The Artful Home: Art in a Box

North Oakland's Compound Gallery has devised a novel way to get affordable pieces from emerging local artists into the hands of collectors on a budget: a monthly subscription service called Art in a Box.

Here's how it works: Subscribe for the pick-up-only or nationwide-delivery packages, and every month you'll receive an 11-by-17-inch box containing a painting, print, photo, mixed media work, drawing, collage, ceramic piece, or sculpture from one of 11 Bay Area artists.

The art and the artist will be a surprise, but you can let the gallery directors know your preferences ahead of time and they'll do their best to send you something they think you'll like.

Participating artists include Ben Belknap, Jake Gillespie, Alissa Goss, Kerri Lee Johnson, Obi Kaufmann, Crystal Morey, Lena Verderano Reynoso, Matt Reynoso, Audrey Roy, Eric Sanchez, Tallulah Terryll, Adrian Van Allen, and YaChin Bonny You.

The service costs $30 or $50 a month, with a three-month minimum. Find out more about Art in a Box right here.

The Artful Home: Mel Kadel

I was researching a freelance piece on San Francisco art galleries recently when I came across the work of Mel Kadel, who's showing at Hayes Valley's Fecal Face Dot Gallery in September. It was a jaw-on-floor moment.

The Los Angeles-based artist creates pen-and-ink illustrations that are surreal, darkly humorous, and utterly hypnotizing. I could get lost for hours in those delicate and intricate patterns, and in following the adventures of her imaginary heroine.

Kadel's originals run several hundred to several thousand dollars (a number of pieces are available through Santa Monica's Richard Heller Gallery), and notable collectors include artist Shepard Fairey, musicians Sheryl Crow and Mick Fleetwood, and actors Harrison Ford and Jason Lee.

But luckily for those of us on a slightly tighter budget, Kadel also has a limited-edition "Power Like a Flower" serigraph (above) available for just $20 through Oakland's Rowan Morrison.

If you're in the New York area, check out Kadel's current show, Sun Days, at Manhattan's Nancy Margolis Gallery through the end of the month. And Bay Areans, make a note of that Fecal Face exhibit in September.

In the meantime, you can see more of Kadel's work right here.

Mark Your Calendar: Auctions and Openings

Another fun weekend in store for Bay Area art lovers:

* On Saturday, March 21, from 4 to 7 p.m., Oakland's Johansson Projects hosts an opening reception for Kate Eric and Marina Vendrell Renaut's joint show, Flaming Furbelows. The exhibit "explores uneasy encounters between attraction and repulsion, tenderness and terror. From inside fleshy mounds of fur and yarn, Renaut's plush and bulbous monstrosities offer up wooly orifices and suggestive pleasures. Eric's 'Bug Wars' invoke similar unsettling dioramas of violence and seduction, as otherworldly insects wage battles across landscapes of post-apocalyptic glee and Dr. Seussian wonderment. Taken together, these artists present visions of a phantasmic post-natural world, where desire warps into perverse narratives and cross-contaminated forms." Johansson Projects is located at 2300 Telegraph Ave. at 23rd St. in Uptown Oakland.

* Over in San Francisco, the exhibition party for Hilary Williams's A City With Colored Dreams runs from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday night at the Frankee Uno. If you haven't seen Williams's incredible, surreal silkscreen prints of the City, you must rectify that immediately. Music, snacks, and libations will be provided. Frankee Uno is located at 1221 Divisadero St. at Eddy.

* Also on Saturday night, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., San Francisco experimental-arts organization the Lab hosts its 25th annual Silent and Live Auction. More than 200 local, national, and internationally renowned artists have donated work to the event, and most of the original pieces have a starting bid of just $25. Participants include Mike Arcega, Leo Bersamina, Michelle Blade, John Casey, Ajit Chauhan, Joshua Churchill, Gail Dawson, Victor De La Rosa, Tara Lisa Foley, Matt Furie, Bryson Gill, Taro Hattori, Cynthia Ona Innis, Xylor Jane, Jeff Kao, Tom Marioni, Karla Milosevich, Paul Mullins, Trevor Paglen, Hillary Pecis, Genevieve Quick, Ed Ruscha, Casey Jex Smith, Kirk Stoller, Stephanie Syjuco, Heather Wilcoxon, and many more. There's a sliding-scale, $10 to $25 admission fee, which includes snacks and drinks. The sale continues Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m., when admission is free. The Lab is located at 2948 16th St. at Capp in the Mission District. More info here.

* Finally, although Alex Lukas's new solo show, And Another Shall Rise to Take Her Place, actually opened at SF's White Walls Gallery last weekend, it looks amazing, so I had to include it for those of you who may not have checked it out yet. The show will be up through April 3 at White Walls, 835 Larkin St. at Myrtle in San Francisco's "Tendernob" area.

Etsy Find of the Day: Sara Christian

I first saw Sara Christian's art at a "holiday market" event at North Oakland's Compound Gallery a few months ago, and instantly fell in love with her vibrant yet dreamy paintings. In fact, there was one piece from that show that gnawed at me for weeks afterward, and I deeply regretted not bringing it home with me.

So imagine my delight at discovering that Christian has just opened an Etsy shop featuring her original paintings and prints, plus some unique, handmade fabric pins. Above: Parade Series No. 1, $75

Parade Series No. 4

Big Hair Silkscreened Pin, $16

Check out all of Christian's Etsy offerings right here -- and see more of her work here.

The Artful Home: Annie Galvin Small Originals

Who says you needs lots of cash to afford original art? These sweet 4-by-6-inch original paintings by San Francisco artist Annie Galvin will set you back just $15 each. So what are you waiting for? Above: #13

#6

#20

#17

#16

See these and the rest of Galvin's affordable mini artworks in the 3 Fish Studios' Small Originals Shop.

P.S. If you're in the Bay Area, mark your calendar for the spring shindig at Annie and husband Eric Rewitzer's San Francisco studio from 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, March 20. The event is co-hosted by Victoria Smith, aka sfgirlbybay, and will feature wines from La Crema and new art and silkscreened posters for sale.

Mark Your Calendar: Collapsitalism: The Holiday Recession Sale at Johansson Projects

Tomorrow, November 15, from 5 to 8 p.m. Oakland art gallery Johannson Projects hosts an opening reception for Collapsitalism: The Holiday Recession Sale.

The exhibition "is an attempt to [visually] connect art prices to stock-market fluctuations beyond ... charts and indexes" -- not to mention giving strapped art collectors a break and helping to support working artists who are feeling the economic pinch. Nearly a dozen emerging and established Northern California artists, including Zach Houston, Marci Erspamer, Nathan Cordero, Hunter Longe, Eric Larson, Susie Grant, Carson Murdach, Joan Moment, Andrew Benson, and Alex Case will have new, original pieces available for less than $500 each.

Collapsitalism will be up in the Johannson Projects Project Space through January 2.

The Artful Home: Sarajo Frieden

I am absolutely sick with lust for these new pieces by Oakland native (and current Los Angeles resident) Sarajo Frieden, which are part of her Let's Get Lost show at San Francisco's Rare Device. Above: Untitled (Winter Landscape) gouache and collage, $900

Frieden is inspired by "the floating world of Ukiyo-e, Persian miniatures, Paul Klee's puppets, the films of Fellini and Tati, the world of dance -- even Disneyland ... A host of disparate vocabularies from the worlds of fine, folk, and decorative art, including Shaker trance drawings, Japanese woodblock prints, and her Hungarian great aunt's embroidery influence her work and can be found wandering through her images. Using open-ended narratives, folk tales, and the juxtaposition of discordant images, she attempts to give form to the human experience in all its bewildering complexity."

Untitled (Landscape 1) gouache and collage, $900

Untitled (Sea Cloud) gouache, acrylic, and collage, $1,200

Not Drowning, Waving 2 cut paper and gouache, $375

Landscape 1 With Green Mountains gouache and collage, $800

Pocket Park gouache and embroidery, $450

Luckily for those of us on a more limited budget, Frieden has several prints available through Thumbtack Press. A few of my faves:

Droplets 2, $35

Funny Houses, $30

This Flooded World, $35

If you're in the Bay Area, you can see Frieden's show in the Rare Device gallery through November 2. Everyone else, check out more of her work right here.

The Artful Home: Kelie Bowman

I absolutely adore these pieces by Kelie Bowman. They're funny, for one thing; I love the mix of literal interpretations of everyday phrases and the outrageous, surreal images created as a result (see Temporary Home, above). But they also make you stop and think -- about domesticity, relationships, family, community.

Bowman, a transplanted Floridan living and working in Brooklyn, has a collection of originals and prints available through Williamsburg's Cinders Gallery, which she co-founded with her partner, Sto. Her paintings "address the struggle to keep stability in one's life by way of the community. The idea of home is on Bowman's mind, as are the fragile moments of our existence. Subtle humor and violence creep into her soft and warm palate, giving a razor sharp edge to the work's gentle nature."

Take a look:

Self Storage

Made of Stone

Scarecrow Haven

Curb Your Dog

Escape

Nesting

Merger

If Worse Comes to Worst

Bowman's watercolor and gouache originals start at about $150 and go way up from there. But her super-limited-edition screenprints can be had for as little as $30, and she also has a selection of equally limited-edition handmade books and 'zines starting at just $5 in the Cinders Shop:

We'll Keep Watch, $60

Ghost#1, $40

Crooked Smiles, Steady Voices and a Trunk Full of Cash, $30

See all of Bowman's currently available work right here.