Tucked away among the warehouses on Degraw Street is the arts and performance oasis, Littlefield. A quaint courtyard with a central plot of shrubs and trees guards the main door, blocking it from street-view.

So, to prevent patrons from bypassing the courtyard and mistakenly trying to enter the adjacent building, there is a sheet of white paper affixed to one of Littlefield's glass paneled walls, with "Enter here," scrawled in black ballpoint pen.

Looking into this glass house-esque structure, the art hanging on its black walls is crisply featured – that is, if unobstructed by crowds.

But, at last Sunday's packed opening of "Serious Whimsy: A Collection of Inevitable Objects," which runs through December 30, if you wanted to see the freshly mounted pieces, you had to get inside for a closer look. The pieces on display, both small and large, shun conceptualism. Rather than emphasize the processes of creation, this collection of art is solely focused on the objects themselves and their fanciful qualities.

So, what is it that makes these objects inevitable, as the exhibit's title implies? The artists' passions drive the pieces, curator Cat Weaver commented.

Take Gail Rothschild's "Philosopher's Stone," with its muscular textures, rock formations, and stone colorings.  If you guessed that Rothschild is a mountain climber, you would be correct. 

Then, Justin Gignac, whom the curator dubbed "an idea machine," exhibited two separate collections, both with a focus on debris (whether physical or abstract). His three Chat Roulette nudes are charcoal sketches based off his use of the video chat website of the same name, in which, quite literally users play "chat roulette" and are directed to other randomly selected users to chat will. These images, pulled from his screen, were "already there for the taking," Weaver commented.

The exhibit also features five of Gignac's garbage cubes. Within each of these acrylic boxes, the artist tactfully arranges handpicked garbage from the city's streets. Then, like the bow on a gift, he seals them with tape stamped with the date of collection, cube number, and his signature. The rack of garbage boxes coaxed laughter and generated some mildly confused responses, but, for the most part, it sparked conversation.

Then, Kit Warren's meticulously hand-detailed pieces, bathed in a rainbow of colors, serve a fine counter to Gignac's somewhat abrasive work. Her collection pairs the biological imagery of cells and viruses with decorative patterns. A close inspection of Column's shimmering gold center reveals ornate brushwork resembling henna. 

At the art show opening, patrons also admired the works of Lisanne McTernan, Sztuka Fabryka, Mark DiBattista, and Stephie Homa. Others lingered at the bar fashioned out of scrapped bowling alley lanes. Some attendees sipped microbrews from Mother's Milk, Allagash, and Blue Point, while others ordered creative cocktails.

And since Littlefield also doubles as a performance space, for the rest of the month you can peruse the art while catching musical acts or comedy shows. Whimsical, indeed.

"Serious Whimsy: A Collection of Inevitable Objects" runs through December 30 at Littlefield Performance + Art Space.