I have some super-exciting news to share with you: This April I shall be having my first solo art show in more than three years — and it shall be a Scottsdale art show, in downtown Scottsdale’s Marshall Way art gallery district, no less. For me, this is a dream come true; I have always wanted to find a way into the Scottsdale market, but the parameters never seemed right.
The venue for this Scottsdale art show will be Soyal, at 4200 N. Marshall Way. Opening night is Thursday, April 1. The show will continue through the end of month, although we’re still deciding upon an end date. What’s more, this will be Soyal’s grand-opening show.
Plans have materialized very quickly. My longtime friend Spencer Hibert (brother of Oliver Hibert, with whom I’ve shown many times) called me Wednesday afternoon to invite me to have the show. Because this will be the gallery’s first exhibition, I was tremendously honored to be the first artist in the gallery’s lineup.
Up until that point, Spencer and I had been collaborating off and on for months on a mural for an art gallery / videogame arcade / vegan donut shop that he wanted to start. See sketches for the mural. As fate would have it, a bigger and brighter opportunity presented itself in downtown Scottsdale. At Soyal, Spencer and business partner Emmett Potter will be exhibiting emerging artists from around the world, bringing work to Scottsdale that metropolitan Phoenix has not yet witnessed in person.
What does Soyal mean? As Spencer explains, Soyal is the Hopi term for a yearly solstice celebration in which a party is thrown to distract the plumed snake from swallowing the sun. “It symbolizes a new beginning of growth. And that is exactly what I want to bring to Scottsdale … to bring something new to the scene,” he writes.
As for me, I’m still trying out names for the Scottsdale art show, and deciding upon how I want to lay it out. “Circles with Corners,” what I called my Fall 2009 collection, is up for consideration. So is “Face the Future” and “Exact and Intact.” Plus, I have quite a bit of wall space to work with, so I’d like to take advantage of that, and make an immersive experience for the viewer. I want to go beyond rectangles and squares on a wall. Then again, I have just under seven weeks to pull this off, so I have to be realistic about my goals.
As things develop, I’ll be posting updates to this space. Be sure to sign up for blog updates if you’re interested in receiving them.
Until next time!
— Grant Wiggins
