Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
Last Saturday, with some babysitting help from the kids’ grandparents, Margot and I got a nice night out—together!—and we were delighted to attend the artist’s reception for Jaxon Northon’s painting exhibition. The exhibition was all of the original portraits that he painted for our Best of Northern Nevada issue a couple of weeks ago.
I saw the paintings as he was working on them, but it was great to see all of them up in a public place where they could be admired.
The event was extra fun because Jaxon—thoughtful guy that he is—didn’t just have a regular ol’ artist’s reception with cheap wine and stale hors d’oeuvres. Instead, his reception was a bangin’ dance party at one of Reno’s finest watering holes, Chapel Tavern. We danced up a storm.
We didn’t even get there until around 9 p.m., but Jaxon had been there all day, and he was elated at the response to his art and its community-oriented themes. He’d already sold four of the original paintings, along with a few dozen prints. When we were there, the place was packed—and it was definitely the hip nighttime crowd you might expect. But Jaxon was especially excited about the crowd that had come by to see the paintings earlier during the day—including families and elderly folks.
As I wrote in the BONN issue, Jaxon and I have been friends for years, and I’m really proud of the work he did for this project and happy that the RN&R was able to help his art reach a wider audience.
If you want to order a print, you can reach out to him at jaxonnorthon@gmail.com.
And don’t worry! If you somehow missed the BONN issue, you’ll get another chance to see the artwork in print in October for the Winners’ Issue.