Faso Gallery

We've done a bunch of printing for this gallery where I work, and Sonie Ruffin, the woman who runs it has been egging me on to bring the girls by.

I love taking the girls to galleries. I couldn't remember the address, though, only that it was on Troost.



So I drove past it about four times looking.

I was surprised by Troost. I used to navigate it regularly, in a former life. At 27th, there was an American Legion Hall bar that did a lively trade with old drunks across from a dumpy Chinese takeout place and a 7-11. The surrounding homes looked like they had survived a bombing raid, but these three businesses seemed to do a thriving trade in liquor and questionable food.



In fact, outside that 7-11, I remember seeing a man chug a pint of Seagram's Gin and spike the bottle like it was a football when he was done, sending glass everywhere and pissing off the proprietor who had just sold him the booze.

Anyway, the houses around there have all been bulldozed in an apparent TIF project; they've been replaced by new apartments, nice ones by the look of it, but with the same rusted-out, banged-up hoopties parked by them. Which, I take it, means the same people live in the neighborhood, they just live in apartments that look like suburbia.



And all three of those businesses are boarded up.

What happened? I'm not a big one for public-sector projects to stimulate economic growth, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a negative effect from a TIF project like this.



I dunno, maybe after the people had been eminent-domained out of their houses but before the apartments were built, the space between was so lean that the businesses couldn't tough it out.

In any case, we finally found the Faso Gallery at 2:30. Which was cutting it close, since their Saturday hours are 11:00-3:00.

And the door was locked. But I could see people in there, and soon Sonie came over and opened the door.



Are you closed? I asked. After all, we were within the posted hours.

'Yes, but you're fine. Get in here with those babies,' she said.

So I did. And Mo commenced to whining and crying and it was kind of hard to enjoy the place.

But what a marvelous place it is. I need to go back sometime when I don't have autism multiplied by PMS to contend with.