Mesh Magazine

Balazo Gallery
2183 Mission St. @ 18th
Friday November 30 @ 6 pm

My friend Amy Woloszyn is a local bicyclist, political activist & artist who was the victim of a hit & run accident 2 months ago on Capp Street @ 23rd Street.

She suffered a fractured skull, lacerated liver, numerous cuts & bruises and almost died. Now she has to wear a neck brace for the next three months and use a cane to get around. Because she will be out of work for an undetermined amount of time, she & her friends are trying to raise money to pay her bills and rent while she heals.

This benefit will be an art & services auction— paintings, massages, bake sale, that sort of thing with music performances throughout the night. She also has some chef friends who are going to prepare delicious foods.  Come if you can!

Mill Valley is hosting the Love Makers Sustainable Craft Fair this Tuesday from 2PM-8PM. Handcrafted goodness from Molly of 8MM Ideas, Ashley Rose Helvey, Green Dog Designs and Christina from Borrowed, Bought, Stolen make this more than worth the trip across the Golden Gate. In addition, there will be two screen printers on hand from Remade in America, so bring down your own t-shirt and let them do their magic. It all goes down during the Mill Valley Art Walk at 1 El Paseo.

More crafty from these fine folks will also be available:
http://comfies.blogspot.com/
http://www.reginepfanz.com/
http://www.andreasuess.com/
http://www.alittlehouseintheclouds.blogspot.com/
http://www.fielddaywearables.com/ ( Trinity Cross)
www.enzogarcia.com

At a Burger King in Chico, CA–maybe at all Burger Kings, I don’t really know–they had these prints by Greg Brown which featured personified fruits and vegetables in various situations, such as the two rescues seen below. I’m sure these are right up there with “Dogs Playing Poker” for those of you with taste, I thought they were pretty cool. And while I don’t think that Maria Forde drew on these for inspiration, she has created a series of Fetching Veggie Etchings, which can be seen at Little Tree Gallery (3412 - 22nd Street @ Guerrero) beginning this Saturday, December 1st. In the multimedia pieces she “gives life to a variety of under-appreciated vegetables, from kale to squash, green beans to corn.”

The show continues through December 22nd.

Creativity Explored kicks off its annual holiday art sale next week, from Friday, December 7th to Sunday, December 9th (and the sale continues through December 28th). They are selling thousands of pieces of art created by the men and women who work in the studio. Creativity Explored is a great organization gives people with developmental disabilities a venue to create, display and sell their art.

This year, you can get temporary tattoos by one of my favorite artists, John Patrick Mckenzie, and James Montgomery. Also, Imaginationally, the second book by Michael Bernard Loggins will be on sale. The book is a dictionary of made-up words, from ‘hectical’ (very busy at work for 48 hours) to ‘troublemakerhood’ (a neighborhood where troublemakers hang out).

Creativity Explored is located at 3245-16th Street @ Guerrero Street. 415.863.2108

I was introduced to Casey Jex Smith at the Marin Headlands Fall Open House in October and really liked his use of color and geometric shapes. Now he is just one of the artists featured in “The There There,” an exhibition of East Bay artists at the Esteban Sabar Gallery in Oakland. Other artists include Derek Weisberg, Josh Keyes and Crystal Morey and proceeds from the show will help pay medical bills of local writer & curator Theo Konrad Auer.

A new show @ Candystore by Diana Fayt, complete with handmade babushkas. Folklore is a series of kerchiefed women painted on cardboard envelopes mailed to the artist from all over the world… along with a collection of ceramics. Check out Fayt’s Etsy shop and blog, one black bird, to see more of her work. Now earlier this month, Apartment Therapy took a virtual tour of the artist’s home and it really blew me away… I love her color choices and the way her art is incorporated into her home (see photo below).

For the Duration opens this Friday at The Spare Room Project (270 Anderson Street, San Francisco), the living room of Erin McElroy & Lauren Anderson. The show, curated by Jason Kalogiros, explores visual conceptions of time, hoping to provide answers to the question, what would time look like? The show features art from Guy Overfelt (among others), who’s art has been wide ranging, though often focused on aspects of hot-rodding. Hopefully The Spare Room Project doesn’t blow up on Myspace.

Attorney, former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, mayoral candidate, and Mesh columnist, Matt Gonzalez, also happens to be an artist, making collages at an impressive pace since he left politics a couple years back. His first solo show opens this Thursday at Adobe Books (3166 - 16th Street) with music by Lafitte in Exile.

I grew up in the DC-area where museums are free-free-free, so paying admission always bums me out a little. And that’s why I’m so excited for tomorrow’s Yerba Beuna Arts & Culture Free-4-All. 12 museums will open their doors from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with free exhibitions and activities. Fun for the whole family. I’m going to be hit up the Jeff Wall exhibit at SFMOMA for sure.

Tonight at the corner of Haight & Ashbury you can join in the grand opening of the RVCA Retail’s first flagship store (stores in LA, NYC, Tokyo, and Sydney are in the works). Art, music, fashion and pop culture.

The first exhibition is entitled Family Tree. The show will include work by R.Pimple, Phil Frost, Pushead and Craig Stecyk and runs through December 31.