This past Halloween, my horoscope suggested I be a pollinating flower or a sexy midwife—in other words, something ripe with ideas or handy with the facilitation of ideas. Leah Libow, whose work “Hyster-” is currently showing at the Corridor Gallery (literally a corridor upstairs in the Tashiro-Kaplan building) is a self-proclaimed “creative midwife,” taking that idea to heart in her work life. “I do not deliver babies, but instead through engaging womyn in groups and one-on-one, I assist in the birth of their female intuition and memory,” reads her artist statement. But how does this approach affect her own quite engaging work? For “Hyster-,” it means Libow explores her feminine psyche through the (“erotic”) root of the words “hysterical” and “hysterectomy”—”womb”—making art that involves both needlecraft and blood. “I use the tension between the private world—where all womyn are connected with the erotic and sensual via their body’s cycles—and the public world, where women are tied to a history that is not theirs.” As a woman (I prefer the usual suffix), I find that fascinating. As an artgoer of any sex, you should too. Reception: 5-9 p.m. Thurs. Jan. 3. Show ends Feb. 2. .

Jan. 3-Feb. 2, 2008