The pivotal issue elicited by Susan Dannenfelser’s recent painted steel sculpture concerns the gains and perils of an intensified expression of emotion. This East Bay artist has always worked metaphorically, originally using ceramics in assemblages exploring states of feeling, personal fantasies, and cultural and religious beliefs. In this show she presented work manifesting two procedures of manipulating welded steel, each producing dramatically different emotive effects.

Although all the work is from 1984, Torch (Arson) is the finest achievement of Dannenfelser’s earlier approach to dealing

The obvious boons and banes of having a regional exhibition curated by an outsider gave an edge to this strong mix of media and styles. Albert Stewart, at the time of the show the director of this art center a little east of San Francisco, chose New York curator Patterson Sims, of the Whitney Museum of American Art, to select work from a California-wide submission of slides. The result was a presentation of many little-known artists and an annual of atypical substance. The freshness and individuality of a large proportion of the works made it astonishing, therefore, that in his talk on the show