Think You Know North Loop?

And this sweet logo? By Kevin Rathge.

There's a hidden gem there,
up in the North Loop neighborhood.

Okay, wait, maybe that 'hood
is more properly called Northfield or something like that?

Like, based on the street names?
Like, it's half North Loop & half Chesterfield?

Ah, you know what we're talking about:

The area around that North Loop strip
that's bustling with the cultural goodnesses
embodied in joints like Foreign & Domestic,
Forbidden Fruit, Room Service, Epoch Coffee,
Monkeywrench Books, the Tigress, Blackbird,
the new Drink Well – all of that & more.

And the gem that's hidden?
There in the middle of nearby Genard Street?

Tiny Park, friend: Tiny Park.

It's a visual-art gallery.

Yeah, it's one of those visual-art galleries
that the owners run out of their home.

Which is, that sort of thing,
often pretty cool & maybe kind of funky
but not exactly redolent of elegance
and the finest examples of creative work?

Yeah, well, Tiny Park is redolent of elegance, and then some.

This isn't just another throw-some-paintings-on-the-livingroom-wall gambit.
Tiny Park is like some lost annex to Bouldin Creek's excellent grayDUCK Gallery
which, itself, is like a welcome replacement for the lamented D Berman venue.

Especially right now, because
the full-color paintings and red-graphite drawings
of a talented artist named Nick Brown
are on display in Tiny Park's spacious main room.

Especially right now, because,
in the much smaller, secondary room,
a plain white cube of a room appointed with
only a sturdy wooden bench and a video projector,
three short black&white films by cinema star PJ Raval
are being continuously screened.

You walk in there, into the sanctuary of aesthetic pleasure
that co-owners Brian Willey and Thao Votang have created,
you're going to be doing your eyes & sense of community a favor.

And that's gonna be true pretty much anytime there's a show there.

But, as we mentioned, especially now –
during this terrific Brown and Raval exhibition
that's closing on Saturday, April 14th, after 5pm.

Word to the wise.