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Announcement : For those of you who can't get enough of me (don't all raise your hands at once), I'll be part of a panel discussion called "Survival Strategies for Struggling Artists" this Wednesday, October 19, from 3 - 5 pm, at The Foundation Center , 312 Sutter Street. My topic-- "Selling Art Online"-- about 15 minutes.

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Rena Bransten Gallery : Hung Liu - Polly.

Comment: Paintings of Chinese Gold Rush pioneer settler, Polly Bemis , the compositions transcribed from vintage photographs of Bemis, colorized then layered with symbols taken from different periods of Chinese art. Liu then delicately drips areas of paint to suggest the passage of time. You can appreciate her art on a variety of levels including painterliness, composition, coloring what started as black and white, cultural commentary, historical essay, contemporary reflection on the past, accessibility, and as a story that Liu believes should be told. She leaves nothing out and, in fact, gives more than you would expect. Artists often wonder what makes good art good-- covering all the bases and then covering them again, complete completeness-- that helps.

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Catharine Clark Gallery : Queen - New Paintings by Timothy Cummings; Flower Show - Aaron Cobbett, Nick Debs, Aaron Plant.

Comment: Several of these Timothy Cummings paintings are downright creepy and guaranteed to make your skin crawl, so I guess this is a good time of year to show them. The creepiest is "Night Charmer" ($6800), a witchy three-quarter portrait of a young mildly androgynous antlered dude tendering his torso. By the way, if you can make someone's skin crawl merely by applying paint to a flat blank surface-- no matter what time of year it is-- you're good. Speaking of creepy, Aaron Cobbett, Nick Debs, and Aaron Plant explore the queasy side of creepy with some tricky C-print flower arrangements, deviantly seeded with dealie-bobs like an old phone, a Shriner's fez, a pair of scissors, and animal viscera. Dinner is served. Priced low to mid-thousands.

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Jack Hanley Gallery : Simon Evans - In the Country of Uncles; Ed Loftus - Everything I Know About Sharks.

Comment: The Simon Evans works on paper combine to form a sequential cerebral travelogue, running one end of the gallery to the other. It's very tasty stuff, these cryptic unanticipated metaconscious interlacings, but wait. Between 2002, a SECA Award, and now, Evans' prices have gone from pocket change to a $6K top-out on the smaller format works here. Using these $$ as a cost-basis, one could justifiably ratchet a major Evans cut-and-tape mind boggler to fifty grand, and that kind of wad buys muy mucho options in artland. Defending a big buck high bar only three years out from a first solo ain't easy. Up fast could generate downdraft. As an appraiser, wax me speculative.

You want value? Go next door and snag an Ed Loftus pencil drawing, or if you prefer the euphemistic upgrade, graphite drawing. He tells me the one I'm marveling at took six weeks, eight hours a day. I nod. The quality is so hyperfine, especially from microscope level where I luv to get cruel, they just flat out flatten me. In other words, graphite gaucho Ed Loftus nets himself the rare and highly coveted "How Do Dey Do Dat?" Award for his stunningly stickling leadmanship.

Another Jack Hanley push, and that's what makes him a player.

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Blue Room Gallery : Bay Area Furniture Art 2005.

Artists: Sean Ahlquist, John Baer, Jerry Egan, Rosie Hanna, Chris Hardman, Barbara Holmes, Jason Joe, Todd Laby, Don McPherson, Monica Martinez, Nikolai Moderbacher, Alexis Moran, Yvonne Mouser, Gwenedd Murray, Christine Pyers, Christophe Rat, Alexander Ryan, Vincent Sol, Rob Stiles, Andrew Thompson.

Comment: Always a packed fun show, this one more fun and more gooder than ever. The artists exhibit all kinds of furniture, functional and non, serious and humorous. Pieces include chairs, tables, stools, lighting, furniture sculpture, carved wood wall reliefs, prototypes, ones-of-a-kind, a saddle swing, and a curvey strung up daybed mini on a pedestal.

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Future Primitive Sound : 16 - Sweetsixteen - Graffitiworks from 1989-2005 by Mike Giant .

Comment: Albuquerque native Mike Giant has lived in San Francisco for the past ten years and arted himself up a fact sheet that includes skateboard design, tattoo art, outdoor oeuvres, zine work, graphic design, fine art, and more. The selection here includes original drawings, prints, and photographs. This show is a sixteen-year survey of Giant's work, and yes, wall writers' retrospectives start early.

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White Walls Gallery : 4/4.

Artists: Eric Bailey, Joseph Whitely, Joel Dugan, Laura Brink.

Comment: Copious selection by this foursome includes new improved tattooed urbanized cultural archtypes by Laura Brink, dark bandit barking art seasoned with cheesecake by Eric Bailey, an antiqued essay on coastside lifestylers & sailor mettle including paintings and sculptural works by Joel Dugan, and sparse arcane designy amalgams set against plain backdrops by Joseph Whitely.

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The Shooting Gallery : New Works by Sas & Colin Christian.

Comment: Bawdy bondy kinky Keaney steamy spicey slinky naughty art by this talented husband wife two-pak. Colin Christian's wanton wall reliefs are so confrontational that if you dare dust 'em, they'll probably dust you right back. Sas Christian's soft sinister sensual big-eye femmes are all sold. Too bad. Maybe she'll paint more next time.

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