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It’s always exciting when ArtHop gets a new venue. Tonight the place to be will be 1821 Calaveras, a new gallery and studio space renovated by owner Bruce Kalkowski. From my ArtHop advance in last week’s issue of 7:

Kalkowski converted an old auto repair shop into the gallery. “The bow truss roof system and brick walls give a distinct feel akin to something you might find on the San Francisco wharf district,” he says.

The first artist to be featured in the gallery is Cookie Zeches Hendrickson, whose work spans a breadth of printmaking techniques. Her most recent pieces are stone lithographs. The opening ArtHop reception features live music, a wine tasting by Ecluse Wines and Mattie’s Mobile Wood Fired Pizza.

I got a note this week from artist Ed Gillum, who told me he’s been asked to show a few of his sculptures for the inaugural opening as well.

In other ArtHop news: I have a big feature story in Thursday’s Life section on the ever-expanding Chris Sorensen Studio, which now features work and gallery spaces for 33 artists. If you haven’t been to Sorensen in a while, you’ll want to check it out — there’s a strong, cheerful vibe and a whole bunch of great art to discover.

After the jump, a few more ArtHop picks.

MORE ARTHOP PICKS

At Arte Americas, a new exhibition honors the memory of noted Fresno artists Adolf and Ella Odorfer. The show, curated by Phil Bowers, includes paintings, drawings, sketches and ceramic works, including many never before displayed. Arte is trying something special for ArtHop:

At forty-five minutes past the 5, 6, and 7′o clock hours, the gallery will be cleared, and fifteen lucky people will get a chance to participate in a private tour led by Bowers and Associate Curator Edward Lund. Tours will be available by sign-ups, taken on a first-come, first-served basis, and will last approximately fifteen minutes. At that point, the doors will re-open to the public so that everyone can enjoy the exhibit. Bowers and Lund will be available for questions through the duration of the evening.

At Gallery 25, 660 Van Ness Ave., member and printmaker Lylia Carr joins with the Fresno Printmakers’ Guild for a celebration of the group’s 25th anniversary. The group was started in 1986 by Fresno City College printmaking professor Leon Osborne. The gallery space will be divided between early works and will include some founding Guild members’ work. The other part of the gallery will exhibit more recent work by Guild members.

Spectrum Art Gallery, 608 E. Olive Ave., opens the major exhibition “Photographs from the Willem Photographic Gallery.” The Monterey gallery collection features glamour and commercial photography from the 1930s to the present. Photographs of Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstien and Judy Garland and many others will be on display. I’ll have much more about this exhibition in a review of the show running in Friday’s 7 section.

The work of Aileen Imperatrice will highlight another recently opened ArtHop venue: the Community Media Access Collaborative (CMAC) Studios inside the former Fresno Metropolitan Museum building, 1555 Van Ness Ave. Imperatrice, a visual artist, writer and video host, notes that she has a history of ties to both of these entities: She was a member of the Fresno Met and an exhibiting artitst there, and she was an employee of the Fresno Bee, the building’s original tenant.

Paintings and photography by Bill Bruce are featured in a solo exhibit at Fig Tree Gallery. The show features “I Find It Hard to Breathe,” a photographic essay on the subject of breathing; and “Art in the Present in Tense,” new large-format abstract paintings on canvas.