November's ArtHop seemed a little tamer than usual Thursday night for some locations: not as much of a crowd at Gallery 25 and Fig Tree, say, during the peak hours between 6 and 7. But some spots we checked out were thriving: the Chris Sorensen Gallery was packed for its show on nudes, and Corridor 2122 had a healthy turnout for its show on .... well, nudes. Take note, gallery owners.

Also, Arte Americas was buzzing with its Dia de Los Muertos crowd and musical performance in the Plaza. And there weren't even any nudes!

My colleague Felicia Matlosz and I jotted down some observations through the evening, and we're here to share them with you. Among the picks for this month: Steve Norton's show at Gallery 25, with one of his works pictured above.

First, the nudes, which is what everyone is interested in anyway, right? Felicia writes:

Edouard Manet had his "Olympia." Paul Gauguin found his muses in Tahiti. Edward Weston photographed them in dramatic black and white.

Nudes in art have always fascinated people. Some people, of course, look because it is raw flesh. Others look because it speaks to a purity of art, a vulnerability, nature in its most open essence. It can be a picture of beauty in curves and contours. Or, in some blunt depictions of rolls and wrinkles and sagginess, a view of ourselves we'd rather not see. Nudes are brazen. They dare you to engage with the art, especially those where the subject -- usually a woman -- stares right at you.

This month, two galleries in Fresno are highlighting nudes: The Chris Sorensen Studio & Gallery and Corridor 2122.

The Sorensen gallery, 2223 S. Van Ness Avenue (open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, details 237-4934), is showing the 5th Annual Nudes in November. It's a blend of paintings, sculptures and photography, of humans -- mostly women -- of all shapes. The styles range from classical to abstract. In fact, the best of show is an abstract by Yoko Emerson called "After Workout" -- a woman sitting on a floor, one knee up while the other leg is outstretched, her arms stretched forward around the bent knee. The colors are strong and vibrant but balanced out by the use of black.

When an exhibit is themed on nudes, it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's why your eye at this show may be drawn to trippier work, such as "Miss Marbleous" by Saul Eskin. It is a transparent torso, lit from within. Its exterior, just as the name implies, is covered in small marbles. There's also "Endless Time" by Bob Gifford. It's a female torso formed in a mechanical sensibility, with pieces such as a saw blade, oil filter, air gauge and a myriad of tool parts.

The repetition of female nude images is one point of the show called "Woman: Sublime to Object" at Corridor 2122, at 2122 Mono St. The walls are covered with mostly photographs of nude women, in classical, romantic and expressionistic styles.

As a curator's note explains: "We are exposed to over 3,000 advertising messages per day. The shear volume of this information, mostly in the form of images, makes it impossible to discriminate or be thoughtful about all that we are exposed to. It is the bombardment of these images from television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the Internet and the objectification of women in them that is one of [the] reference points of this exhibition."

To add to the content, the show provides a list of books that look at the issues of women artists, female nudes, women and mass media, and the beauty industry.

Most of the women in this show's art are lithe and smooth. The figures in many of the photographs are cast in hues, such as blue or orange, and in shadows, faces unseen or turned away. They are seductive. Another section shows digital images in which the skin has a chromatic appearance, making the human parts look more like sculpted pieces. Morphed flesh.

----------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, over at Gallery 25, 660 Van Ness Ave., a highlight was Steve Norton's "Vintage Pop" show. Donald writes:

"Pop" can mean two things in Norton's vibrant show. There's pop as in popular culture. Norton has taken vintage photographs and graphics -- everything from magazine covers to old posters -- and assembled them with a fresh eye using the magic of a digital scanner. Thus we get a glimpse into views from the "old days" of such Americana subjects as football and space exploration.

There's also pop in the action sense of the word as well. Norton's big, colorful works seem to almost leap off the walls of the gallery. With a nod toward Surrealism, Dadaism and Andy Warhol -- demonstrated by his cheeky juxtaposition of different design elements and a giddy, nonsensical sense of style -- Norton finds interesting combinations in his subject matter. In one work, for example, he uses the cover of a 1936 adventure titled "Buck Rogers and the Planetoid Plot" with a 1962 photo of some of the pioneering U.S. astronauts including John Glenn, Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom.

Norton says in his artist's statement that he is intrigued with the idea of memory and how our minds can blend elements from different eras together into a kind of summary conglomeration. In a sense, memory and nostalgia is sort of like a form of time travel: We put our own present-day personas, if you will, into our recollections, whether they're from personal experience or society's collective impressions. (When I think about life in the ancient Roman Empire, say, and take on the point of view of a person sitting in the Colosseum 'watching" a gladiatorial contest, am I sitting there wearing a toga and sandals? Or is a part of me in early 21st Century mode with REI travel pants and Solomon walking shoes?) Perhaps my reaction is veering far from Norton's intentions with his work, but his whole concept of assemblage of different eras really made me think.

Note: Gallery 25 will hold a sidewalk sale/fundraiser Saturday Nov. 3 from 7 a.m.-noon. The official opening for the Steve Norton exhibit, paired with an exhibition of watercolors by Shannon Bickford, will be held 1-4 p.m. Sunday Nov. 4.

Next door at Fig Tree, painter Marij Bouwmans has another show that will exercise your mind a bit. She uses as inspiration the Mobius Strip (pictured), that odd mathematical drawing that's best described as a ribbon twisted around on itself that seems to have only one surface.

In Bouwmans' acrylic work "Mo #9," there isn't anything as representational as what you'd find in an Escher painting, but whatever this abstract form is -- which seems to sit in a murky, earth-toned sea -- suggests a vague circular motion, almost like a whirlpool. The painting has a nice sense of movement, something that keeps you a little off balance.

----------------------------------------------------------------

OK, back to Felicia. She also headed out to California Oncology of the Central Valley, 6121 N. Thesta, Suite, 204, to view a series of life-affirming paintings. She writes:

"The Art of Life" is a project that paired women cancer survivors with local artists. A spokeswoman said the art will remain on the walls past November. The project was conceived to give women cancer survivors the opportunity to express their feelings and emotions through art. At the same time, the project supports local artists who helped with these collaborations.

The first floor hallway, from one end to the other, shows art that typically is impressionistic or abstract. Or they are multi-media blends of color and words clipped out of magazines and newspapers: "Life." "Dream." "Live happily ever now." The colors are usually bright yellows and pinks and reds. There are butterflies and flowers. There is one called "The Dance!" that shows six whimsical women in full skirts, mostly pink, on an apple green canvas. There is the another called "Central Coast Thistle" with its ocean feel, the swirls and motion reminiscent of Van Gogh.

The message is clear for those newly diagnosed with cancer who come. A press release about the project says it was conceived to give women cancer survivors the opportunity to express their feelings and emotions through art. At the same time, the project supports local artists who helped with these collaborations this building: These women fought the disease and survived and you can, too.

-----------------------------------

Donald, meanwhile, stopped by Fresno City Hall, where he finally caught up with the work of Diana Griffin on the second floor. He writes:

For years, Griffin painted in a realistic style, but in the last few years she's been experimenting with the abstract. Her works became more personal, as if she's painting from a psychological source within herself.

What I like about her new work most is the colors, textures and intense personal connection that Griffin communicates. Her family legacy includes a long line of seamstresses, and from her great-grandmother she learned the intricate craft of sewing. In several of her works, she pays homage to these seamstress roots by using cheesecloth and then painting it stiff, giving it a strange, textured feel. In another work, "Deepwater No. 1," she paints an homage to her father, a chemist who worked at a plant named Deepwater in the 1960s. Her father developed the blue color of ink that ended up being used in Bic ballpoint pens. He also loved fishing. In the painting, Griffin uses a pattern of twine, made stiff by acrylic paing, that resembles a rough fishing net. The background color is a rich and vivid blue -- a nod both toward the water and her father's notable ink invention.