Art Happenings Aplenty in Alameda Tonight

If you're between the ages of 16 and 35, and you count Alameda as your home, chances are you've been heard to say, "But there's nothing to do here!" 

Tonight, Alameda proves  you wrong.

Although the Estuary Art Attack, Alameda's answer to Oakland's Art Murmur, a monthly night of gallery openings and festivities, recently met a quiet demise—Alameda's art galleries are still unofficially hosting openings on the second Friday of each month. Which, my friends, is today.

You can have a little wine, a little cheese, and some excellent art—without having to cross a bridge or drive through a tunnel. I hope you are counting yourself lucky.

Start at Rhythmix Cultural Works, just east of the Park Street Bridge on Blanding Ave, which houses K Gallery, where, starting at 6 p.m., you can play variations of "Exquisite Corpse," a popular parlor game of about a century ago and a precursor to Mad Libs and magnetic poetry. 

So get ready to see art and make art. Because at this opening, you have a place at the table. Literally.

In the game, one player writes a word or phrase on a long slip of paper, passes it to the next person, who writes another snippet, folds it over to hide most of the text, and passes it along again ... until a long randomized sentence is created. In an age of increasing rationalization and mechanization, it was (and is) a way to elevate and celebrate absurdity and the accident.

And who needs words at all? In another iteration of the game, participants draw a head, a torso and legs on three separate sheets of paper, which can be combined in any number of ways with the work of others. The results are amusing, playful, and often surprising. This is interactivity at its best—and so much better than another round of Farmville.

Then make your way next to Park Street, where Autobody Fine Art  will be hosting the opening of "MARK: Subject/Object/Collaborator," which features Robert Fischer's photography. 

Fischer began photographing Mark Rice, a bipolar man with dementia five years ago. Rice became Fischer's muse, and their relationship has continued to grow. You can meet both Rice and Fischer at the opening. 

All the photos in this exhibit are of Rice, although you wouldn't necessarily realize it at first glance. The images are absurd and beautiful—Rice is at times a whirling dervish, a ruined drag queen, a hazy Virgin Mother, an Amazonian tree frog, a body floating in a pool—and the works echo not only contemporary photographers like Diane Arbus, Robert Mappelthorpe and Cindy Sherman, but also reference Renaissance art and the Dutch masters. 

Everybody Get Up, the small gallery nestled in the corner of Autobody, also has an opening tonight, featuring illustrators Richard Jule and Super Ugly.  

By now, I expect you're feeling hungry—and a bit thirsty. Stop by Angela's Bistro for dinner and a Friday Night Wine Flight. Tonight (and for the next two Fridays) all proceeds from the wine flights will be donated to the venerable Frank Bette Center for the Arts.

Now that you're fed and refreshed, make your way over to Webster Street, where the Pacific Pinball Museum is featuring the work of Doug Watson, a pinball artist who worked on nearly 30 pinball games and 50 arcade video games, as well as home computer games.

The exhibit includes work spanning the 1980s and 1990s, including designs for Indiana Jones and Terminator 2 games. The show is enhanced by a series of short essays that Watson wrote about his evolution as an artist. And, since Watson will be at the opening, you'll have a chance to run your pinball or computer game art ideas by him.

Then wind up your night with some old-school pinball. Fifteen bucks buys you unlimited play on the nearly 100 machines of the Pacific Pinball Museum and Lucky Juju Pinball.

And if you're looking for something to do tomorrow, check out Art by the Bay's Art and Wine Show, a benefit for the Boys and Girls Club of Alameda.

Turns out there really is plenty to do on the island. Especially this weekend.