FULLERTON — The Fullerton Art Walk starts this Friday, and gallery owners hope the event will help them nurture the local art market for when the economy picks up.
The walk will continue the first Friday of every month. Fifteen galleries along and around Harbor Boulevard between Santa Fe and Chapman avenues will host art enthusiasts from 6-10 p.m.
Gary Graves, the owner of Graves Gallery and an advertising firm, said this is the first time in recent memory that Fullerton has had such an event. About 30 years ago, there were a lot of downtown art galleries, but they mostly went out of business, he said.
Now, however, with new retail stores and restaurants clustered in a pedestrian-friendly stretch of Harbor, more have come back to capture business drawn by the other downtown opportunities.
“For a long time, there really haven’t been that many art venues in downtown Fullerton,” said Graves, organizer of the event. “There was nothing to keep people downtown. Now, we have all the restaurants. The economy is not the best in terms of selling art right now, but everyone is positioning themselves.”
Other cities, like Santa Ana and Laguna Beach, have made art walks a staple of community life.
“It has definitely helped business, “said Cami Levin, owner of Pacific Gallery in Laguna Beach. “I would definitely recommend they start an art walk.”
She said that not only is an art walk a great community activity, but it also brings in browsers and potential customers who may not have otherwise entered a gallery.
Another Laguna gallery owner, Shane Townley of the Townley Gallery, said the art walk has saved him untold advertising dollars.
“It’s an event that we look forward to every month as a sure event,” he said. “We only have four major receptions per year, but we’d have to do it every month if it weren’t for the art walk.”
Townley, who also owns a gallery in San Clemente, said that because the Laguna Art Walk is well-established, it has become powerful tool to drum up sales.
Graves said that he hopes to draw in more downtown businesses as the first-Friday art walk gets established.
“We’re finding a lot more businesses that have an art component to them,” he said. “We’re trying to unify retail members as well.”
Information: www.fullertonartwalk.com.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3706 or atownsend@ocregister.com
