Susan Lenz Aims to Leave the Art World in Stitches. Really.

by Susan Levi Wallach  At 5 o’clock on an evening in December, Susan Lenz is in Mouse House going through framing options with a customer. Their conversation moves quickly through a range of topics, then segues into a discussion of a work on display, which the woman admires. Like many of the pieces for sale in the Park Street frame store and gallery, the piece – an elaborate multicolored textile that manages to resemble stained glass, a disintegrating... Read More

Off Pointe and Into the World – Costume Designer Alexis Doktor

by Susan Levi Wallach Twelve weeks after dancing the role of Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty, the Columbia City Ballet’s season finale – which also is twelve weeks into her retirement as a ballet dancer – Alexis Doktor is thinking that the only thing better than being a dancer is not being a dancer. “I never liked ballet class,” she says over midmorning coffee. “I never liked the rehearsal process or anything in the studio. I’m not going... Read More