Remember being a kid? Susie J Lee does, in a shadowy, ghost-memory way, and wha she evokes in her spare yet bouyant installation "Shadow Playing," on view at The Art Gym, is worth slipping into for a little refresher course.

Childhood isn't just a bowl of cheeries, but what Lee evokes is a lightness of spirit, a curiousity, an eagerness, an openness that for most of us begins to fade and get crusted over. In a maze of interlocking spaces at the Marylhurst University gallery, Lee offers a seris of flickering video shadow-images: a girl skipping,; two girls playing pat-the-hand or cat's cradle; a rough home video of a girl, beaming broadly and showing off her braces, playing "red light green light" in the middle of a neighborhood street. All around all the spaces, a babble of happy childhood voices cradles the experience.

In one small room sits a little stand with pencils and pencil sharpeners; pencil scrawls mark all four walls. A girl's voice softly calls out instructions: "Write the words 'I'm here.' 'Draw with no hesistation. Draw with no fear.'" And because hers is not a power-tripping voice of command, but a voice of discovery and gentle suggestion, you happily does as she says.

This installation is about lost play and the possibility of regaining it. I walked out thinking that maybe the most important thing a kid can do is waste time. That's when the interesting stuff starts to happen.

The Art Gym, Marylhurst University. 17600 Pacific Highway (Oregon 43), a mile south of Lake Oswego; noon-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, free.

--Bob Hicks, Special to The Oregonian