Fulton Crossing is an artist collective and gallery who held their Holiday Art Walk this weekend. The building used to be a chicken processing plant. When I worked at Copperhill, I’d often come to work up Fulton Road. Those days when the plant was still open, I’d often look to my left as I drove past, to see rows of chicken carcasses, hanging from hooks, jerking their way across what is now the courtyard. And some mornings there would be a terrible acrid smell, like ammonia.
Food’s important, but it’s much more pleasant as an art place.
I got an email from a potter I follow, notifying me of the Art Walk. She doesn’t have her studio here but she rents retail space–the first one as you go through the door. There are fabric artists, potters, and fine artists in the mix, along with one gift shop that carries the work of other artisans. I took few/no pictures of the actual fine art at the artists’ requests, but there is still plenty to see. Like most true fine art, all of it was out of my reach, but most of the artists have reasonably priced prints and even cards you can buy. And they have a raffle this weekend so you might win something cool.
A pair of painters who are married to each other have the second floor space. Their styles are completely different from one another. The husband was on-site and I talked to him for a bit. He has a view of the SMART Train track (hence, Fulton Crossing) right out the window, and they both got to watch the track behind rebuilt.
I recommend the gallery. It’s visible from River Road if you head east. If you come up Fulton, you can make a left turn onto River Road and an immediate left again into the lot… or you can park anywhere and walk the one block to it. Fulton is not a “town,” it’s a Census-designated Area, which might be a way of saying it’s small.
Fun fact: Bohemian Creamery is about two miles from my house, I drive past it about once a week, and I’d never stopped there until yesterday. Most weekends they offer tours, even during the holiday season. You get three free cheese tastes (but the young man behind the counter threw in a fourth for me because he wanted me to taste the same cheese only aged longer). Their Cowpoke Blue is sublime if you like bleu cheese. I also bought some Three Trick Pony cheese, which reminds me of Joe Matos’s cheese. It’s pricey, but I would certainly buy it again for a special occasion, or as a gift for a cheese-lover. They also offer Cheeses Flights for Two for $38, something to consider.
This was my second “holiday shopping” outing, and I consider it successful. Yes, it was cold. Yes, it rained. I put both of those down to Adding Atmosphere. And it made me appreciate the nice warm house more when I got home.
