Review of their new "Spatial Effects Gallery" (open Thurs. evenings and Sat. afternoons and by appt.) The message that ought to be clearly posted in their gallery is: Look, but don't touch.
Having seen something in the recent issue of the Villager newspaper, I was interested to see what beautiful things they might have on display in their gallery. So I had a lovely walk over there on a recent, gorgeous late summer, Saturday afternoon. As I walked through their open front door, I was acknowledged right away and shown down a hallway where the gallery was open and waiting for someone to arrive. It was a smallish-space with unusual-looking coffee tables spaced around the perimeter of the room, with pieces of pottery perched on top, and paintings, mosaics, collages, and pottery pieces hanging on the walls. The woman who showed me to the room stood perched outside the doorway and exclaimed early on that she didn't know whether or not she should talk about the items in the room. I offered that I would enjoy browsing quietly, but would direct any questions I had to her.
As an artistic-creative sort of person who really "sees" things with my hands, I enjoyed touching and feeling the smooth wood surfaces as well as the metal portions of the handmade tables; I also enjoyed handling the pottery pieces I found particularly attractive. As I came to the final pieces in the room, I began delicately touching the legs of a coffee table, wanting to discover by touch whether the legs were metal or something else (because they looked a bit "different"). That's when the woman told me not to touch. When I asked why (and especially after I had been touching all the other tables and many of the pottery pieces), she said that if everyone touched, there'd be a lot of dirt and such left behind. So I asked her what the legs were made from and she talked about some process (they were not made of metal). I thanked her and promptly left. I have had more pleasant experiences at other galleries. read more