Every now and then I will be walking down a street I’ve walked down a thousands times, or in the case of Manhattan Avenue, a million times, and something new will jump out at me. Like a random one-branch bank or an off track betting center. This is generally how I go about discovery and personal discovery for that matter – I just let things creep up and slap me in the face. So thats why I was surprised, but not that surprised, when I found The Furrier on Manhattan Ave. This picture doesn’t really showcase the potpourri of trinkets in The Furrier’s window, but I would like to point out that among the furs (there were two fur hats that looked like Afros on metal busts) were turquoise marvels and dream catchers.
Thinking to myself we are a long way from New Mexico to be seeing Southwest sensations, I went to investigate. Peering through the front window though, I stopped myself as a man, who I assume is the furrier himself, was inside the tiny business – not sculpting fur (or whatever maintaining/creating furs is called) but PAINTING AN ABSTRACTED LANDSCAPE! I didn’t want to interrupt as it looked like there was some major focusing going on, so I went on my way.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about The Furrier. So just now I did a quick web search and I found this article written about The Furrier about a year ago in the Times. Along with fur working, Irving Fellers is an artist and a liaison between several Native American tribes and the fur industry. In the war he was an artist for the army where he silk-screened public service posters about gnarly diseases like syphilis! Who even knew there were military positions for such things!?
Well I feel like I’ve written the word ‘fur’ probably a hundred times, so I am done now. But I just wanted to share some interesting probing about an interesting person.
If your fur needs fixing:
Manhattan Furrier
685 Manhattan Ave
718-383-2920
he also occasionally sits out front wearing a full native american headdress.