Arts Open and First Thursday Redefine the Waterfront District
By Devonte Barr, Columnist
The last time I wrote about the Waterfront Arts District, I was asking something simple — whether it would ever gather enough attention to matter.
Now it will.
Arts Open San Pedro is set to return, opening studios and galleries across the city. First Thursday continues its steady expansion, drawing crowds into the streets. This month, the 11th, 12th, 25th, and 26th sit close enough together to feel less like separate dates and more like a continuous stretch of activity.
One weekend moves into the next. There is always somewhere to be, something opening, something beginning again, before the last thing has quite finished.
The change will be unmistakable. The streets will fill more quickly than they have before. The sense of occasion, once tied to a single evening, begins to repeat itself across multiple days. What was once intermittent starts to feel constant.
There is a certain excitement in that. For years, the concern was whether the district could draw attention at all. Now it can. But the shift introduces another question, quieter and harder to answer: what happens when these events begin to overlap in experience, if not in name?
Inside the galleries, the work will be waiting. People will move through in steady currents — pausing, looking, continuing. It is the weight of abundance itself that carries them forward. There is simply too much to take in at once. Too many rooms, too many walls, too many small invitations competing for the same limited attention.
Outside, the rhythm changes. The streets fill, the energy builds, vendors and music and conversation spill outward. The distinction between an art walk and something closer to a festival begins to blur—not because either has changed on its own, but because of how closely they now arrive.
Each of these things has its place. Arts Open invites a slower kind of engagement, drawing people into studios and conversation. First Thursday pushes outward, turning the district into a shared public space. But when they are scheduled within days of one another, the experience shifts. The pace quickens. The space between moments disappears.
None of this is accidental. It reflects a district that has worked to be seen and now is. But success brings its own pressure. Without spacing, even attention begins to thin.
The schedule will move quickly. It already is. What remains afterward will matter more than the crowds themselves — whether the work was truly encountered or simply passed through.
Because when events begin to stack, it becomes harder for any one moment to linger.
A few weeks earlier, my partner and I were walking through downtown when we passed Solo. I pointed through the window — Peter Scherrer was inside, the same person I had mentioned days before, the one who had complimented my shoes at a meeting.
The opening had already ended. The room was empty, still holding the faint trace of wine and conversation. We stepped in anyway. He looked up, recognized me, and let us take a look.
There was no pace to it. No crowd, no movement pulling you along. Just the work on the walls and the space around it. It didn’t take long — the room isn’t the Getty — but that wasn’t the point.
You could stop. You could look. And for a few minutes, that was enough.
After we left, I found myself looking up the artist, Moncho, following the work a little further than I might have otherwise. There was time for that. The show is still up at Solo, and I know I can go back, stand with it again, see something I missed the first time.
That kind of return — the ability to leave and come back — is harder to hold onto when Arts Open, First Thursday, and the rest of the month arrive all at once.