Before even-keeled Michael Darling, before
take-charge Lisa Corrin, before academic Trevor Fairbrother, there was
Patterson Sims, the notoriously charming Seattle Art Museum
curator who could always get a collector on the phone and an artwork
in the museum’s vault. Now he’s directing the Montclair Museum of
Art in New Jersey, where he put together Anxious Objects: Willie
Cole’s Favorite Brands. The Newark artist’s mashups of African,
modern, and consumer stuff are visiting the Frye, and Sims is back
for a one-night stand. (Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Ave, 622-9250. 7
pm, free.)

Jen Graves (The Stranger’s former arts critic) mostly writes about things you approach with your eyeballs. But she’s also a history nerd interested in anything that needs more talking about, from male...