Twin Peaks

It was First Fridays on steroids.

The fun began at the Anderson Gallery for the opening of "Judith Godwin: Early Abstractions."

After hearing the artist's talk last night, I was eager to see her work firsthand.

It was fascinating to watch the progression of her work from her junior year in college through the late '60s.

From the earliest academic painting where she was clearly trying to break down form, through the exquisite "Martha Graham: Lamentation," with its otherworldly blues and suggestion of a black figure in motion to what she called her "Japanese period," I was mesmerized by her development as an artist.

Walking by a student on gallery duty, I heard her lament, "As a young painter, I can't imagine what it felt like to live through that period she did."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that the period she's living through has the potential to be just as impressive to an artist-to-be not yet born.

Assuming, that is, that she and her artistic-minded peers persevere and stay true to themselves.

And if the work of the young Judith Godwin in the galleries there didn't inspire her to that, she was already hopeless.

By the end, I concluded that my favorite was probably "Blue Storm" from 1963 for its evocation of the range of dark blues where horizon separates sky and sea in the run-up to a bad storm.

Coinciding with that show was the VMFA's "Gesture: Judith Godwin and Abstract Expressionism," which included work from her entire career as well as that of other artists in the collection.

Making my way around the gallery, it was a shock to finally see one of Godwin's works from the '70s.

The progression was clear and only became more so with the '80s and '90s works.

Her brushstrokes became looser, her palette lighter with softer colors.

It was a crash course in the art of one woman, surrounded by other second wave abstract expressionists, including several Virginians.

I don't know how a young painter, or anyone with a shred of interest in painting, could walk away without a profound appreciation for the talent of a woman who fought the very male mainstream of the time and stayed true to her vision.

But maybe I should check with a young painter just to be sure.

After getting a healthy dose of Godwin, we moved upstairs to Amuse for dinner.

When we sat down at the bar, the bartender reminded me that I was sitting next to a neighbor.

Sure enough, the woman sitting there lives a half a block from me.

It's a small world after all at the VMFA.

It was a lovely time to be in Amuse, with the last hour of daylight making for a pale and then deep blue sky.

With the impending opening of the museum's Asian galleries, Amuse's menu has taken a turn eastward.

After scoring Michael Shaps' VMFA viognier and a split of Cristalino cava, we couldn't resist the pork buns stuffed with cucumber and scallions served with pickled onions and hoisin sauce.

Let's just say that the kitchen clearly has a knack for Asian flavors.

We were told about a dish so brand-new that it hadn't even made it on to tonight's menu, so that was our decision made.

General Tso's chicken used thigh meat and came over jasmine rice with tempura asparagus atop it.

The bartender had recommended the Kung Pao beef for its Szechuan spiciness, but admitted that she hadn't had the new dish, so she was unsure about its spiciness.

The first bite yielded the answer; there was a subtle but distinct heat on the finish that delivered the kicker.

Take-out Tso's never tasted so good.

Conversation ranged all over the place, with our bartender frequently supplying her opinion.

Burning issues like what percentage of men 20 to 60 recognize a good woman when they meet one?

I got one 50% and one 10%, so no conclusions could be drawn.

While making up our mind about dessert, we shared a new drink on the cocktail menu, the Ice Cube.

It came in a glass with only a straw sized opening, but inside the glass was tequila, Chambord, agave, lime juice, grapefruit juice and Sprite.

Oh, yes, and a big, round Chambord-colored ice cube.

It was like a ship in a bottle. How did that big cube get in a glass with only a straw-sized hole?

Hint: you'll need to drink one to find out.

Given the subtlely blended flavors, that shouldn't be too difficult.

I'm not even a cocktail drinker and I slurped down my half.

Dessert was a chocolate hazelnut tort, an extremely moist way to end a meal.

And for possibly the first time since Picasso, I did not end my meal with an absinthe drip.

The Ice Cube had taken precedence.

By the time we left, I had to hightail it back to J-Ward to catch a couple of major shows.

My first stop was Ghostprint Gallery for "Josh George: The Scientific Method," a show of much larger works than I'd seen from him before.

But having just come from Godwin's shows, I was already adjusted to paintings done large.

George uses paint and collage and the pieces in this show, done over a five-month period he told me, were darker than the ones I'd seen last fall.

Even the titles were darker: "First Line of Defense in the Frozen Yogurt Wars" and "The Organ Harvesters."

The artist was there, but as usual, we talked more restaurants than art.

I was happy to hear that the show will be up for two months so I can take a friend and see it again.

Leaving Ghostprint so they could lock up, my final stop was Gallery 5 for "&@$#!: An Exhibition of Comic Artists."

Walking in, I caught the last song of trio Houdan the Mystic, billed as "three beards playing instruments."

Honestly, that's most every band in town with number of beards the only variable.

I wouldn't want to judge any band by one song, but I did like what I heard of their psychedelic math rock.

From there, I went upstairs to check out the comic art.

Before I could even begin, I ran into Lily, the talented and ambitious woman who creates the large-scale puppets for the upcoming Halloween parade as well as the annual May Day parade.

She's busy preparing for the Halloween parade and told me this year's theme.

Saints and sinners and Virginia General Assembly puppets will represent the sinners.

How brilliant is that?

We hadn't seen each other in ages, so we took the time to catch up while the friend she was with patiently waited through our girl talk.

Suddenly I noticed something.

Peking out from Lily's dress was a black polka-dotted bra.

I immediately asked her friend to unzip my dress six inches.

Without so much as an inquiry why, he did so, allowing me to show Lily the top of my identical black polka-dotted bra.

So there we were, two grown women holding the tops of our twin bras next to the other one.

Lily turned to her unzipping friend. "Did you have any idea where that was going?"

Apparently he hadn't but was willing to go along for the ride.

You gottta love men.

That business addressed, I said my adieus and moved on to the art.

I found myself drawn to Julia Scott's work, including "Sirens" and "Joey," an ink, watercolor and Pentel piece.

My eye was captured by the shades of green and black that evoked the capped and bearded Joey.

Naturally I was attracted to James Callahan's "Barf Comics Cover" of the first-ever issue, with its cover tease of "Holy freakin' collector's item! You should probably buy two of 'em!!!"

That sense of humor is one of my favorite things about Callahan's work and one of the reasons I have a Callahan hanging in my apartment.

Greg Roth's three pieces of ink on paper showed very different scenes.

One was "Conan: Born in the Battlefield" of men in horned helmets with swords, while the other two, "Freaks of the Heartland" were of figures in overalls out in a rural setting.

By the time I finished reading comics, I heard music starting and headed downstairs.

Quintet Way, Shape or Form was playing their second show tonight.

As they began to play, I stood near the window where I could see the fire performers finishing up their acts of derring-do to the beats of two DJs.

What I didn't expect was that when the fire performers stopped, the music was cranked louder and  spontaneous dancing in the street began as the audience took over center stage.

After a few minutes, things got very Soul Train with a group of four guys taking turns trying to outdo each other with their moves.

But I wanted to pay attention to WSoF because their electronic indie pop was awfully catchy.

The lead singer had a great voice and was kept busy turning knobs and playing guitar.

All of a sudden I had company at the window when a woman came over to look outside and found the dance party in full swing.

"Her momma should have taught her not to go out in shorts like that," the woman clucked about the leopard-print shorts as short as any underwear and even tighter.

For the record, the woman speaking was probably no more than ten years older than the girl dancing, but was clearly calling it as she saw it.

I left her to her voyeurism and went back to figuring out what I was liking about WSoF.

With hints of chillwave, post rock and enough electronica to get some of the dance party stragglers moving now that they'd moved inside, I found a lot to like.

And if this really was their second show, bravo, boys.

But they were full of youthful energy/enthusiasm and when they finished their set, said they were heading down two blocks to do another show at the Bug house with some other electronic bands.

Tempting as that sounded, I already had plans to walk down two blocks and finally bring my first Friday to a close.

I just hope I didn't miss the show of a lifetime.

Come on, the bug house?

Only in Jackson Ward and only on first Friday.