THIS CAUGHT MY EYE ...

So. It’s winter. A time of howling winds and falling snow (and let’s face it, ice, sleet and freezing rain, because we ARE in New England). Yay?

If you’re a winter-weather sissy like me, it’s a perfect time to head indoors to check out the countless, great art exhibits on view in museums and galleries across the Valley. This one at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art caught my eye: “Brown Bear Turns 50,” the kick-off event of the museum’s yearlong celebration of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” It’s the book that launched Eric Carle’s career (Bill Martin Jr. was the author; Carle the illustrator). Artwork from every page of the best-selling children’s book is on display, as well as a medley of Carle’s collages from the three additional “bear books” he illustrated for Martin. Through March 19, 2017.

125 West Bay Road, Amherst; www.carlemuseum.org

AND THIS ...

Practically next door to the Carle is the Yiddish Book Center, which is hosting “Balka’s Lower East Side,” a visiting exhibit that captures the world of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants who settled in that New York City neighborhood in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The multi-artist exhibit includes etchings, lithographs, wood engravings and other works that depict a vibrant world of pushcarts and open-air markets, tenement buildings and sweatshops, and Yiddish theaters and street stickball games. Through March 13, 2017.

1021 West St., Amherst; yiddishbookcenter.org

AND THIS ...

On the other side of the river, The R. Michelson Galleries presents “Jeff Kern: Table of Content,” a series of still-life paintings involving a limited group of objects interacting with various arrangements of vintage children’s books.

“I consider the process of painting to be my meditation, through which the realization of the material substance in paint is both my goal and my reward,” Kern writes in an artist’s statement. Hurry to this one. It closes Dec. 31.

132 Main St., Northampton; www.RMichelson.com

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