The recent Honfest served as a reminder that Hampden's eclectic shops, restaurants and art galleries have a lot of local charm and collective pull. It's one reason why the Fleckenstein Gallery & Archival Framing left its Towson location after seven years and has relocated to Hampden.

Gallery owner Terrie Fleckenstein even put a few plastic pink flamingos and a pink-wigged mannequin in her front window in honor of that Hon-celebrating event. Although her relocated gallery is on Keswick Road and not on store-lined W. 36th Street, she likes to see how the creative energy is filling the entire neighborhood.

"I knew that Hampden is art-friendly, and we really needed the space," Fleckenstein says of a move that took her gallery and frame shop from an 1,100-square-foot store in downtown Towson to a 3,000-square-foot commercial building in a section of Hampden that has a mix of houses and businesses.

The actual move happened late last year, and she used recent months to get the frame shop up and running. Honfest was the occasion for her to open the first art exhibit in the new space. It's a summer group show including a number of names that will be familiar to those who follow the local art scene.

"There's an organic feel to these artists," Fleckenstein says of artists who, in most cases, also were shown at her former Towson location. "There's a sense of fun. I want people to know it's not a serious gallery where you're afraid to step in the door."

Even the most playful art requires serious artistic skill, of course, and that talent can be seen throughout an exhibit that varies considerably in subject matter and style.

Giving this group show a bit of focus is that it has a section devoted to two painters: Joan Erbe, an artist whose whimsical portraits have won her a loyal following over the decades, and her student, M.K. Dilli, who has a different approach to portraiture.

Erbe's portraits feature harlequin-evocative figures whose brightly patterned outfits wouldn't be out of place in a circus. Most striking are the figures' pale white round faces. Their wide eyes, reddened cheeks and full red lips reinforce the overall playful quality.

The subjects aren't all children, but there's a childlike aura in this work. Smiling suns and other symbolic props are in close proximity to the subjects, who seem perfectly comfortable under the circumstances.

Dilli's more tightly cropped portraits rely on a more realistic approach and more subdued colors. Her pensive subjects typically have thinner faces and more worry lines to emphasize a sense of inwardness. She relies on more visible brush strokes than Erbe, making for a pictorial surface that's quietly expressive.

As in any good student-teacher relationship, one of the lessons evidently learned here is that the student needs to go her own way and not mimic the master.

The many other artists in this group show include Jack Livingston, Julia Niederman, Dan Keplinger, Stuart Stein, Nancy Scheinman, Deborah Donelson, Sonia Denise Tassin and Robert Creamer.

The summer group show runs through late August at Fleckenstein Gallery & Archival Framing, at 3316 Keswick Road, in Hampden. Call 410-366-3669 or go to www.fleckensteingallery.com.

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