First Fridays Long Beach is expanding. Now there is live music, open mic, martini bars, painters and sculptors. Businesses in Bixby Knolls are listening to the community and are creating a new and vibrant energy with First Fridays Long Beach.
“This is the most exciting opportunity for the Bixby Knolls neighborhoods and businesses,” said 8th District Councilmember Rae Gabelich.
The goal of First Fridays is to give the community opportunities to support local artists.
Chroma Glass Designs, 4242 Atlantic Avenue, will host a reception for three artists who will present new and original works of art. The show runs from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and the art will remain on display for the month of May. The event at Chroma Glass Designs is free, and open to all. Light refreshments will be served.
Featured artists are painter George Marshall whose artworks are primarily expressions of color. Out of the interplay of the qualities of color, light and dark, warm and cool, harmony and dissonance, movement comes into being. Movement, in its restless struggle, coalesces into form. It’s an evolution analogous to music. The attempt has been made to paint a visual music.
Rin Colabucci is a painter whose work is the result of discerning the necessity and unnecessary, transformation of the unconsciousness to the consciousness.
John Michael Shipman, a sculptor, deals with developing surface contours and edges that interact and flow around, through and into each other. His works are carved abstract forms, for which he coins sometimes-whimsical titles as the forms develop and start to resemble recognizable images–much like visualizing elephants or dragons in cloud formations.
Nino’s Italian Ristorante, 3853 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, will feature from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. award-winning singer/songwriter Jennifer Corday, who is poised to launch her fourth studio album, “Superhero” this summer.
Also appearing is popular Long Beach artist Jamie Kivisto, who will showcase her Superhero series, showing several pieces that will be featured in the “Superhero” CD. Meet and greet the artists and check out all of Kivisto’s fantastic original art for sale.
Nino’s will also be launching their new martini bar and full bar drink specials. A lite menu with appetizers, half-pasta dishes and desserts for dining along with their traditional Italian cuisine are all served in a retro style bar.
The Long Beach Shakespeare Company, 4250 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, prior to the opening of Shakespeare’s Richard the III at 8 p.m., will have actors performing on the sidewalk and artwork on display in the lobby from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Richard the III runs from Friday, May 4, through Saturday, June 16. Performances will be at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $15 general, $10 students. Contact the box office at (562) 997-1494 or go online to www.lbshakespeare.org
The Four Olives Café will be featuring artist Don deLew –acrylics on canvas. Dining hours are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. with pre-theater dining taking $2 off admission price for the theater. The Four Olives Café is located at 4276 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach.
Other events not to be missed are live music from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. at It’s a Grind Coffee House located at 4245 Atlantic Avenue. The Mirage Coffee House & Cuisine, 539 Bixby Road, will be having an open mic night for music from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
For information about First Fridays visit their Web site at www.firstfridayslongbeach.com.
