A Walk in the East Village

By West Village Bill

Yesterday, my guy Tony P. and I had a wonderful walk in the East Village. It was initiated by a visit to the Michael Mut Gallery on Avenue C between 6th and 7th streets.

We know Michael because he's the partner of the piano teacher for our great friends Bob and Jen's kids. We went to the opening reception of his Look Again exhibit, which is a showing of collages he made that were inspired by works of Pablo Picasso. The collages incorporate fragments of photos of Michael's own paintings. Tony and I both favored Girl in Mirror, which was based on Picasso's Girl before a Mirror. At left is Seated Woman on Wood Chair, after Picasso's painting from 1941. The exhibit runs through April 7.

On the way back to our apartment, we walked west on E. 9th Street, purely by chance. What a charming little street.

We stopped in The Upper Rust, an antiques shop with many interesting finds.

Then we hit Pink Olive, which had lots of items I'd never seen before. I bought two issues of Uppercase, a new-to-me quarterly arts-and-crafts journal.

And finally, we went to Mascot Studio, which is having its annual show of dog art. I bought a couple of cards by New York artist Anne Watkins.