When you're walking home of an evening, and you've just passed Babeland and are about to reach Honey Hole, and you look into an unfamiliar storefront and see two men sitting in high-backed chairs like puffy-coated gargoyles, and notice this art on the walls—

—well, you freaking go in.

And what you find, in addition to an introduction to the work of Curtis R. Barnes—back to that in a second—is two people on a bench in the middle of the space with a bunch of scraps of black leather. These people are Emenet Dessalegne and Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes (you know him both from this police beating and his art-direction on this video). The scraps of fabric are a deconstructed garment. Dessalegne and Alley-Barnes are turning them into handmade moccasins.

"This is a place for doing—we're not an art gallery," Alley-Barnes says. He also says something about cobbling, at which point I die from the charm of the whole place, which is run by a collective of about a dozen people including these two, and which is called pun(c)tuation.

Meanwhile, Alley-Barnes talks about the elder artist Barnes (who happens to be his dad), whose work is burning on the walls. Barnes, with his wife Royal Alley-Barnes, in 1972 made a mural at Medgar Evers Pool that has since been replaced. It was called Omowale; more on it here and here. (I couldn't find images but am curious.)

Barnes's work is no longer up, but a new show is opening tomorrow night, and judging from photos of the last opening, it's an event. Starts at 8:30 pm at 705A East Pike. (Regular hours are, sensically—hear that, Kyle Regan?—from 2 to 9 pm Monday through Friday.)

Miles Davis...reinterpreted...reintroduced...reborn!

(#1) THE MIX
Owuor Arunga on the trumpet.
DJ Topspin on the 1's and 2's.
Derick Standard on the walls.

Opening reception for the work of emerging artist Derick Standard. His pointillism-style portraits of Miles Davis are imbued with a true feeling of the musician's spirit and executed on canvas, recycled materials and a large-scale indoor installation.

The first in a series of live jazz performances to honor the man and the musician, Miles Davis. Bringing together the dulcet tones of Owuor Arunga on the trumpet with the mixing skills of "Blendiana Jones" (aka DJ Topspin).