Last night Walter and I went out with our friends Lauren and Jimmy. Lauren and I have two art instructors who were having an art exhibition opening last night. We thought it would be fun to go to their opening and see what their work is like. So we are about half way to Charlotte and I said, "Lauren, what's the name of the gallery again?" And she was like, umm..I don't remember. And of course we just dragged Walter and Jimmy along so they had no clue where it was at. So Lauren thought that it could be in NoDa which is kind of an artsy area of Charlotte (its right where The Neighborhood Theater is, where our church meets).

We ended up just walking in a ton of random little art galleries sipping on wine and eating cheese as we look at a variety of different artists' works. It was a lot of fun and what's great about art galleries is that it is FREE! We walked around to probably about 5 different galleries. We were in this one gallery called "Center of the Earth gallery" and Lauren was looking at this painting and she said, "I really like this painting. It's amazing!" And I said, "Hey, that looks like Scott's paintings!" Then I looked at the artist's name it said Scott Upton, which was pretty cool because Scott is Walter's next door neighbor at the mountain house and his partner Michael is helping us plan our wedding! It was nice because Scott has told me about openings he has had in Charlotte, but I never knew where the galleries were or I never had time to go.

Then we all walked down to this gallery called "The Art House". It was really fun. I met this amazing artist! She is such an encouragement to me. Her name is Holly Spruck and she is an art teacher and has taught in New Hampshire, Prague, and in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. Her stuff is incredible. She just made me excited about painting again because most art teachers don't work on their own stuff a lot. She told Walter and me all about her experience in Prague and how she sold everything and went over there to teach, which I think is so awesome. In order to understand how amazing her work is you must check it out...go to: www.hollyspruck.com

Walter and I also talked to a folk artist, Nellie Ashford. Her work is intriguing because she has never had formal art instruction. Most of her work is based on stories from her life and growing up in Charlotte. In her mixed media work she incorporated newspaper clippings, napkins, receipts, fabric swatches, and photographs. My favorite work of hers is a piece with this beautiful women in a colorful patterned dress standing with her head remaining lifted high, although in the background their are slaves who were lost at sea. She has some powerful stuff to say in some of her works and then some were personal stories from her childhood, like when she came down with every type of measles known to man.

We never found our professor's exhibition, but it still was a great night and now Walter and I know what we can do for fun as newlyweds when we want to go on cheap date nights!