Long Lost, Late Won

Loss and anger, grief and retrospection take a variety of guises in local observances of World AIDS Day/Day Without Art, Tuesday, Dec. 1. Performance artist Denise Uyehara, a former Sacred Naked Nature Girl, contributes her storytelling and ritual piece Maps of City & Body, which uses safer sex, gender, love, and culture as jumping-off points to explore the history and future of the epidemic and its effects on all of us (2 p.m. Sunday in the Asian Art Museum's Trustee's Auditorium, Golden Gate Park, S.F., 379-8879; free-$7).

At the AIDS Memorial Grove, a ceremony led by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, author Armistead Maupin, and actor Judith Light combines remembrances with a presentation honoring Irene Smith, a volunteer massage therapist for AIDS patients since 1982 (11 a.m. Tuesday, Golden Gate Park, S.F., 750-8340; free). Meanwhile, the artist horea, whose previous World AIDS Day projects in other cities have included "AIDS Surviving Kits," has inscribed hundreds of red balloons with the words "December 1" and "World AIDS Day/A Day Without Art" and then metaphorically trapped their flight within the gallery walls for the exhibit "Ephemerals: 10 Years After." Local AIDS service agencies will distribute material and viewers can light a candle for a lost loved one (reception 6 p.m. Tuesday, exhibit through Dec. 8 at the Luggage Store Annex, 1000 Market at Golden Gate, S.F., 255-5971; free).

The Artists Alliance Against AIDS presents a special selection of plays from Pieces of the Quilt, including Tony Kushner's "A Prayer" and Migdalia Cruz's "Wednesday's Child." Danny Scheie directs and presents his work "The Big Quilt"; a memorial service and music by classical pianist Manual Martinez precede the show at 6 p.m. (7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Metropolitan Community Church, 150 Eureka at 18th Street, S.F., 554-0402; $5-10 donation). And finally, activists, nurses, and politicians agitate for Alameda County needle exchange funding at a World AIDS Day Candlelight Vigil (5 p.m. Tuesday at 1221 Oak St., Oakland, [510] 568-1680; free). (