The forecast couldn’t be more promising for the fall Saint Paul Art Crawl this weekend. Hundreds of artist studios and galleries will be open to the public; in fact, many of the Crawl’s venues will offer programming of their own – meet-and-greet receptions with artists, live performance, art-making activities, and the like. Lowertown St. Paul is a locus for much of the weekend’s activity, but there are art crawl outposts all over the city – in the Midway neighborhood, and up the hill from downtown, in the Cathedral Hill area and all along Grand Avenue. You can poke around in the directory of participating artists and scout this year’s venues ahead of time on the Saint Paul Art Crawl website. As you’re planning your visit, keep in mind Metro Transit is offering free rides throughout the weekend, on both buses and light rail, to help you get where you want to go at no cost, with little fuss.

In addition to the main event – browsing the wide variety of locally-made art and craft on view – there will be food trucks and buskers well represented all over downtown and Lowertown. Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar, always a prime stop, once again has live music planned all three days of the art crawl. You’ll also notice more evening options on offer for the crawl this year. Of particular note: Friday night, Sweet 317 is hosting an evening line-up at Senor Wong restaurant and cocktail lounge downtown, featuring the CrosSinghs, Yeti Steady, Katy Vernon, Nick Costa and LOTT. The new Bedlam Theatre will host an “After-Crawl Ball” on Saturday for artists and art crawl visitors to mingle, eat, drink and listen to live music. Be sure to stop back by Bedlam on Sunday afternoon to see a showcase by the area’s resident dance studios, including flamenco by Sendero Studio, traditional South Asian dance by Kala Vandanam, and contemporary ballet from Ballet MN.

Tom Reynen – “New Day in Lowertown,” Fall 2014 Poster Competition Winner.

Finally, don’t miss the nighttime display that Motionpoems, a Knight Arts grantee, has put together for Union Depot: “Arrivals & Departures” is a large-scale public art project featuring specially created “motionpoems” projected onto the block-wide façade of Lowertown’s newly restored train station. Motionpoems will unveil a series of brand new film shorts animating contemporary poems submitted by local writers. It promises to be a marvelous spectacle. You can catch the “Arrivals & Departures” projections both Friday and Saturday nights at Union Depot.

The fall St. Paul Art Crawl is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, October 10 (6 p.m. to 10 p.m.), 11 (noon to 8 p.m.) and 12 (noon to 5 p.m.). For detailed information on artists and venues, visit www.saintpaulartcrawl.org. You’ll find many related events also posted to the collective’s St. Paul Art Crawl Facebook page.