Good day and welcome to SoWa Sundays, a blog about Boston’s South End and the fancy new restaurants, stores, galleries and cultural events that have sprung up there in the last 5 (or so) years.
At first, my only experience with the South End was being “strongly advised” by my art professors to go down and see their shows at the galleries (and that I would be tested on it). Then I figured out that if I came to the First Fridays gallery openings there was a good possibility that I would get free crackers and wine.
I eventually realized that the Thayer Street galleries were the place to see art- they’re a nice alternative to the Newbury Street galleries where I feel like an intruder because I go to look, and not necessarily to drop 30K (read: half of what I owe in school loans) at this moment to buy a piece- they don’t like that much… Plus, the galleries on Newbury are getting more and more mediocre. Is there still a Thomas Kinkade gallery over there? Ha! Well, they’re not all bad, but in general the Thayer Street galleries are more experimental and contemporary and that’s what I prefer.
And who doesn’t love to go see artists in their natural habitat- their studios- and harass them with millions of questions about who they are and why they do what they do and look around at all their stuff.
I’m pretty sure they like it too.
As it turns out, the galleries aren’t the only reason to venture down there: beyond the land where the T lies (I consider the Silver Line to be a bus). My boyfriend is in love with this store called Uniform and I’m a pretty big fan of the salad bar at Foodies- just to start with.
Naturally, when I found out that starting this year, there will be an antiques market in the funky old building behind the SoWa Open Market (an open air craft market which I am also in love with for complex reasons that I won’t go into here…) I got extremely excited and possibly had a mini myocardial infarction. If you don’t know what that means, then you haven’t been watching enough House.
So, that leads us to now. Now I’ve weaseled my way into helping to organize SoWa Sundays and I’m working on creating and promoting events that will run concurrently (big word!) with the Markets. As part of my campaign to empower you all with this great knowledge that I hold, I’m publishing this blog which will chronicle the best parts of the South End for all you people who want to know what’s going on. and when and where and why.
