13th Annual Gallery Walk: Explore the Art and Soul of the City

13th Annual Gallery Walk:
Explore the Arts and Soul of the City

by Michala Michaels

Carrie Wissler-Thomas remembers when Gallery Walk was just a “glimmer” in her eye, nothing more than a brainchild. As the president of the Art Association of Harrisburg, Wissler-Thomas was approached years ago by a number of the community exhibition sites. They wanted to capitalize on the Art Association’s visitors; they were interested in creating a time frame during which all participating exhibitors would have a show, one day for art lovers to peruse the works in the area. Inspired, Wissler-Thomas led the group in founding Gallery Walk, an event celebrating its 13th year in 2001.

The first Gallery Walk welcomed less than 10 galleries and exhibition sites, extending from the streets of downtown to as far out as Derry Street and in such varying locales as the Doshi Gallery and the blood donor center on Walnut Street. Since then, the criteria has raised — to participate, a site must display art year round — the number of galleries have increased to 22, and the interest in the event has skyrocketed, bringing hundreds of visitors to the area each year.

Painting…by Numbers
“All of us get more people through our galleries during Gallery Walk than we do on any other day throughout the year. It’s amazing,” said Wissler-Thomas. “We get anywhere from 500-800 people through the Art Association on Gallery Walk day and the smaller ones, the Midtown sites, might have 100-400. That’s a lot more than anyone around here gets in one day.”

This will be the second year that two of the smaller, Midtown galleries, the Seitz Gallery and the Center for Women’s Creative Expression, will take part in Gallery Walk and both sites are more than excited about the prospect of repeating last year’s success.

“Last year was just a phenomenal experience for us. We had a great turn out and an overwhelming number of positive responses of who we are and what we are doing in the community,” said Sandy Cullen, director of the Center for Women’s Creative Expression. The Center, designed to support, encourage, and nurture creativity in women via the arts, will be showcasing an exhibit entitled “Shameless,” a display exploring the concept of shame in women’s lives.

African American art and the works of local photojournalists will be on display The Seitz Gallery on North Third Street. And Blair Seitz, owner and operator of the Gallery, has high expectations for this year’s event. “Last year was my first gallery show, it was excellent, we had well over 200 people passing through, I was very pleased,” he said. “[And this year] we expect as good a crowd, if not better. More people know we’re here and more people know about the work. People are used to going downtown — to Whitaker Center, to the State Museum, to the Art Association — and Gallery Walk is a perfect reason to get people into the Midtown.”

More than 120 art lovers visited the Governor’s Residence during last year’s Gallery Walk, said Tour Director Tammy McClenaghan. And while the tours of the Residence are widely popular, the knowledge that the Residence displays art throughout the year is not — and Gallery Walk is the perfect opportunity to spread the word. “[Last year] all of the visitors were really interested in seeing the art and not just the residence,” continued McClenaghan. “It was terrific.” For Gallery Walk 2001, the Residence will display works of Pennsylvania Impressionists from the Collection of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

A majority of the artwork hung throughout the year at the Governor’s Residence is on loan from the State Museum of Pennsylvania, another participant in Gallery Walk. One of the founding sites, the State Museum uses the event to wrap-up its Art of the State exhibit and has welcomed upwards of 600 people during the all-day event. This year, the Art of the State exhibit features 156 works by 126 artists from 32 counties, therefore, according to the Museum’s Lee Stevens, it only makes sense to have Gallery Walk serve as a grand finale of sorts for the exhibit. “It’s wonderful. Since our artists [from Art of the State] are from all over the state, a lot of them come to Harrisburg and are able to see the other galleries,” she said. “That adds quite a positive aspect to it.”

Shedding Light on the Unknown
And positive is one word that continues to surface in conversations concerning Gallery Walk. In its 13-year existence the event has become a bridge of sorts, bringing art into the lives of those who may be culturally unaware of what Harrisburg has to offer during the other 364 days of the year.

“That one-day is extremely important because it brings in huge numbers of people from the community who we don’t normally reach right to our doorstep, so they can meet us and we can meet them,” said Cullen. “It is a wonderful way for people to begin to learn what is out there in a way that is very festive and very welcoming and very open. It’s social, it’s pleasant, and you can learn a lot about what is happening in the cultural community through Gallery Walk.”

And after 13 years, founder Wissler-Thomas still sees the event as opening a door to a world many do not know exists in their own surroundings, a fact for which she is grateful. “People come into the Art Association throughout the year and say ‘I was here at Gallery Walk and I’d never been to the galleries in Harrisburg before,’” she explained. “So it’s not only an opportunity for artists to sell their work, it’s also a reputation-building and consciousness-raising activity so that people know they don’t have to go out of town to find quality art they can look at and to purchase. It’s right here in their own backyard.”

What the Future Holds
In the future, and with the help of a revitalized downtown Harrisburg, Wissler-Thomas sees the event reaching even greater heights, adding more exhibitors, drawing more visitors, and increasing the awareness of the solid art scene that exists in the Harrisburg area — every day of the year.

“With the resurgence of downtown — the restaurants and the fact that downtown is a destination — all of that is going to increase the traffic for Gallery Walk and the galleries as a whole,” she said. “We’ve displayed things here in the downtown even when there were no businesses. When there were very few restaurants, the arts were still here plugging away. And now with Whitaker, people are really interested in all of the arts, they come down to see a performance and discover that downtown is fun and then they go out and look around and see what other things there are to see.”

“The arts really add a lot to our city,” said Wissler-Thomas. “And Gallery Walk is a steady, very good quality event that people really do look forward to, and it pleases me every year to see the interest in something that was just a brain child, a glimmer in my eye.”

The 13th Annual Gallery Walk will take place Sunday, September 9 from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. For more information, call the Art Association of Harrisburg at 236-1432.