Last Chance

Catch it or Regret It

by Tami Fertig

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Created during trips to the Big Apple Circus, Pamela Deitrich's paintings channel the thrill of the big top with simple shapes and lines. Jumping dogs, fierce tigers and dancing horses are messy and colorful, while wavy squiggles represent graceful acrobats in the sky. Easy-to-read captions like "The Tightrope Walker, Miranda, Balances on the Tightrope" (pictured) and "The Small Dog, Gus, Barks at the Small Clown" describe the scenes in a nutshell, and will fit nicely in the artist's forthcoming children's book.

The bicycle has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a brakeless "velocipede" in the mid-19th century. This exhibit provides a fascinating history, illustrated by gorgeous vintage prints and posters of aristocrats posing with their rides. The most interesting tidbits concern not the contraptions themselves, but their effects on their owners — like the Victorian feminists who used cycling as an excuse to wear highly scandalous bloomers, since long skirts would get caught in the gears.

Resisting the move toward all things digital, Mary Ruth Moore photographs old glass bottles with a restored camera built in 1900. The effect is quite striking — the black-and-white images are so grainy, they look almost like charcoal drawings. Light plays off of the bottles' surfaces, drawing attention to faintly engraved words and pictures, providing hints at their onetime contents.