What are you lookin’ at?

It was bound to happen. The weather finally caught up with me. Between running around like a lunatic, coming into contact with scores of people from all walks of life and breathing in the fresh mountain air, I caught a cold.

Great timing, then, to experience artwork that is intended to challenge the observer. Bleary-eyed and woozy, I zipped over to the Catskill Arts Society ( catskillartsociety.org ) to check out their newest exhibit, “Shifting Perspectives,” and chat with the artists themselves. As usual, Kathryn Tufano and company are stimulating the art community by presenting an interesting forum for the general public to experience something new.

On one hand, the work of Christine Gedeon is completely different from anything I have seen before. She creates her work “based on an interpretation of aerial view landscape drawings using a sewing machine, fabric and paint on raw canvas,” with results that are large in scope and conceptually unique. The artist said she “uses a sewing machine as a mechanical tool, creating precise linearity that only a computer can compete with.”

On the other side of the gallery, artist Joel Edwards is showcasing his abstract paintings, also based on linear perspective, but created using a “painting process that is consciously limited to using forms that are hard edged, that weave their way throughout the painting and pictorial space.”

Interesting, but to my (bleary) eye, not quite as fascinating as the process that drives Ms. Gedeon, who appears to be exploring a medium that is possibly fresher and more experimental than Edwards’ work. The show runs through March 14 at the CAS Gallery, located at 48 Main Street in Livingston Manor, NY.

Just down the street, I was intrigued to find that Claire Coleman ( armeffects.net) has opened a new store, The Plunk Shop, located at 41-B Main Street. Her press release, promising a grand opening replete with “3-D Wonders” and a display of lenticular photography images, did not disappoint.

As a child, I was fascinated with lenticular images. I was excited to see whether this process, described as “prints that move,” had evolved since acquiring my “galloping horses” that I have had since grade school.

Photographer/artist Marc Friedlander ( marcsfriedlander.com ) was on hand to discuss the process and mingle as we perused the colorful, whimsical shop and gazed (yes, with wonder) at the optical illusions created by the various images that literally have to be seen to be believed.

According to the website shortcourses.com , “A lenticular image has two components; a printed image and a lenticular lens screen through which the image is viewed. As one changes the angle of view, it creates animations much like an old fashioned flip book.” The screen, a sheet of plastic on which a series of cylindrical lenses are molded in parallel rib-like rows, magnifies the image and creates the illusion of depth and movement.

Striking and alluring, this art form is (in my humble opinion) captivating. While the process has been around for years, Friedlander has elevated it to fantastic new heights (and depths) and I was transfixed as I looked (and looked again) from the various angles.

Many examples of lenticular images are on display at The Plunk Shop alongside a different art form I had not experienced before. Known as “Fly’s Eye” imagery, these pieces have “wow factor” written all over them. Friedlander explained that they are captured by shooting the subject through 2,465 different lenses simultaneously, each with different apertures.

Also using a plastic coating over the image, the “honeycomb” of multiple light-refracting angles provides the viewer with a startling, 3-D effect that is lit from behind and dazzling. Not quite a hologram and more sophisticated than lenticular, these “photographs” take on a life of their own and I would encourage everyone to make the trip and “see for themselves.”

- Jonathan Fox