First Friday Fun

Friday night there was way too much fun and interesting stuff to do, but that didn't stop me from trying to do most of it anyway.


I started at Bikes 4 Life in West Oakland to join people in a ride over to Uptown. The ride was sponsored by Bikes 4 Life, East Bay Bicycle Coalition and Walk Oakland Bike Oakland. About 15 people rode from there to the new sculpture garden in Uptown.


At the sculpture garden there were hundreds of people out for the opening. Valet bike was parking provided by Richmond Spokes. Rebecca Saltzman was one of the community activists who had prevented the empty lot from just becoming yet another ugly surface parking lot. She spoke, as did Mayor Jean Quan, CM Libby Schaaf, and CM Lynette Gibson McElhaney, and the jazz band from the nearby Oakland School for the Arts played some music.


Then it was a quick trip down Telegraph to Sole Space, the combination shoe store and art gallery. There I ate a tasty Angel Cakes cupcake and checked out artwork by Favianna Rodriguez. She wasn't there, as she was at another event (out of town, I think), but it was great to be able to check out some of her work up close.


A quick ride (and longer search for bike parking) took me to Loring Cafe to drop in on a tweetup. @zennie62, @tdlove5 and @guelo were there, and we talked about Art Murmur and how it's changed, and then chatted with one of the owners of Loring Cafe.

With no time to spare, I then headed over to Telegraph and Grand and took a quick look at Art Murmur in person. It's definitely changed since I was first there in 2011. If nothing else, it's a whole lot bigger.


I rode up Broadway to 40th, to my final stop of the night, the opening of second part of an exhibition of artist Robert Akeley's work at the Rise Above Gallery in Temescal. There I spotted my third CM of the night (try to collect them all!), CM Dan Kalb. With no other destinations in mind (except home), I spent a while there talking to people including Robert, Annalee Allen, Sue Mark (of the 10,000 Steps project) and drinking some tasty beer served up by Sue's young son.

Not that I was able to give enough time to any of the events, but it was a lot of fun. The one event I didn't make was an event for Back to the Roots, but I found out about that too late to even think about including in my planning.

More pictures from Friday: