House of Art

Saturday night i attended the opening to the Frank Morrison, Jamel Shabazz show - two artists i had never heard of. It must have seemed to them like have been living under a rock to which i would reply: yes i have. Anyways, after much running running around trying to find Lewis avenue in Bed-Stuy, (Do you have a cross street? I was asked a few times, to which i replied a few times: no i don`t, a nice station agent knew where the house of art was and headed for Utica station.

I was approached by Rich`rd who said he was the gallery owner and explained that Frank Morrison is an illustrator who has worked on over 30 children`s books including one about a baseball player ( i should look that up) and Jamel Shabazz is an urban photo journalist who documents the life of the inner city. He said their work was important because he can see himself in the work.

I was taken by Morrison`s art which i would describe as whimsical and cute ( as i looked upon Specks, i said, this is so cute, it is so adorable, and then i thought i need to find another descriptor besides cute, so i will use the one they always use to describe this kind of painting : whimsical. ) Specks is a portrait of a young african american girl with big hair and big glasses. There was a red dot next to it which means that it was sold.

Gossip Girls and Like Father Like Son were also some of my favorites as they capture something very unique and charming.

Jamel Shabazz`s work is more immediate and has authored 3 monographs including `Back in the Days`, `The last sunday in June`, and `A Time before Crack` and is now working on a 4th book titled `The 90`s`.

I appoached the bar where i told Tiffany the bartender that the last time i had a cocktail that came out of a bottle looking like it was meant for perfume was at a shoecrush.com party. `What`s shoecrush?` she asked, `a website where you can buy shoes`, i said. `I have a crush on shoes,` she said. And then her friend next to her pulled up her pants and showed me these great big platform boots. Nuvo was what we were drinking; `I have that`, she said. Ty-Ku was what Tiffany was serving.

I`m hoping for egg nog at the next holiday party.

House of Art
373 Lewis avenue.

www.nychouseofart.com