There's the first prize, the booby prize and the SURPRISE. When the kozmic clown gets out the seltzer bottle or the whip cream pie, get ready for a big one. For me, every show at The Arts Upstairs is a surprise so I shouldn't be surprised if a banana peel gets under my esthetic foot and I go topsy turvy into the jello-filled kiddie pool of art. Now it's your turn.  Hey, your shoelaces are untied... so get ready for the surprise of a lifetime.

Remy Dios took us all by surprise with this last minute tour de force solo room installation. Tchochka lovers unite! get out your schmaltz & sclock-proof bumbershoot and do a dashboard swivel with the Boop.

Leslie Bender does a pas de deux with "Inauguration Ball" a la Degas. The surprise is Obama got elected!

Sadie Burzan takes the unexpected and turns it into the inevitable. Rod Serling eat your heart out for "Stair Scare".

Normally, you have to drive two and a half hours to see a real downtown Manhattan conceptual sculpture like "Paper" by Bill Campion.

I'm a fan of Claire Kassor's fiber art landscapes. "The Lower Spillway in Early Spring" is an exercise in expecting the unexpected, particularly if you look up close.

Now, Dakota plunks a magic twanger in this Tinkerbelle inspired icon of childhood. The title. "Name Your Price" means we don't know what it will fetch on the open market or the open plains for that matter.

Viva Fraser took me by surprise with this astonishing topless Mona Lisa portrait of Kurt Russel titled "Untitled".  At least that's the way I heard it.

Bill Heine does some serious slithering in "White Snake".

Perhaps this is one of the crazy patterns on the sheet painted by the empty handed painter of apochryphal Dylanesque anecdote...

Or just maybe a take 5 between sets with Charlie Parker.

Zeev Willie Neumann gets all abecedarian in this plexi-cube called "Encased Form".

I'm guessing that Salvorita is the hybrid nomenclature of Salvatore Scalisi and Rita Schwab.

"Cave Painting" is made of virtually impregnable plastic resin, so it will probably be good as new when it is discovered by primitive cave people of the future.

 

 

I really like Christie Scheele's construction most descriptively entitled, "Swatch project #2 Thread Box".

 

 

Ring Ring, it's Richard Treitner's homage to the "Phoenicia Hotel".

Guess who is on the line? The ghost of Babe Ruth calling for the ghost of Dutch Schultz. Now that the astro - dialed projection has been connected, Declan can surprise us all by cleaning up the mess he left in the middle of Phoenicia.

"Here's Looking at You, Kid". Sandra Palmer Shaw adds a touch of copper clad mascara to the hairy eyeball of surprise.