Highwire Gallery

Subtitled "8 Takes on the Fine Art of Photography," Highwire's March show brings together eight shooters with distinctly different ways of making an image. Participant Bill Mayes says "the diversity of aesthetic approach" was the objective to begin with. Mayes' own work for "Elegant Arguments," for instance, consists of crisp, closely cropped details of vintage car parts, a bald, wide-eyed doll and a spiral staircase rendered flat and abstract, while Anne Todd contributes documentary-like photos from a trip to Burkina Faso in West Africa. Brennan Lindeen, Harry Camarda, Alison Jamison, Steve Yarnall, Mitru Costea and Macy Andrews round out the show. "Half of us have a formal arts education, and all are experienced photographers who care passionately about our work," says Mayes. "We range in age from Macy, who just graduated high school, to Harry, who claims to have daguerrotypes he took during the Boer War."Opening reception Sun., March 5, 2-5 p.m., through March 31, The Gilbert Building, 1315 Cherry St., fourth floor, 215-829-1255.

Crafts for Living

Before there were skylines and synthetic paints to depict them with, there were natural pigments and nothing but plants and animals to represent. Eileen Tognini wanted to retreat to that time, even for just a little while, for "A Second Nature," an exhibit she's organized at Crafts for Living in the Sherman Mills complex in East Falls. Using only natural materials, the artists create wondrous objects. Lenny Wilson makes shoes out of leaves and seed pods, while Maria Markovich makes life-size figures out of birch bark. Others use nature for quiet inspiration: Nathan Purcell creates glass bird nests worked on a flame, and Kevin Cooper's large canvases place the viewers in a thick forest. Opening reception Thu., March 2, 6-8 p.m., through March 24, 3502 Scotts Lane, 215-991-7601, ext. 36.

Sol Mednick Gallery

Ben Rose attended the University of the Arts in the 1930s and taught one of the school's first photography courses (it was known then as the Pennsylvania Museum of Industrial Design). While he was successful in his advertising work and motion photography, along the way Rose also mastered the art of panoramic photography using the Cirkut, a large-format camera of the era that revolved on a tripod head, creating a 360-degree view of the scene. His "Cirkut Prints"—images of the Cyclone roller coaster, the inside of a vintage car and a Harlem River landscape—are getting their first retrospective at his alma mater. Reception Fri., March 3, 5-7 p.m., through March 10, Sol Mednick Gallery, Terra Building, 211 S. Broad St., 14th floor, 215-717-6000.

And Then There's …

Nexus Gallery lets their newest members run the show this month in a show called "Matched Pairs." Peter Alele, Elaine Erne, Rebecca Gilbert and Chris Macan invited Tasha Doremus, Warren Angle, Michael Beitz and Kyle Cassidy, respectively, to exhibit work along with their own. Opening reception Fri., March 3, 5-9 p.m., gallery talk March 15, 7 p.m., through March 26, 137 N. Second St., 215-629-1103. … Jesse J. Gardner shows his new paintings, a collection of neighborhood scenes called "My Kensington" at F.A.N. Gallery. Opening reception Fri., March 3, 5-9 p.m., through April 1, 221 Arch St., 215-922-5155. … There's still time to catch the worthy work of Centro Nueva Creacion's Goodlands Community Arts Program. For the last five years, the program has given cameras to 8- to 14-year-olds from the West Kensington and Fairhill neighborhoods (commonly and detrimentally called "The Badlands") to record their lives and their neighborhoods. This year, Penn's Kelly Writers House hosts the show, "North Philly in Focus: Photographs by the Youth of the Goodlands." Through March 31, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-426-3459. … As part of a continuing series of shows zooming in on the work in one medium in one country, The Clay Studio hosts "From the North: Canadian Ceramics." The work ranges from classically inspired (Richard Millette's Hydria with detail of Cupid and Psyche) to Pop-infused (Judy Chartrand's macaroni-box Urban Indian Fare) to the humorous (Victor Cicansky's vegetable rendezvous Safe Sex). Opening reception Fri., March 3, 5-9 p.m., lecture by Canadian ceramist Neil Forrest Thu., March 2, 6 p.m., through April 2, 139 N. Second St., 215-925-3453.