The Rock Island Artists’ Market has announced it will be hosting two events for the 2021 season. Join local artists, makers, and growers on Sunday from 12 to 5 pm in the parking lot of Skeleton Key Art and Antiques, 520 18th Street, Rock Island, IL. This outdoor event is free to the public, and family friendly. Applications are now being accepted for vendors. Interested artists can find more information and the application form under the “Rock Island Artists’ Market” tab on Skeleton Key’s website, www.skeletonkeyqc.com, or in person during regular store hours. The Rock Island Artists’... Read More

The West Davenport Arts Council, in conjunction with Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities (MCC QC), is hosting an art exhibition for local artist Jen Hansen on the evening of Wednesday, June 30th, from 6-8 PM. Light refreshments will be served. Jen’s art is currently on display at MCC QC, located at 2930 Locust St. in Davenport, through the end of July. Jen is an outsider artist who found their calling while taking a class to teach therapeutic art. Living with an illness brought them to a place of living art and all of the joy that comes with this freedom. This exhibit is the... Read More

For a blissful few hours on a sun-kissed Tuesday in downtown Davenport, there was finally no coronavirus, no social distancing, no masks, no worries. There was a heavenly sense of normalcy outside River Music Experience at 2nd and Main streets, as the Quad Cities Cultural Trust (QCCT) presented a free four-hour festival – “Paint the Town” – as it celebrated exceeding its ambitious fundraising goal with its six funded partners. Representatives from those invaluable nonprofit groups – RME, Quad City Botanical Center, Quad City Symphony Orchestra, the Figge Art Museum, Putnam Museum &... Read More

The Rock Island Artists’ Market has announced it will be hosting two events for the 2021 season. Join local artists, makers, and growers on Sunday, June 27th and August 29th from 12 to 5 pm in the parking lot of Skeleton Key Art and Antiques, 520 18th Street, Rock Island, IL. This outdoor event is free to the public, and family friendly. Applications are now being accepted for vendors. Interested artists can find more information and the application form under the “Rock Island Artists’ Market” tab on Skeleton Key’s website, www.skeletonkeyqc.com, or in person during regular store hours.... Read More

MOLINE – Brandon Nees squinted into the sun Wednesday morning at the dilapidated, vacant Spiegel building, and all he saw was bright, boundless possibility. That’s partly because the 25-year-old Davenport artist, who graduated from Moline High School, painted the word “possibility” in big turquoise block letters across seven plywood panels – among nine colorful 7.6-foot-by-6.75 feet panels he created for a $10,000 public mural on the boarded-up ground floor of the city-owned Spiegel building off River Drive (200 20th St.) in downtown Moline. “It’s amazing,” Nees said of the finished... Read More

The 100-mile-per hour winds that pummeled the Quad-Cities on Aug. 10 produced more than power outages, downed trees and other property damage. The fast-moving, devastating derecho gave wood artist Steve Sinner of Bettendorf an opportunity. The 78-year-old native of Omaha, Neb., is an internationally acclaimed woodturner and one of his latest projects is turning a chunk of a large tree trunk downed in Bettendorf, into a beautifully polished vessel. Sinner found the hard maple trunk along Devils Glen Road, ideal for his use since the pieces he needs have to be as close to the center of the tree as... Read More

Welcome to the QuadCities.com Virtual Art Gallery! In this feature, we’re spotlighting area artists and their work. Every Tuesday we’ll feature a new local artist. It’s free and our way of showcasing awesome area artists and allowing them to include a link to their own online gallery or patreon! If you’d like to be included in the gallery, just send your bio, a headshot pic of yourself and up to a half-dozen .jpgs of your art to Sean@QuadCities.com. We look forward to featuring you and your artworks in our gallery! This week’s artist is Miranda Vavrosky. According to her bio, she... Read More

Fontana is in southern California, over 1,800 miles from the Quad-Cities, but that didn’t stop Yuji Baba, a graphic designer and illustrator there, from using The Force (and his amazing talent) to win the Quad City Arts Chalk Art Fest. The 30-year-old California native, who was raised in Osaka, Japan, won the first place of $500 with his gorgeous rendition of a book cover featuring Natalie Portman as Padme from the “Star Wars” prequels. “I’m so honored,” Baba said Monday. “If I had other graphic design work, I would not have been able to enter this festival.” For the fourth-annual... Read More

Welcome to the QuadCities.com Virtual Art Gallery! In this feature, we’re spotlighting area artists and their work. Every Tuesday we’ll feature a new local artist. It’s free and our way of showcasing awesome area artists and allowing them to include a link to their own online gallery or patreon! If you’d like to be included in the gallery, just send your bio, a headshot pic of yourself and up to a half-dozen .jpgs of your art to Sean@QuadCities.com. We look forward to featuring you and your artworks in our gallery! This week’s artist is Shy Brewer, whose abstracts and portraits... Read More

The Figge Café, which has been closed since March 17 due to Covid, will be reopening to the public on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 11 a.m. The café is inside the Figge Art Museum, 225 W. 2nd St., Davenport, which reopened in June. This reopening will feature the culinary skills of Chef Jason Stewart from Zeke’s Island Café. Stewart, also known as “Chef Stu,” is a classically trained chef who has a passion for creating food from different cultures around the world. He is also the 2020 People’s Choice winner from the Figge’s annual Cajun Cook-Off event. “Chef Stu’s energy, talent and creativity... Read More