ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IN SAN FRANCISCO ISN’T RESERVED for hallowed museums and high-brow galleries.
Throughout the City there are artist studios, where you might take a class, or see an exhibit collaborating with musicians, poets, dancers and others pursing their crafts.
Soon after they moved to Fog City, Miss Jo and Jeff spotted Frankenart Mart, a storefront studio that had just opened in the Inner Richmond @ 515 Balboa Street. In June 2006, Jeff 
was invited to play his electronic keyboard there. Later that summer, house guests Jan and her daughters, Lillie and Ceci, left, participated in that month’s Tiny Things theme, where you were asked to make small art out of found objects.
Leslie is the mart’s artist in residence, who creates rich abstract sculptures made of nature’s discards like driftwood and shells.
She also considers her one-room studio an “Arterrarium,” where others are welcomed to be creative at no charge.
This Sunday the mart is sponsoring a tour of remaining neighborhood phone booths. Afterward, participants write a mini poem that’s recorded into Frankenart Mart’s interactive pay-phone sculpture.
As luck would have it, Sunday is also free beef-or-veggie hot dog day (1-7 p.m.) a Frankenart favorite. While your wiener is cooking on the toy grill, you can draw a picture of a hot dog to enter in the third-annual Hot Dog Drawing Contest. (Entries accepted through Aug. 16 and voting @ Frankenart ends Sept. 13.)
There are also two resident cats that played in Jeff’s piano case while he serenaded them. According to Frankenart’s FAQ, brothers Reuben and Zeke are 3 1/2 years old and “like to help make art and frequently get involved in store activities.”
Photos by Miss Jo
Here’s a mini video of Jeff playing at Frankenart. Inspired to write a mini poem about it ?
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