art walk wrapup

Friday, December 10, 2004, at 09:16AM

By Eric Richardson

Yesterday's Downtown Art Walk was great. If you missed it definitely plan to make the rounds next time, on January 13th.

I started my walk a little around 5:45pm, when I looked at the map one final time and headed for #3, the M.J. Higgins gallery in the former Inshallah building. As with several other galleries this go 'round, they're very newly opened. Good stuff, both paintings and some "found objects" type furniture and other decorations.

Next I hit up #6, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, which features high quality prints of digital work. What's fascinating to me is that if I walked into the gallery off the street knowing nothing, I'd have had no idea the works were digitally produced and then printed by the printer sitting in their back room. Part of that was the particular exhibition, but also it's a function of what an amazing job their Epson Stylus Pro 10000 does.

Next door is #7, the future site of the El Nopal Press. As of last night they were featuring what they called the "show before the show". On display were a printing press and some architectural drawing for what the finished space will look like.

Across the street is #8, Bert Green Fine Art. Largely it was the same stuff I saw last month, with a few new pieces here and there to replace what's been sold. Very good stuff, and there's one piece in there that I absolutely love (the "Coming Soon"/"American Hero" piece that I can't seem to find on the gallery website). I also really like the Devon Paulson pieces he has up.

Down at the end of the block and up the elevator was #9A, Duarte Photo. Their works are much better than their website, which is Flash only with no accomodation for those who don't have it installed (like me, here at work). By now you should know how I feel about Flash. Anyway, cool work and a huge space in Spring Arts Tower.

At Duarte I ran into Jaime Green, and walked with him down Spring a few blocks to #11, 727 Gallery. They're displaying a very nice collection of photos centered on the community gardens southeast of USC.

By the time I left 727 it was a little after 8:30 and I was tired of walking, so I walked the block back to my apartment and put my feet up for a while. It's always good to leave some places for next time.

One thing that really stood out this month is how the area on 5th street between Spring and Main (which lacda's Rex Bruce told me has been appointed "the nickle", first by the homeless and now by the galleries) is really becoming a vibrant center for Gallery Row. Last month there was one gallery -- Bert Green's. This month there were three. Next month there could be two more. That's amazing.