Crows are flocking now. They gather in late afternoon in Mount Adams; they're seen in Clifton Heights and Price Hill. They also make themselves known in an unlikely place, the gallery/rare book store Carteaux & Leslie (921 Vine St., Downtown), where artist Allen Mann's exhibition, Tells, Interpretations of Crow, explores cross-culture mythology and science inspired by this sleek black creature who goes by several names: crow, rook, raven.

Perhaps in tribute to the bird's many guises, Mann uses any art form he can turn his hand to in portraying him -- sculpture, paper cutouts, mono prints, woodcuts. I found myself looking for a long time at the wood cut "Crossing." Opaque white ink over black makes an effect very like cutouts. The birds slice a diagonal across a chilly sky while trees guard on both right and left, as stationary as the birds are mobile. The birds appear mysterious and fleeting, outside our control but in our world in whatever manner that pleases them. Horizontal white lines of greater and lesser length do much of the job of defining trees and field and the black background, the bird's own color, holds everything together.

Because crows often figure in folklore and storytelling, the exhibition opening featured a reading, and the same will be true of the closing on Saturday at 3 p.m. Mann, who says he grew up with his grandmother's Appalachian storytelling, added the readings to complete his exhibition. Carteaux & Leslie is pleasantly housed in an old-fashioned, storefront with 19th- and 20th-century books in back and art out front. Leather armchairs suggest that some visitors stop in to sit and read, or look -- or converse. Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11-4 p.m. Saturday.