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PLACE A CLASSIFIED AD | PERSONALS | MOVIE CLOCK | REP CLOCK | SEARCH

'HALF SHOOTER. Half Stitcher. PURE VENGEANCE," proclaims Becky Schaefer's "Blowback" Creative Needlework Kit. One of 10 different kits she's professionally packaged and shrink-wrapped, it features the large-breasted Lara Croft wearing nothing but weapons and aviator shades, standing behind an enormous daisy. This is no ordinary embroidery, but a kind of do-it-yourself piece of performance art, and the artist asks you to ponder as you sew: Is doing needlepoint– or playing a video game, for that matter – really a creative activity? Will all of those leisure-time hours be well spent? Does the finished work enhance you as a person or improve the world's aesthetics? Schaefer has covered the gallery walls with finished needlework, paint-by-number creations, and even a customized puzzle. All the works feature a combination of nonthreatening landscape-and-flowers scenery with military or video game references. Sometimes it's the Tomb Raider hero scaling a huge sunflower or getting ready to blow a small forest creature's brains out. Other times her presence is merely suggested with a submachine gun draped over a wicker chair while a cat comfortably dozes nearby. Most of the pictures are thrift-store and eBay finds that Schaefer embellished with elements of 21st-century pop culture. They are supposed to be humorous, but they also speak in a very sober and topical way about the infiltration of militarism into everyday life. It's both seamless and jarring; the added elements are sewn to look as though they might have been part of the original 1970s-era image, but it's pretty weird to encounter a teenage-boy-type fantasy like Lara Croft in the middle of such a mundane product of gray-haired domesticity. We suspect that Mildred (whose name is the only "signature" that appears on any of the original pieces of sewing) probably wouldn't have approved. Tues.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. 364 Hayes, S.F. (415) 431-0364. (Lindsey Westbrook)