Art Tours

While IDADA (the Indianapolis Downtown Artists and Dealers Association) hosts its next First Friday Art Tour on Jan. 6, the group is also offering a much-improved ongoing virtual art tour on its Web site: www.idada.info.

IDADA launched the site in December with much-improved individual artist pages that allow artists to post artist statements, contact information and images of work with size, medium and price listed. Each artist page is also connected to a search function that allows site visitors to hunt for work by size, keyword, medium, type of art, style of art and color. So, if a visitor came looking for a contemporary acrylic painting in impressionistic style using the color yellow, she could use the search engine to find — in this instance — three pieces.

The site, redesigned by IDADA member artist Jason Zickler, remains a work-in-progress as the 54 member artists linked are required to upload and update their own pages. The 24 member galleries also have individual pages for images linked to the search function.

Artists interested in joining for $50 per year can find information about doing so on the site. Here’s a roundup of what’s going on in January’s First Friday, with all galleries open at least from 6-9 p.m. that night.

• Murphy Art Center: Open artist studios and galleries including Galerie Penumbra (Bruce Moore, The World Within), Collective Art Gallery (Urban Chic by Liz Wimberly and works of 20-plus local artists in an eclectic array of all media), Big Car Gallery (Masked, paintings by John Clark and collages by Jim Walker).

• Domont Studio Gallery (Moonlight Journey, continuing new works from the Heartland and a voyage into the American West by John J. Domont); • Midland Arts & Antiques (Dinkie, work by Laura LaForge).

• 4 Star Gallery (Eclectic by Katrin Asbury, James Darr, Jay Dougan, Vance Farrow, Greg Hull and Eric Nordgulen).

• LAMP Fine Art Gallery (“Artist of the Month” Yasha Persson plus several works from the LAMP artist collective).

• McFee Art Gallery (new works by McFee and other contemporary Indiana artists). •

Precious Mettles (Look through My Window, high fiber mixed media work by Becki Banet Lucas).

• Villa dell’Artista (plein air paintings of Pompeii, Rome and Venice exhibited by Rosanna Hardin Hall in a lovely old carriage house in Woodruff Place).

• Ruschman Art Gallery (Indiana Landscapes Revisited, paintings by James Urbaska and Group Show by gallery artists).

• enROUTE Gallery of VSA Arts of Indiana (Group Show from the VSAI community of artists).

• Harrison Art Gallery (Happy Birthday Group Show with Harrison Center artists).

• Stutz Art Gallery (Primary Colours 2006 Retrospective, with 21 Indianapolis artists).

• Artistic Spirit Gallery (located in the lower level of the Phoenix Theatre, features paintings by local visionary artists).