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A great new art gallery in the South Loop--run by realtor Colleen Harper--opened this weekend at 1915 S. Michigan. I visited Saturday night and I was very impressed. Harper is showcasing a nice array of artists and photographers that makes for a nice display. Very satisfying. And so were the nuts and wine and grapes she was serving, too.

The space is her former Cacciatore-Harper real estate office--a spiffy light-filled space of wood floors, white walls and molding that has adapted nicely to visual art. Harper is now with @Properties on Fulton.

Harper’s son Dakota Blue, a 19-year-old studying photography at Columbia College has a wonderful series of ominous black and white photographs on display at the new Harper Gallery that were taken in Bronzeville of the landscape. They proclaim empty lots as a backdrop to new houses and old buildings.

Conversation was great at the Saturday night opening at the new gallery, too. Much of it dwelt on old house restoration. Harper is the owner of a row house in the Prairie Avenue District that was built in 1868. She is working on it and I suspect when she is done it will be a showplace--and I hope she agrees to show it on the Prairie Avenue housewalk that is an annual fundraiser for Glessner House. Several of us debated what the original layout of the rooms in her house may have been like back in the mid 1800s.

One of Harper's long time friends--and real estate associates--talked about an old house she restored in Ravenswood--and the time she found an old report card from the turn of the century behind a wall--and how she was able to track down descendants of people who had lived in the house, netting stories and photographs of the original residents--items she left to the new owners of the house when she sold it.

Two Canadian dentists happened by the gallery on their way back to the Hilton from a dental convention at McCormick Place--and they provided a bit of fun when they decided to venture in--full of spirit for our fair city and the new gallery.

They wanted to know where there was a good Thai Restaurant; I recommended several in the area and they decided to go to Opart Thai on South State Street. But before they went, we talked about the Olympics (natch!) and while I remembered to ask about skater Joannie Rochette, I forgot to ask them about skaters Virtue and Moir.

They couldn’t believe it when they asked me if I knew why Chicago was important to the history of dentistry--and I knew the answer: Dr. Black. They were really taken with the fact that I also knew of a statue of Greene Vardiman Black in Lincoln Park, a statue whose lap I sat on a million times when I was a child when I went to school at Astor and Burton. One of the dentists wrote down directions--Brown Line to Sedgwick, walk east to Astor and cross the street to the park side. They were definitely planning to go see Dr. Black.

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