Over 50 galleries participating in Gallery Night MKE

Hey everybody, welcome back to Real Milwaukee. Hey, consider your weekend booked. Over 50 galleries are opening their doors tomorrow and Saturday for Gallery Night MKE, and you should probably check it out. We have no reason not to. I was planning on maybe watching the Brewers tonight, maybe Sunday night, but now, Jordan, we've got to make other plans because there's no games for us to watch, at least no Brewers games. Good morning to you. We've got Jordan Deschambry joining us live from the historic Third Ward Association with everything we need to know about Gallery Night. All right, Jordan, first question for you. What is Gallery Night for folks who have never heard of it? Yeah, absolutely. So Gallery Night MKE is Milwaukee's original gallery hopping event. So believe it or not, it is celebrating 40 years next year. So, so exciting that, you know, this really amazing event that's all about art and creativity has been happening for that long and still has the most incredible following. So essentially what happens is galleries and other venues throughout the city open up their doors, come in, meet the artists, see some amazing art, talk to the gallery owners, and just really have a fantastic weekend of getting inspired and I think, you know, feeling a little less intimidated by art than sometimes we might do if we just kind of stumble into a gallery any day of the week. This is such a cool, organized space for all of this. There's about, what, 60 galleries, Jordan? How do folks know kind of where to start participating? Yeah, I know. It can be a little bit overwhelming, I think, for everyone. So we have, I believe, 58 participating galleries this fall. The best thing you can do is go to gallerynightmke.com. And what that is going to do is separate where these participating venues are by neighborhood. So places like the historic Third Ward or Walker's Point, East Town, the West Side, wherever it is that you might be looking for inspiration, you can kind of plan your night and day based by what you're seeing in those neighborhoods. I always think it's interesting to approach it one of two ways. either pick a neighborhood, and that's what you're going to do on Friday night or a different neighborhood on Saturday, or really look through and take a look at the pictures of all the art and what the actual exhibitions are, and then plan your trip around that. There's a really cool exhibition I want to see in Walker's Point. I'm going to go there first, but then I'm going to, you know, jet on over to the Third Ward to see something else I want to see. So you really have a couple different ways that you can choose your own adventure. You know, we're seeing a lot of pictures of galleries, but you know, not all the stops are actually galleries. So there are some places in there that are still switching up the vibe a little bit, right? Absolutely. You know, one of the things that we try to do with Gallery Night is really welcome artists from the Milwaukee area to display their artworks. Now, not every artist is associated with a gallery. So we wanted to try to find spaces for them to be able to display their art. And that is where places like hotels and boutiques even the Third Ward beer garden come into play because they are able to get involved and host an artist in their space and really showcase you know what this incredible talent is right here in Milwaukee so i always say check out places like the historic hotel and the Saint Kate Hotel they always have really incredible gallery night exhibitions and then also you know different restaurants and boutiques in the area as well. I know tomorrow the District Row here in the Third Ward at Women's Boutique is bringing in a really excellent jewelry designer that they are showcasing. So there's different places that you can visit and have a really unique experience that is outside of the typical gallery experience. But at the same time, I would certainly never, you know, I would never ask anyone to not go to a traditional gallery because I think that is where you can learn the most about art talking to the people who are curating it for those spaces they are just a wealth of knowledge i will say this that i'm sorry that we wouldn't didn't cover it today you know obviously other things were going on jordan usually i'm down there with you and i love that the artists are approachable at their galleries and it's not just them talking to their friends or other artists. They're very open and having those conversations with those that are walking through. It's so true. And Brian, you've done such an incredible job of covering this event for us on site on Friday mornings. And you've gotten a chance to share those stories and you realize how impactful they are. I mean, so many of these artists and these gallery owners, their journey to get where they are today is absolutely incredible. And you want to talk about feeling inspired. I mean, just listening to their stories, you know, people who started out as lawyers or doctors or whatever it was and ended up becoming artists because it's what made them feel the most alive. These are conversations that you get to have during Gallery Night MKE, and I think it's one of the things that makes an event like this so incredibly important. I often tell people Friday night is very much a party atmosphere for Gallery Night, But if you want to have some really longer conversations or really more of a chance to learn about individual pieces of art, come out on Saturday because it's a little bit slower and it just gives you more of a chance to really learn and dig in. You know, what inspired you? Why did you curate your gallery in this way? Why did you create this piece? I mean, I think curiosity is one of the best things that we have, right? Being curious and getting a chance to talk to these people and letting them tell their stories is really incredible. Jordan, I have to give you all credit because one of the things I love about living in this city is that, you know, from the sports teams to our art scene, all the above, our music scene, our comedy scene, we really, I think, you know, kind of punch above our weight, so to speak, when it comes to that. And events like this, it really makes you feel like, you know, you're in a New York or in a Chicago. You don't need to go to those places to take in this kind of culture. You can check it out right in the Third Ward. I love that. You absolutely can. Several neighborhoods, Third Ward, Walkers Point, throughout Milwaukee. And, you know, it really is like thank you to the Brewers for wrapping this up in four. We were, you know, a little concerned maybe people were going to be a little spread thin tonight if there was a Brewers game. but my phone lit up last night with people saying, go Brewers, and oh, yay for Gallery Night. Yeah, it sounds like everybody wins. Jordan, thank you so much for everything you do down there in the historic Third Ward. Also, there are other areas, like you said, best place to go, gallerynightmke.com. We will see you down there this weekend. Thanks so much. Sounds good. Thank you. All right, guys. Well, coming up next here on Real Milwaukee, our cell phones usually aren't too far away, But could restaurants be changing the game when it comes to devices during meals? We're going to have a chat about that coming up next.