Submitted by Susan Christian of Salon Refu
I always describe Olympia to faraway friends as the town where everyone looks at art during the two designated weekends of the year when everyone goes downtown for Artswalk. Spring and fall, we love this celebration, and a huge number of us get out and show our stuff as artists.
Then we wait six months.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not necessary. Olympia is not a fancy town, but we have a number of art galleries where you can look at changing exhibits of art from the silly to the deeply serious all year round. Those that come immediately to my own mind include Childhood’s End (the forerunner, opening in the early 70’s), State of the Arts, Matter, ArtHouse, SPLASH Gallery and my own very young project space/gallery, Salon Refu. All of these are open during normal business hours all week long, all year long, except Salon Refu, open on Thursday through Sunday afternoons. 
Besides making visual arts available for view and purchase, State of the Arts and Salon Refu host musical and spoken-word events, as does Traditions, which isn’t a gallery but always has beautiful examples of folk art for sale.
All. Year. Round.
Please let’s not allow ourselves only four days a year of enjoying and, dare I suggest it, buying and relishing life with the arts. Go downtown. Be sophisticated. Enjoy.
