Last night the monthly Amherst Art Walk (first Thursday of the month, 5 p.m.-8 p.m.) got super-sized, adding new locations, street performers and other attractions.

Participating galleries stretched from the Mead at Amherst College throughout downtown and to the University, Hamden, and Augusta Savage galleries at UMass, and extended down Main Street to the Amherst Community Arts Center and Nacul Center Gallery. It wasn’t just galleries though, as such diverse locations as The Evergreens, Town Hall, Blue Sky Contemporary Crafts and Rao’s joined in the festivities. On the street, musicians, jugglers, balloons, free treats from local businesses and a stately horse-drawn carriage made for a giant block party atmosphere, and that’s just what event organizers wanted.

Donna Abelli handles public relations and graphic design for the Mead, and is on the Art Walk committee. She first conceived of the Block Party idea, quickly convincing fellow committee members Susan Loring-Wells and Eva Fierst. “We really pulled this together in five or six weeks,” Abelli said.

The Block Party was a pumped-up version of the monthly Art Walks, which had developed from the original Gallery Walks initiated by Gallery A3 in 2002. The committee hopes to repeat the Block Party concept several times a year.

Beginning last May, Art Walks expanded the original concept to include local retail businesses and restaurants. Some of those participate by hanging art exhibits in their establishments, while others rally their own creative instincts with artistic menu offerings and window displays.

The Town Hall is one of the newer participants in the Art Walk, and last night hosted the opening reception for a macro photography exhibit by Danielle Carriveau. Carriveau, whose extreme vision problems weren’t diagnosed until she was nine years old, believes “this disability had the advantage of developing unusually heightened close-up vision,” as she expresses in the Artist’s Statement accompanying her display. Close-ups of flowers, leaves and their component parts, as well as stark and almost abstracted human body elements show the beauty of shape and detail.

Carriveaus’s work was selected by the Amherst Public Art Commission which is responsible for the Town Hall exhibits. It will be on display in the foyer and on the second-floor stairwell landing until the end of November.

“The Amherst Art Show in the summer was the first time I showed my work publicly,” said the Holyoke Community College art student. “I got a really good response.”

Other locations, such as R. Michelson Galleries, Fiber Art Center and Gallery A3 are among the veterans of the tour. All had a steady stream of people enjoying art, refreshments and the chance to socialize with friends and neighbors.

Gallery A3 is owned and run by member artists, and recently re-opened in a new location along the eastern arcade of the Cinema Center building. The landscape-inspired oil paintings of Karen Iglehart and Susan Katz’s “tatami work, scrolls and constructs” filled that space with admirers.

Susan Loring-Wells, executive director of the Fiber Art Center reported large crowds at her gallery and called response to the evening “hugely favorable.”

“There was a real vitality to the event, and everyone was impressed by that feeling coming from it,” she said.

She credited the cooperation of so many downtown businesses as the key element. “This was the most businesses participating yet and that was pretty exciting. All of us were creating this great event together.”

John Coull concurred. He is executive director of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, and known less formally to this reporter as “Dad.”

“I’m delighted with the sense of vitality and activity around town,” he said last night, surrounded by visitors admiring Diane Nevinsmith’s watercolor exhibit on display at the Chamber. “It would be a huge success just to see the collaboration by the merchants, even if nobody came. But as it turns out, everybody came.”

The evening wrapped up with an after party – another first – at the Lord Jeff, where the popular swing band The Gypsy Wranglers performed. The party space, the food, and the entertainment were all donated – among the many generous freebies put forth to help make the Art Walk Block Party a big hit.

Raffle tickets and guestbook logs confirmed that visitors came not only from Amherst and surrounding towns, but also Connecticut, Vermont and the Boston area, according to Abelli. Noting the evening’s heavy pedestrian traffic and crowded businesses, she said “I’m hoping everyone did really well.”

Abelli and Loring-Wells praised the help and support of many in making the evening so successful. Among them, Kiran Bhomik, who coordinated the street performers, WRSI-the River, who was an event sponsor and did a remote broadcast on site, and other sponsors and donors including: the Mead Art Museum, Valley Advocate, Tiger Press, Whole Foods, the Fine Arts Center, Dean’s Beans, the Chamber, and the group Promoting Downtown Amherst.

“We heard people saying things like 'this is just like Northampton – or better than Northampton,' and that’s what we were shooting for,” said Abelli. “We want to let everyone know that Amherst has a lot to offer too, and you don’t have to go over the bridge for art and entertainment.”

-- Stephanie O’Keeffe