“Ha-Ha-Ha”

Ho-Ho-Ho. Christmas In The Ward unfolds Dec. 2-3, but few have extra jingle to spend, so keep reading while I consider art that costs no more than $50, and yes, art that’s sold by the inch! It’s in the Marshall Building, in the lower level (Safi Gallery), and on floor five (Portrait Society Gallery).

Safi (414-475-5774 for appointment): Stand outside the gallery and enjoy the tinkle tinkle of water running down the main stack servicing the building. Like the fountains fronting the Milwaukee Art Museum, only better. Inside the snug space where not one inch is wasted, art lives, and some of it is fashioned from dumb stuff like pizza pie mesh and found parts of a catalytic converter.

Over on a wee shelf is the perfect sculpture to give your favorite Republican or favorite Democrat. Titled “Mitt,” at the end of a serpentine length of wire, a digital photo-head rises, snake-like. Can it be? It is! It’s Romney! Next to Mitt, on another little shelf, is the bright red-orange figure of a man laying on his back, burnt to a crisp in the desert sun. $50 will get you these.

Up we go on the world’s slowest elevator (with ’60s paneling!) to floor five and the Portrait Society Gallery. I’m here to see if the paintings and drawings of Jean Roberts Guiquierre are installed in the main room (they are), and while meandering the diverse offerings, I pause to study small snapshots by Susan Barnett (full disclosure: she writes for TCD), and pop for her image of a toaster she found while cleaning Rose’s Cantina in Jackson, Montana. The photographs sell for $1 per inch, so at 4”x 4,” it’s only $16.

Real art priced to sell and made by real artists exhibiting in real galleries in a real artsy building. Ha-Ha-Ha. Ha.