Saturday Night In the Little Apple

This weekend I popped into an opening at Soft Machine Gallery at 101 Ridge Avenue. Although the gallery might be in the 1st Ward near the Lehigh River,  the art is as uptown as it gets. John Mortensen and Eva DiOrio started the gallery in a rented space on 15th Street about ten years ago, before creating their own current space on the corner of Ridge and Linden Streets.

The show, which runs through October 5th, features the South African born and Israeli trained  constructions of Michelle Marcuse,  the mixed media collages of Netherland trained Diane Tenerelli, and the whimsically edgy drawings of Kate Hovencamp.

On the way back to the blog bunker, I drove up Linden Street past the Strata buildings. With Stratas on my left, not a millennial in sight on the right, or wrong side of the street. It is as if  J.B. Reilly installed an invisible dog fence to keep his tenants in and safe, not so much different than a minimum security prison. 

I've added the Soft Machine logo and info to this blog's web version sidebar.  It's inspiring to know that people still invest their time and capital elsewhere in the city, without our tax subsidizes as in the  Hamilton Street NIZ.