Artist in Residence: Thoughts on the Chelsea gallery scene

By SB in Manhattan

Summer is the perfect time of year to go gallery hopping. This past weekend some friends and I walked around the Chelsea section of Manhattan browsing the many galleries in the area. Most of the art exhibits we saw were interesting, but what I found even more interesting were the people that my friends and I came across during our gallery hopping expedition. One of the typical Chelsea galleries we walked into a – you know the type I am talking about; high ceilings, wooden beams, white-washed walls, beautifully polished floors, with attendants who only speak to you if you are interested in buying - had an exhibit of women's faces with curly, flowy hair. Each painting had a different color theme and a surreal notion to it, a la Salvador Dali spray painted with Jung's dream theories.

However, the paintings were not the main attraction at the gallery. Rather, it was a hip-looking, Chelsea metrosexual (popular term to denote the sophisticated, culturally aware heterosexual male who displays slight feminine characteristics), with his nails manicured, his hair slightly messy in the sexy-wannabe kind of way and the "right" type of jeans with the "right" type of beige top. In his hand he was holding a little, dark blue blanket. At first glance, one might have thought he was a grown-up Linus from the peanuts, but really he had the most adorable puppy wrapped up in it. Of course, the puppy would bob its head out at the most opportune time - when an attractive young woman was walking by - just long enough for her to exclaim: "Oh wow, what a cute puppy!" which would then lead to spontaneous conversation about the puppy and perhaps an exchange of phone numbers? Needless to say, it was the cliche single man with the "cute puppy" scheme.

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