January's First Friday arts events happening tonight — and next week

Today is the first Friday of the month — and the new year — but tonight's events as part of downtown Spokane's First Friday monthly arts walk are happening a little differently this time.

Although several of First Friday's regularly participating venues are indeed hosting receptions this evening for the artists' they're hosting, event organizer Downtown Spokane Partnership has moved the "official" event to next week, on Friday, Jan. 13. Because of the recent holidays, many businesses that usually participate had asked DSP to hold off one more week to give them (and all of us) a break from the hustle. Others, however, have agreed to host two weekends' worth of receptions to celebrate participating artists, with events tonight and again next Friday.

Because of this change, the Inlander is running a listing of all First Friday venue and artist information in next week's paper, on stands Jan. 12. However, we have also listed as much of this information as is now available on our website, at our permanent First Friday event page: inlander.com/firstfriday.

We'll continue to update our listings with more information as we receive it from DSP and the venues. For those who plan to wait to make their monthly arts stroll next weekend, the good news is that the weather forecast is looking to be a little less icy cold.

Also, next month's celebration breaks format again, when the big new Spokane Arts event (taking the place of the winter Visual Arts Tour) called SATURATE takes place the first weekend of February, the 3rd through the 5th. The redesigned event seeks to showcase the city's diverse yet under-recognized artists of color. Venues and artists are encouraged to apply to participate on Spokane Arts' website.