Art Walk training Run around all autumn till you fall BY IAN PAIGE

If you don’t know by now that First Fridays rule, you’ve got a lot to learn about Portland. There is no other night in our fair city where everyone and their Mom decides to participate in one way or another with the Art Walk or one of its many corollary spin-off events. The idea that you’d be drooling on yourself watching the Simpsons on the first Friday of the month comes close to sacrilege for a Portland resident (besides, that’s what Sundays are for). We here at the Phoenix propose quite the opposite plan of intense physical training to make sure you can fill your eyes, ears, and heart with as much art as the city can throw at you. Start your stretching routines now.

Fort the first leg of your race training, start out strong with Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The world’s most famous wrappers’ work will be exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art. "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Würth Museum Collection" will feature as extensive a retrospective as you can get, covering the entire artistic process of the artists. From November 3 through December 31, museum-goers can explore the initial pencil drawings, studies, and fabrics of more than 60 works spanning a body of work beginning in the 1950s and extending to the most recent project, "The Gates," which made news for New York’s Central Park this past year.

Just to keep you really motivated, the artists will be coming to town to discuss their work. The event takes place at the Merrill Auditorium on November 9. Visit www.porttix.com and mark your calendars if you’re into people wrapping things up for a living.

Also from the PMA, expect the works of Neil Welliver and Murray Hantman. Both of these artists over the course of their careers drew inspiration from national and international fashions but remain true to an indefinable Vacationland archetype. "Neil Welliver: Water and Sky" is on view now and seeks to memorialize the recently passed artist with roughly 20 works exhibiting a unique angle on the landscape and figure work that could only come from a Maine painter. "Murray Hantman: From Image to Abstraction" will highlight a similar push and pull with traditional Maine landscape painting and modern tendencies to abstraction.

For those of you with elephant memories out there, you’ll recall a certain movie from the SPACE Gallery Human Rights Watch Film Festival screened last year titled Born Into Brothels. The documentary explores the lives of the children of prostitutes in Calcutta’s red light district as they are exposed to the creative processes of photography. Appearing this fall at SPACE is a photo exhibition called "Kids With Cameras," featuring the work of the children from said Academy Award–winning documentary. On display will be 35mm prints of colorful portraits of the Bengali world taken by children who would otherwise have few creative outlets.

The Institute for Contemporary Art at the Maine College of Art will hold its 31st annual art auction come November 11. This is as big and bad-ass an art auction as you can get this side of the state line and you can feel good about yourself knowing that all proceeds will benefit the MECA Student Scholarship Fund.

If you haven’t already, make sure you check out the Terry Winters print exhibition at the Colby College Museum of Art which runs through November 6. Granted, you may have to drive to check out these serially conceived prints by a painter with a fresh eye for the medium. If you manage to make it to Waterville on foot, though, you’re sure to win the adoration of your peers.

Whitney Art Works will feature a good mix in October. Local painter Richard Hutchins will represent Portland pride while the drawings of Christopher Skura from New York City will throw some metropolitan doodling into the fray. Local color will again be represented in November with the paintings of UMO professor Ed Nadeau as well as Irene Stapleford and Diane Wienke.

Aucocisco Gallery balances out their fall season with two shows. October will feature the "A Darker Shade of Brown," showcasing the works of Richard Brown Lethem. The show intends to be personal, focusing on the artist’s reactions to the darker side of humanity. Don’t get too down in the dumps focusing just on that show, though. The gallery then offers a glimmer of hope in November with the paintings of Dozier Bell. These ethereal new works are intended to inspire confidence in the spiritual aspects of life. Check out both shows and decide for yourself if the glass is half empty or half full.

While you’re on Congress St. visiting Aucocisco, you probably owe it to yourself to head over to Local 188 for sustenance for the last leg of the race. If you’re watching your carb count (or are on a liquid diet) you can still feast your eyes on the upcoming painting show by local artist Scott Whitton. The abstract works adorn the walls starting October 16.

By now you must be tired, so if you really need to take a cab to make your way over to the East End, we’ll look the other way. The point is that it’s worth your while to check out some new upstarts on the scene. Fort Ness is a new gallery space on 74 India Street. Co-owners Wendy Davenport, Carrie Bostick Hoge, and Catherine Satchell will all exhibit their work with subsequent shows over the course of the fall. Expect intriguing photographic work involving experimental printing processes.

At this point all you have to do is stumble next door to Bizarro and check out new works by some of your favorite local artists. Photographs by Garry Bowcott, paintings by Shana Barry, and tile work renderings by Kyle Durrie will make a lovely distraction from any record shopping you might want to do. If you’ve got any energy left, you can drag yourself over to Washington Avenue for a smoothie at the Wicked Good Juice Bar and check out what’s going on at their new Viewmaster Gallery. Wrap up your evening at Ubu Studio where somehow they’re going to fit 50 collage pieces on the walls of their tiny little building. Rumor has it that if you’re really nice they’ll let you pass out on the couch. After your marathon, you’ll have earned the nap.

Ian Paige can be reached at ianpaige@gmail.com