The name of Epstein’s show, “We Walk Wounded: Jewelry & Objects About Healing,” is a mouthful. An artist who’s worked at Seattle Children’s Hospital, she crafts many small pieces that resemble hearing aids, or the plaster casts of ear canals. Most are delicate brooches that you could presumably wear. Less aesthetically pleasing are the two nodding sentinels constituting The Guarded, but the audio installation is the most interesting thing in the gallery. On pedestals, two conical sensors–like mechanical ears–rise up and take notice when you approach past a line on the concrete floor. Are they activated by sound or motion? Visitors toe back and forth, trying to determine. It’s like a game, to sneak up to The Guarded without being detected. But sound and motion are, in sense, the same thing: the shockwaves of disturbed air moving through space and being felt by the hairs in our inner ear (or the equally delicate circuity of Epstein’s apparatus). You can’t say the piece actually hears us approaching, but it registers our presence. BRIAN MILLER

Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Starts: Aug. 5. Continues through Aug. 27, 2010