Yep—it’s that time of year when Cupid is busily winging his way into the very heart of the Upper Delaware River region, and I’ve spent the past few days thinking about love and the variety of ways that it can be expressed. Love. You can’t buy it, can’t hurry it and from what I’m told, it makes the world go ‘round. One can, however, express love through music, art and all things creative, which was abundantly clear last week when I popped in to the museum in Hurleyville, NY (www.scnyhistory.org) to catch up with Sally Gladden, who has written a new book titled “Geepers, I Love You (And Other Writings).”

I sat down with Sally for a few minutes before her “Meet the Author” chat got underway. I couldn’t help but think of Doris Day’s 1954 #1 hit “Secret Love,” as Gladden explained that her book is a compilation of love letters written by her father to her mother, during a four-year-long secret marriage that was kept under wraps because of her mother’s position as a charge nurse during the Great Depression. I’m loath to give too much away, for I found the excerpts read by Gladden to be highly entertaining. I was not surprised to find her father’s words to be colorful and entertaining, considering Sally’s long history in the theatre.

“Each letter is a little story,” Gladden shared with the audience, and the word “Geepers” does appear in most. Following a note detailing the minutia of his day at the barber shop, her dad often signed off with “Geepers, I love you honey.” The letters are filled with charm, humor and illustrate the day-to-day life that played out during the early 1930s. In addition to publishing the love letters, discovered in an attic following her father’s death, Gladden took the opportunity to interview several local residents in order to gain greater insight into her parents’ generation and write about some of them, including one with Lenny Moskowitz, who was on hand to represent the interviewees and share some stories. “Geepers” is available at Barnes and Noble and at www.amazon.com. I hear there’s a copy waiting for me at the office, so I’m looking forward to hearing how the story ends.

Love. I hear that it will keep us together, but that raises the question: “Will you love me tomorrow?”  If the newest art exhibit in Narrowsburg, NY (www.artsalliancesite.org) is any indication, the answer is a resounding “yes!” “Visual Duets, Partners in Life & Art” is show curator Nancy Lew Lee’s vision of what artists who live and love together can achieve working side by side for many years. “I had questions for each of the artists represented here,” Lee told me at the opening reception. “What are the benefits of living with another artist? And what are the drawbacks? Through the decades we all have had to make a living, put food on the table, raise our families and learn how to deal with a certain amount of rivalry with one another. These couples have been together for a long time, weathered all this and more.”

Illustrating her point, Lee chose to highlight Allan Rubin’s painted metal-can portraits of painter Diego Rivera and his fiery-tempered artist-wife Frida Kahlo in the poster representing the show. Rubin, who has been working on his “Can O’ Masters” series depicting famous painters for “less than a year,” began with a small painted can in order to submit a piece for “Art in Sixes,” a popular annual DVAA “small works show.” “He doesn’t know it,” Rubin told me in an aside, “but [gallery director] Rocky Pinciotti inspired me to start painting on the metal cans, wanting to stay within the constraints of that  show.”

Rubin (and partner Candy Spilner) are but two of the artist/couples represented in the new exhibit, and while I found most of the artwork arresting in one form or another, I found Rubin’s latest series to be creative and downright cool. What’s love got to do with it? Everything, and I thought Lee’s inspired vision hanging in the hall of the gallery particularly interesting. By asking the couples to choose a favorite of their partners’ work and comment on it, and combining that with pieces chosen by herself representing the progression of the artists’ work, Lee has created a well thought-out and visually exciting show. IMHO. For more on “Visual duets” visit the website or call 845/252-7576.