Better Than Couch Art

These past two weekends were Open Studios in the East Bay (east of San Francisco, that is). This is an annual event in which hundreds of artists display and sell their work at their own studios or at special public spaces set up for this occasion. I spent Saturday and Sunday looking at way too much boring couch art. But a few artists, real artists, did stand out.

Above you'll see one of a wonderful series of photos titled Powerlines from Iranian American artist Bijan Yashar. Each photo in the series is bisected by a powerline. You can see the rest of the series here.



The image above is a poor example of a fun series by Anna Vaughan, who ripped pages out of various illustrated books and manipulated the images. Her website seems to be merely a page with her name on it, but if you're in the Bay Area, you can check out her work in the show Bestiaries at the Oakland Art Gallery.



And my friend Shari Arai DeBoer surprised me with the depth and extent of her etching practice, which she's only been doing for about seven years. My favorites were the Nursery Series, a comic-like series of panels, each of which is a scene from her parents' nursery business. All her work is for sale, so check it out!