Chelsea Gallerista

While not technically in Chelsea - more like Midtown - I just attended the massive adult toy ( G-rated) extravaganza, Comic-Con, at the Javitz center. Read about it on my Galfromdownunder Upover blog . It's worth it - there's a movie!

Back in February I blogged about the amazing seed-beaded Munny dolls by Jan Huling . Popping by Lyons Weir Gallery recently I spotted her latest effort - a violin. It struck me that this would make the most wonderful prize for a student violin competition - it's Stradivarius on steroids! To remind you of Janet's original bead-breaking work, here's also a new item in her catalog - a beaded Kewpie doll. I'm just waiting for her to do a beaded Smartcar, then for someone to actually drive it ... or perhaps a beaded bicycle? Read my original post about Jan Huling

Shroomie by Scott Scheidly Twenty years ago, when I was a youngish yuppie of sorts, I bought a couple of paintings by Aussie artist Basil Hadley  for about $2500 each. That was the last time I bought a piece of "original" art and they are now gracing the walls of my ex's home in Sydney.  Admittedly they were, shall we say, "decorative" - unchallenging modern landscapes setting off my black leather sofa and seaweed green carpet beautifully. Since then, pursuing a largely traveling life, I've not been able to collect anything so unportable as art, apart from a very unportable print entitled  Sticks and Stones by (Sisters, Oregon) artist Paul Alan Bennett -  currently parked on the wall of a previous beau in Eugene, Oregon! What is this I have with ex's and art I wonder? But just recently, thanks to the affordable "free look" night at   The Affordable Art Fair in NYC , I bought my first piece of original art, a tiny painting called

While strolling around Chelsea on an off-gallery night, I noticed a panel of light coming from under a darkened alcove. There, I discovered Michael Albert , a self-styled post Warhol artist who calls himself a "Cerealist". The joy he takes in doing his art, a love of igniting the imagination of children, and his astute business acumen and juice business make him one artsy entrepreneur whose enthusiasm is infectious .... Watch the movie ... Cerealism , according to Albert, is the name he gives to his collages, largely made from cut out letters and images from cereal boxes. The letters are painstakingly arranged into large works "spelling out" manifestos like the Constitution, the Gettysburg address, the streets of Manhattan, the states of Connecticut ...  the latter two geographically correct too. Each collage takes several months to finish, and the exhibition represented over 10 years of hard cut and paste. And curiously absorbing they are, once yo

Marla of micro-desserterie The Three Tarts - a favorite of Oprah - offers 15% off lemonade and their signature artsy ice cream cake sandwiches tonight. See you there on 20th and 9th Ave!  I just got an email about the Chelsea Art Walk  tonight. Here's the official page: Art Walk Chelsea Ice cream, cold drinks, the coolest art - what more could you want if you're surrounded by a scorched concrete while your hedge funding acquaintances have all fled to the Hamptons with their Barackberries for the summer? It turns out I'm actually the FourSquare Mayor of this and a number of establishments in this area. For the uninitiated, FourSquare is a mildly addictive little game you "play" on your GPS-enabled mobile phone. It detects your location, and you hit a button to "check in". It awards you "badges" - a bit like Brownie Guide/Boy Scout emblems - for various levels of participation. The person who's been loitering in an establishment fo

"She learned shipbuilding techniques," says Gallery Director and artist Lauren Bakoin, of  the Louise Kruger and her enigmatic art. ( View in YouTube if this video is truncated at the right).  If you live in a tiny studio in Manhattan, you can't possibly entertain the idea of hoarding sculpture of any significant size - even tabletop pieces have to be carefully curated between your fruit bowl, magazine stash and cellphone charger. But on this occasion, I came close to dropping serious rent money on a Louise Kruger original.  Being a yoga teacher myself, I was drawn into Lori Bookstein Fine Art by this sculpture in the window depicting Pincha Mayurasana , or Forearm Stand: Actually, it's somewhere between a forearm stand - the head should be off the ground - and a headstand - the hands should be cupped behind the head. Who cares? It's a fantastically dynamic piece, and I've been coveting it ever since. The decision to own it was mitiga

Along 9th Ave in Chelsea are some eclectic little home decor stores that have every right to be called galleries - they sell eye candy you can actually afford - and display in your own gallery at home. One store I always enjoy popping into is NEST. It's perfectly sited to catch the loft-proud gay neighborhood, selling objets d'art and jewelry that you find yourself gazing for longer than usual, and turning over and over in your hands. It actually feels like a little sparrow's nest, full of treasures plucked from around the traps - not too minimalist, not too maximalist, not too ethnic, new agey, or mass produced, not too self consciously hip.  Just plain interesting. You can tell that each and every piece has been selected with thought, then placed in the tiny shop like it was your tiny studio apartment. It's curated by owners Lana Sexton and Henry Stozek, a refreshingly 'tude free duo who don't hide behind a billboard-sized iMac pretending you aren'