Wake Up, It's a Chelsea Evening

We recently attending the opening of Cavin-Morris Gallery's new exhibition of handmade Japanese ceramic tea bowls and handmade basket/sculptures. The ceramic artists are from all over, but a number of them are American, including Robert Fornell (who also curated the exhibition), Tim Rowan and Jeff Shapiro (who both show at SOFA). They have internalized the Japanese sensibility and make breathtaking work.

The basket makers, we were delighted to learn, are almost all Women of a Certain Age, and all are Japanese. Many of them work in non-traditional materials, and in our game of if-you-could-choose-any-one-which-one-would-you-take-home, the difference between the chosen one and all the others was like the difference between the gold and silver medal winners in the Olympics - the merest sliver of a point. We're only showing these two pictures, but the Cavin-Morris Gallery has some great photos on its website. Click here for a gorgeous slide show of the tea bowls, and here for an equally gorgeous slide show of the baskets.

And whom should we run into but Jane (she of the heart-shaped glasses whom we've featured several times in the past and who also appears in Advanced Style)!

For us, living on the east side, going to Chelsea (on the west side) is like going to another borough. New Yorkers agree: uptown/downtown transportation is good; east side/west side transportation is bad. So when we left Cavin Morris, being in unfamiliar territory, for about two minutes we didn't know what to do with ourselves, and then we saw the High Line, a landscaped New York City park installed on the site of the old elevated westside highway. A new stretch had opened only days before. No brainer! Off we went.

To get to the HighLine, we took the elevator -- and took the opportunity to act out.

Here's Jean, channeling her inner "Tricky Dick".

Once you're up on the High Line, if you look west, you can see the Hudson River.

If you look east, you can see the shops and restaurants below, in this case, the Krizia store, featuring her portrait by Andy Warhol.

One of the popular new installations for the summer includes a section with about 1/2 inch of water flowing across a 10-foot expanse of the walkway, which prompts many visitors to take off their shoes and walk around in it.

Valerie cozies up to "Carson", one of artist Tomoaki Suzuki's wooden figurative sculptures which are scaled down representations of actual people. This particular sculpture is of a young man in a black leather jacket and tight pants.

We saw this billboard in the background, and thought we'd use it for a subliminal message:

Further south, we ran into Raimundo, shown here in his blue period. We loved him! His friend TJ, not shown, had the job of taking the picture. "And can you get the feet in?", we asked him, as we now ask everyone.

After stopping to take full advantage of the gorgeous sunset, we agreed that since we still had work to do, we'd start to make our way home.

Once we got back down to street level in the Meatpacking District, we passed by a group of impromptu salsa dancers who had taken over a handkerchief-sized traffic island turned pedestrian mall. Only in New York, Kiddies!















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The Cavin-Morris exhibition of contemporary ceramics and baskets ends on August 17.

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What we're wearing:

Valerie: pink straw hat by Susy Krakowski, spattered jacket by Alberto Makali, cowl neck tee shirt by Esprit, pink silk pants by Silk Land, pink sandals by Aerosoles.

Jean: Urban Outfitters turban; Helmut Lang t-shirt with slit sleeves; H&M tube skirt; Underground creepers; Hello Kitty bag; vintage bakelite rings and charm necklace.