If you’re looking for something to do inside, away from the smoke, downtown Buffalo has two art shows happening across the street from each other Friday night.
Hallwalls hosts their annual member show while across the street, Starlight Studio and Art Gallery, hosts “Star-tastic” their summer art show and sale. The gallery develops and supports disabled artists.
Among Starlight's artists, Andrew Isadore Calderon, who has prints in Friday’s show, says he dares the public to come in and challenge their assumptions of people with disabilities in the arts.
“I challenge people on a daily basis to come through here, and to okay, come in, come in here with all kinds of opinions about people with disabilities, the R word, all this and that, [they're] dead wrong," Calderon said. "Okay, come in here and see that we are artists. What we do is for real. We love what we do.”
The sale helps support Starlight's programming, which includes partnerships with Stitch Buffalo and the AKG Art Museum, workshops, and more. Their sale also gives contemporary artists from their gallery an opportunity to either showcase or sell their work for a 50 percent profit.
“When someone buys one of mine, I like to think that, as many of the other staff or volunteer artists here have said, that they feel like they could walk into one of my paintings and spend time in one of them," said visual artist Angelina Blackmer, whose work focuses often on fantasy scenes.
The show and sale kicks off tonight from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 340 Delaware Ave. The art will be on display until September 18th.
Hallwalls's summer member exhibition is across the street from 6 to 10 p.m.
