Heads Up, San Antonio: December's First Friday Offerings Feature Bagworms, Taxidermy and More

It's that time again! No, not Christmas — First Friday. In addition to Híjole SA's dark holiday, FL!GHT's cartoon party and Mockingbird Handprints' kitty committee, local artists will be making some big noises in Southtown this week — some of them quite literally.

"din-din" and "awaken my love" at Brick
On Thursday, a group of local artists and musicians will make a downright din for a sonic pop-up at Brick that features sound-based installations and experimental music that "adopts the linguistic process of reduplication to explore how people assign meaning to sound." Participants include Jacob Bissell, Justin Boyd, Brandon Bulls, Juan Flores, Verena Gaudy, Martín C. Rodriguez, Mark Gurrola, Pamela Martinez, Veronica Anne Salinas and Meredith Shuman (free, 7-11 p.m. Thursday, Brick at Blue Star, 108 Blue Star, facebook.com/BrickatBlueStar).

Those with sensitive ears who seek escape upstairs in the Brick Gallery will find Rebekah Hurst's ode to death "awaken my love," an exhibition featuring small, soft sculptures, drawings and a cowboy hat-wearing taxidermied rat that explore the unknowability of the experience of death by creating representations of the deaths of animals (free, 6-10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Brick Gallery, Brick at Blue Star, 108 Blue Star, facebook.com/BrickatBlueStar).

"Ode to the Bagworm Moth" at DAMAS gallery and studio
In the Upstairs Studios at Blue Star, John Atkins and Angelica Raquel Martinez have taken inspiration from a small, unassuming creature. Long before the use of found objects was popularized in art, bagworm moths were adorning their cocoons with small bits and bobs that they found in the world around them. Atkins and Martinez honor the insect — which can be found around the globe, including in Texas — with a series of cocoons both large and small made from brightly colored yarn intermingled with both natural and manmade materials.

Free, 6-10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, DAMAS gallery and studio, 1420 S. Alamo St. #202, (207) 653-7608, facebook.com/damas.space.

"En honor" and "First Person" at Presa House Gallery
This month at Presa House, two San Antonio-based artists presents bodies of work themed on two archetypal elements of the human experience: family and food. In "En honor," Salvadorian-American artist Galileo Gonzalez memorializes both relatives and friends that have passed away with a series of portraits, photographs and an installation. Galileo says that the exhibition “is more than honoring my family, it’s also about honoring Salvadoran culture, history, and the figures that fought against repression and erasure till the very end."

Native San Antonian Eva Marengo Sanchez continues her focus on food with a series of extremely detailed oil paintings of everything from H-E-B's flour tortillas to Louisiana crawfish. In her starkly rendered, realistic paintings Sanchez seeks to create "snapshots into moments and reoccurring themes in [her] life that tell a larger story about geography and culture."

Free, 6-11 p.m. Friday, Presa House Gallery, 725 S. Presa St., (210) 445-6997, presahouse.com.

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