Friday, Friday, Friday! Southern Exposure Gallery's Monster Drawing Rally

​ "Monster Rally." Those words usually reside near big metal things with big rubber wheels that jump in the air and crush smaller metal things. They live near big sports arenas and guys in crash helmets, and spectators who wear windbreakers and caps that say things like "USA" and "Built Ford Tough." They don't often live anywhere near words such as "artist," "gallery," or "benefit." There goes the neighborhood: The Monster Drawing Rally is just what it sounds like -- a place where scores of artists gather to make art while hundreds of people gather to watch it being made.

Groups of about 30 artists work in one-hour shifts. The spectators walk around and look at what's being created with pencil, charcoal, pen, ink, glitter, marker, paint, and other media. When each shift is over, the drawings are put on the wall and the voyeurs bid on ones they like, starting at $60. There's beer and wine. There's DJ Jason Jagel. And the proceeds go to Southern Exposure, a nonprofit gallery known to be a center for art that's, well, off-center. We can't independently confirm that SoEx was the first to put "Drawing" in the middle of "Monster Rally," but a couple of similarly named events we found online say they got the idea from the S.F. gallery.
The Monster Drawing Rally starts at 6 p.m. Friday at the Verdi Club, visit www.soex.org.

​