I spent part of the last night at Prøve Collective. It was a packed room, as packed as any opening I have attended in a long time, and the walls were dense with a variety of art from a diversity of artists. The photography exploring Barbie iconography reopens cultural wounds that we still have yet to close. Some of the textile work repositions arts and crafts — in this case, pushing those boundaries a little further by leaving needles and thread available to gallery-goers to create.

My absolute favorite piece of the show, however, was “Cloud Gazing.” By working leaves and twigs into the very fabric of the painting, the artist flattened the plane. The result is disorienting, almost putting me, as viewer, into the position of the cloud-gazer, staring into the sky of the canvas. I loved it.

Last night, there was poetry and there was music and there was conversation. If you visit Prøve later in the month, you won’t get all that, but you will get great art.