a kickoff to the First Friday season, which starts May 2, but organizers will continue the theme throughout the year.
On Friday, attendees will be able to visit downtown shops to hear from local and visiting artists and to create some work of their own.
“We’re hoping to spread arts throughout the community, from Sixth Street all the way down to Main Street, down to George’s,” said Tricia Blasko, a Creative Crawl organizer. “We’re trying to spread it around as much as possible and really just show the creative spirit that is in Racine and celebrate the arts as much as possible.”
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Activities for the crawl will be located throughout downtown.
Racine Art Museum will have a live DJ and art-making stations, and Hot Shop Glass will host a visiting artist for a live glass blowing demonstration.
Attendees can stop by Vintage & Modern Books to hear from local authors, catch a cello performance at Photographic Design Gallery or head to Hotel Verdant to talk with the artists whose works hang on the walls.
Participants can also collect stamps on an Arts Passport for a chance to win prizes.
According to Creative Crawl organizer and Artists Gallery Director Jen Janzer, non-art establishments also will be participating. For instance, Reefpoint Brew House will host a woodturner.
“It’s a way to really diversify and push people out into the entire downtown,” Janzer said.
Blasko, who works as Racine Art Museum’s director of education and serves on the DRC board, said the idea started when the board was brainstorming an arts-focused event.
The main goal of the Creative Crawl is to gather people downtown, “share our love of the arts,” and show the diversity of arts in the area, she said.
Since March, downtown business owners, including Hot Shop Glass co-owner and founder Amanda Cosgrove Paffrath, have worked to plan the event.
Collaborating with other businesses, Cosgrove Paffrath said, has been a “blast” and allowed her to build relationships in a new way.
Heather Novotny from Vintage & Modern Books said working with other downtown businesses was “invigorating.”
“It gives me energy to meet with other folks around and like-minded people with the goal of just growing creativity in the arts, which is so important for community and people of all ages,” she said.
For Novotny, Racine’s arts community is vibrant, eclectic, unique and accessible.
“I think that’s fantastic because you really have the chance to explore and create,” she said. “Not everyone in the city really realizes what a wealth of creativity and variety we have within the art scene. The hope for the Creative Crawl is to give more exposure to the vibrant art scene.”
This, she said, includes the literary arts movement in Racine.
“As a bookstore and a community space, we’re really trying to create a space also for creativity,” she said. “Books are well known to spark the imagination. You can learn just about anything.”
Cosgrove Paffrath said she believes the goal of the Creative Crawl is to showcase creative businesses that “live downtown all the time.”
“These aren’t just pop-ups. These are businesses that are art-centered and creative and are here all the time,” she said. “By collaborating, we’re going to be able to draw people from a broader market.”
With Hot Shop Glass being in the downtown community for two decades, Cosgrove Paffrath is familiar with First Fridays.
“To some people, First Fridays is a band at Monument Square, but I know from my own experience as a merchant, there were a lot of people that loved to walk around and go in and out of stores and see what was new and see what was happening,” she said.
Janzer, a local potter, said she’s looking forward to the public interacting with artists.
“It’s a time for people to come and see behind the scenes of how people do things and how people create,” she said.
In addition to welcoming authors to the store, Novotny said she’s looking forward to seeing community engagement and discovery with the arts.
“I’m hoping we get a lot of traffic downtown — a lot of people just discovering the different things there are to do,” she said.
Cosgrove Paffrath recognized that Racine’s downtown — home to businesses like an arts cooperative, a glass blowing studio and jewelers making hand-crafted items — is unlike other communities.
“My hope is that people come and get how lucky we are to have this creative community, both as artists but also as consumers and tourists.”
Janzer wants the Creative Crawl to show people the different ways to participate, even if they aren’t well-established artists.
“There’s all sorts of things that people can get involved in, she said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Blasko echoed this sentiment, adding that she hopes attendees leave the event understanding the creative opportunities in Racine.
“Everybody is creative, no matter what people say. There’s so many opportunities to get involved in the arts as a spectator, a maker, a doer or a volunteer,” she said. “There are no limitations to ways that you can get involved.”
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