Inimitable art doyenne and LA gallery owner Molly Barnes blew into town again and invited art insiders to two salons this Thursday and Friday, August 11 and 12, at noon at her usual locale, the cosier penthouse meeting room at artist Jimmy Rowles' Roger Smith Hotel on Lex at 47 Street, with the original interlocking plaster lacery by Buckminster Fuller, who stayed in the rooms once.

First up Thursday noon was Anne Leith, (610 293 7595/802 683 9362 http://www.allartstudio.com anne@allartstudio.com) who since 2002 under the name AllArtStudio has exploited digital advances by making brief videos of prominent artists talking of their life work.

Her six today were of Jules Olitski (clouds of color by a man who says 'thrilled' doesn't fully describe how he feels just applying paint to canvas), Glenn Ligon (thick graphite paste word paintings everywhere in his studio; with a recent Whitney retrospective, he sold one of his works on the Afro American experience to Obama in the White House) , Mary Lucier (should be better known as one of the seminal video artists of the seventies, a "very sensitive storyteller"), John Wesley (he likes his cartoon style works featuring Dagwood more than Blondie, because "Dagwood is a fool", which is always most interesting), Gregory Crewdson (huge cinematographic set pieces in photos which cost up to $60,000 to stage with all their floodlights and props, including some dramatic nudes in interior settings) and curator Lowery Stokes Sims, (head curator at the Museum of Art and Design, telling of trying to combat the unjust inattention of the art academies towards African American artists).

Anne said she loved doing her video interviews as her own form of creativity which she edited from sometimes as long as an hour or more using Final Cut Pro, the software which has unhappily suddenly been issued in an update which is incompatible with past versions. Had any interviews failed to yield interesting material? Good editing could always work its magic given an hour or more of material, she said. "It is putting together a puzzle and finding where everything fits."

Key members of the audience apart from painter Sherman Drexler who will speak tomorrow included young filmmaker (using a Canon D7) Jason Letkiewicz (810-841-7137 jason@downtownloftstudio.com) with his dazzling and kindhearted fiance Laura Roginski (lrogin84@gmailcom) (they share a Polish heritage and will be wed in May at the gorgeous Ca-d'zran Museum mansion on Sarasota Bay), visiting with their President and CEO at downtownloftstudio, lovely Mia Lancaster (lancastermia@verizon.net PL1 2093); ex physics teacher Bruce W. Presley (561 704 5312 bpresley@pil.net)-- Ex Playboy bunny the sensitive and beautiful Kathryn Leigh Scott President of Pomegranate Press (310271 3636 310 526 3636 kaqthrynleighscott@gmail.com http://www.pompress.com 44 East 52-1C NY 10022 212 223 5190) who will read her supernatural vampire thriller Dark Passage at Barnes and Noble at 150 East 86th St at Lexington on August 17, Wednesday; Photographer redhead bombshell Leah Perry (leah@leahperryphotography.com 404 993 8186 from Atlanta who is currently staying with widely admired photographer Norine Perreault (212 371 6546 cell 917 524 1293 http://www.norineperrault.com) whose courture model pics are famous for their warm womanly femininity;Painter Ed Adler of NYU (edadler@att.net http://www.edadler.com 64 Fulton Street NY10038), noted for his recent series "Cowboys and Indians" some of which are on show currently in an unusually suitable venue, Space Cowboy at 234 Mulberry St between Prince and Spring (646 559 4779 1-7pm daily)