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Printer-Friendly ModeFirst Friday marks shift in featured art at local cafe
October 5, 2009 —
Pianists poked out tunes while writers prepared work for open mic. The First Friday crowd meandered through the Magic Bean café, mochas in hand, and discussed new artwork on the walls, casually introducing themselves to one another.
Each month, the café swaps out artwork and replaces last month’s art with new work from a local artist.
First Friday is an event that celebrates this by scheduling local writers to read their original pieces and booking musicians to play theirs. This month was a first for open mic.
Paolo Pedini, a First Friday organizer, said artists pull in their own audience. This was evident as the night started off with Dennis Adomaitis’ audience.
Adomaitis is the featured artist of October. His friends and fans roamed the Magic Bean, contemplating his paintings, which consist mostly of portraits or floral scenes.
New admirers of Adomaitis introduced themselves sporadically during the evening and asked him about his work.
Local musician Liam McKay started a short set of acoustic songs early in the evening.
Liam said he contacted First Friday organizer Christi Griffis to tell her he planned on attending to see her read original writings.
“She e-mailed me back [Thursday] night, and asked me if I wanted to play,” McKay said. “I’m always ready to play.”
Griffis followed the set by reading a collection of poetry and flash fiction.
One poem she composed was made solely from song titles.
“Once in a while you’ve gotta clean out the iTunes,” Griffis said on stage. “As I was doing that the other night, I realized that if you put them all together, they kind of sound like the ramblings of a crazy person.”
The light-hearted poem featured the “I” section of Griffis’ iPod, which garnered praise from the audience.
Following Griffis was First Friday’s open mic premiere.
Griffis said she was surprised to find that several of the audience members were willing to participate, some who had never read their poetry aloud before. This included sisters Jawana Dorsey and Jessica Patman.
“I was nervous,” Dorsey said. “My stomach was turning.”
Patman, who has written poetry for 15 years, said she plans on reading again.
“Next time I will be prepared,” she said.
The sisters both said they were unaware that the event included an open mic portion.
Nevertheless, they quickly composed some “impromptu poetry,” as they called it.
The 2009 Cardinal Sins poetry slam winner Josh Crummer and alumni Adrienne Lewis both took the stage to perform their own readings.
Crummer read the piece that won the slam along with a few others, and Lewis read a work-inprogress; a short collection of festive poetry about zombies for the month of October.
Even though Griffis said the night was “ramshackled” together, it was hardly noticeable to anyone but her.
Due to the better-than-expected audience participation during open mic, Griffis said she would consider including it again for future First Friday events.