A couple years ago, I wandered into a small gallery in SoHo and saw a piece of art that I liked and surprisingly could afford, so I bought it. Since then, whenever I’m in the neighborhood, I stop by the Ward-Nasse gallery in hopes of another find. It turns out that the gallery is a non-profit artist-administered gallery, so artists donate their time and work to the gallery to keep it running. I think this is a worthy goal so I try to support them in their efforts.

This afternoon, I stopped by and they were having another sale of their artists’ work. I saw this photograph by Jack Shurtliff that I really liked, so I bought it. As usual, apologies for the terrible photography on my part – it looks much better in person. It’s a black-and-white photograph, and I initially thought it was an X-ray of a human ribcage. Looking closer revealed that it was actually a plant backlit in some way. The ambiguity appealed to me – the initial impression that I was looking at one thing which then resolves to another seems very apropos to this blog. Shurtliff is apparently a member artist of Ward-Nasse so I look forward to seeing more of his work in the future.

The artists’ sale continues throughout the month of April, so I recommend stopping by if you’re looking for affordable art in New York.

While I was down in Soho, I stopped by the Housing Works Used Book Cafe, which I’ve mentioned before. It was extraordinarily crowded, which I ascribed to it being a Saturday afternoon. But when I checked out (I saw the novel Con Ed, recommended by Seth Godin), it turned out that the first weekend of each month, everything is marked a further 30% off. Such a deal. I’ll have to remember that for the future (and am putting it up here so that others know as well).