A SHOW BY JUST PLAIN FOLKS

“Cat and a Ball on a Waterfall: 200 Years of California Folk Painting and Sculpture,” more than 125 works by about 55 artists, is on view at the Oakland Museum, Saturday through Aug. 3.

Conceived by the museum’s art department and organized by senior curator Harvey Jones and folklorist Donna Reid, the show is a broad historical survey of painting and sculpture by artists of widely differing backgrounds, all working without formal training.

Oldest works shown are an 18th-Century painting by anonymous Native Americans under the guidance of Spanish missionaries, and William H. Myers’ depiction of a farcical naval battle, “The Taking of the Monterey, 1842.”

The exhibition also includes fragments and photo/documentation of “environments” created by folk artists, plus videotaped interviews with some of the artists. An illustrated catalogue is available. Information: (415) 273-3401.

Two new exhibitions at the Municipal Art Gallery open Tuesday: a retrospective view of Lloyd Hamrol’s site-specific sculpture (in photo-documentation and maquettes) and an installation designed for this exhibition and shown in tandem with drawings by contemporary artists whose work reflects classical influences.

“Lloyd Hamrol: Works, Projects, Proposals,” surveying past projects and future proposals, is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an essay by Henry Hopkins, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and an interview with the artist by Julia Brown Turrell, senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

“Drawing: A Classical Continuum” includes works by Carolyn Cardenas, Sergio L. De Guevara, Holly Downing, Louis Fox, David Hockney, Don Lagerberg, Peter Liashkov, David Ligare, Patrick Morrison, John Nava, Katie Phillips and Joyce Treiman.

The exhibitions run through April 13. Information: (213) 485-4581.

Sculptor Larry Bell will be the keynote speaker at 10 a.m., April 17 at the 1986 annual conference of the Glass Art Society, which will be held in Los Angeles April 16-19 at the Ambassador Hotel.

This, the 16th international symposium on art in glass, will feature presentations by more than 50 artists, architects, art historians, designers and critics, in addition to technical demonstrations, workshops and tours of studios, galleries and museums. Advance registration materials and additional information are available through the Glass Art Society, P.O. Box 1364, Corning, N.Y. 14830.

“Piecemeal,” a collection of eight performance pieces by Los Angeles artists, will be presented Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in a warehouse at 490 Bauchet St. in downtown Los Angeles, plus a performance of the same program next Sunday, 3 to 7 p.m. on the band-shell stage in MacArthur Park.

The performances were produced in a three-week workshop sponsored by Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Otis/Parsons. Ruth Maleczech, Bill Pope and Valeria Vasilevsky, members of ReCherChez Studio for the Avant-Garde Performing Arts in New York City, led the workshop.

LACE and Otis/Parsons are seeking volunteer help to produce set pieces and install the shows. Call Weba Garretson or Wendy Hawes at (213) 624-5650.