Cape Town - Our story begins, as all good yarns do, on a dark and stormy night, the likes of which would keep most of us at home.
Having had a taste of what art galleries could offer – and to be brutally honest, lured by the promise of lots of free wine – I embarked on my first First Thursday. This is a monthly event which has been running for a while, so successfully that they’ve now introduced Third Thursdays.
The short description is that on these nights, shops and galleries in the Cape Town city centre stay open until 9pm. The longer story is that these places fling open their doors, dish out free drinks, present their exhibition openings, and generally have a massive jol. Plus the food trucks come out, and you can win prizes just by tweeting hashtags.
Not all the wine is free. My friend Charl Bezuidenhout, who owns Worldart gallery in Church Street, says he sells his wine, but donates the money to a homeless shelter. “I do lose a lot of glasses though,” he said. I’d bumped into him at the Ghosts opening and, encouraged by his enthusiasm for First Thursdays, arranged to begin at his place so he could give me advice on how best to proceed. I’d also engaged the services of Sexy Deborah, who has a broad and more educated art palate than me; it’s a trick of the trade to have an expert by your side.
And then several glasses of red wine and the rain happened.
There is so much happening on these nights it’s pointless trying to fit it all in. You just have to do the best you can.
We were lucky enough to get a lift to the first place we agreed we wanted to visit (already working in the opposite geographical distance, the logic being we would now end at Worldart instead), more or less.
The venue was cunningly hidden, and having been deposited by our driver in the bucketing rain, we headed for the first warmly-lit place we saw which was Sara Ord Interiors in Bree Street.
Sara and her mom were friendly and welcoming, immediately offering us glasses of wine. They let us touch all their pretty home décor things, and try on hats. As luck would have it, the very pink hat I fell in love with became mine via a Golden Tweet.
How this game works is that venues taking part have red helium balloons outside (easy to spot). Attached are cards with hashtags. All you have to do is tweet those hashtags and you either get a reply saying sorry, no prize but here’s a special offer or something, or you get a “golden tweet” and a prize from the place you tweeted. How easy is that?
Some of the fabulous prizes confirmed for this week are a voucher for a lunch for two at Beautifull Food, limited edition collaborative illustrated “jewellery, clothing and accessories, chocolates, wines, art catalogues and art prints”, sponsored by Worldart, The Black Box, Mungo & Jemima, BRUNDYN+, and Youngblood, among others.
Being happily lost, Sara’s mom went on the internet and found out where we had meant to go, which was Friends Of Design, just across the road. There they had Wiki Loves Monuments South Africa, “the South African component of the largest photographic competition in the world”.
It sounded a lot better than it was, but there was a big ice bucket with bottles of wine at the front door, and another Golden Tweet.
Who knows what I could have won that night if I had a longer attention span. From there we went to Alexandra Höjer Atelier (still in Bree Street), purely because we were peering through the glass and were invited inside to drip all over the floor. They gave us Jack Daniel’s and allowed us to touch the pretty lingerie. There was a man trying on a variety of outfits and preening in front of the huge mirror, and it was all a little bit odd. After that we popped in at The Pit, which is the dark place down the alley way behind Clarke’s where people were playing ping pong. It was noisy and crowded and completely unexpected. For me at least; Sexy Deborah, woman of the world that she is, said she is familiar with the place. There was to be a performance of something called Pussy Slap there later, which we didn’t make, but some things are best left a mystery.
Time was running out, and Charl was waiting, so we finally ricocheted down Church Street only to be diverted by a doorway framed with green plastic fronds and fairy lights. Mystic Loft’s listing on the First Thursdays website says it is one of the best kept secrets in Cape Town, and they’re not kidding.
I cannot even count how many times I have walked past it without a glance. For shame.
Owned by the lovely Barbara Vollmer, who pressed yet another glass of wine into my hands, it’s full of gorgeous vintage stuff (yes, we touched it) from jewellery to lamps and furniture, clothes to vinyl records, and more.
What a wonderful place.
By this time my cheap Chinese shop umbrella had been battered beyond repair, we only just made it to Worldart as it was closing, and we hadn’t seen much conventional art at all. Despite that, we had a brilliant night, touched many lovely things, and met so many friendly people.
The free drinks and prizes didn’t hurt either. - Weekend Argus
l Browse participants and exhibitions at www.first-thursdays.co.za and follow the event on Facebook or [email protected] and find out about Golden Tweet on Facebook and @KickAssTechObv on Twitter.