ArtHouston issue #4

{ AN ART OF GOLD }

{ THE ART OF WRITING HOUSTON ART }

{ THE MENIL }

{ TEXAS ART }

{ KCAM THRIVES }

artH o u s t o n V ISU A L A R T S , C U L T U R E , R E V IE W S

issue 04

Illustration by Mike LLewellyn

1

Rolando Rojas, Serenata en Azul, 2017, oil, sand on linen, 42.2”x50” inches

arthouston

ROLANDO ROJAS 2 0 0 0 E d w a r d s S t r e e t , S i l v e r S t r e e t # 2 0 8 H o u s t o n , Te x a s 7 7 0 0 7 • 7 1 3 - 7 2 4 - 0 7 0 9 • s e r r a n o g a l l e r y . c o m

2

E

verything is possible

cannot help but be receptive to a worthy cause, especially a cause that’s close to you.

I feel that inquisitive minds

A month ago while producing the spring issue, I was delighted to find myself at Larry Brookshire’s art-filled River Oaks residence, where I participated in the kickoff event for Joanne King Herring’s upcoming Super Bowl party.

Known as the Historical Texas Treasures Extravaganza of Stars, the ultimate purpose of Herring’s soirée is to fund a television series that tells the true stories of prosperous Texans who have beaten the odds and achieved success, despite being born into poverty.

The experiences of these Texans provide the education and inspiration for others in challenging economic circumstances to learn how to break outward and upward from the cycle of despair, especially the millions of disadvantaged and disheartened youth who turn to gangs and drugs for sanctuary and solace.

The idea of rags-to-riches stories appeal to me, not so much from the angle of building wealth but from rising above the low clouds to do what you love and make a living from the pursuit of your passion.

To me, America is a land of unlimited second chances, especially in Texas, where anyone can achieve their goals, and success can happen overnight — even if it takes 20 years.

Joanne King Herring and John Bernhard

E

Publisher’s Letter 3

I barely spoke English when I came to Houston in 1980. I had a few hundred bucks in my pocket and a dream. I’ve been fortunate to experience the success I sought. To me, the American dream is more than a myth, it’s a mindset. And I’ve witnessed it often over the years, firsthand.

Herring’s philanthropic mission is right on track with the philosophy of the American dream.

She wants to motivate, inspire and help the disadvantaged find their own mindset for success and ultimately realize their dreams.

I had the pleasure of meeting Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner with our writer Jody T. Morse for our featured interview. His story is a testament to the establishment of successful mindsets. Turner was born into a modest working class family. He grew up in a two-bedroom home with eight siblings.

When Turner was thirteen he lost his father to cancer.

After his father’s death, his mother took over the household. Although she never finished high school or learned to drive, she ensured her children got an education and inspired them to achieve.

I think that America today, with all its f laws and wacky political turmoil, is still a country where everything is possible if you work hard and are guided by an ideal.

Yours Faithfully.

John Bernhard, Publisher

arthouston

4

contents

publisher’s Letter 3

News Bits 6

Book Reviews 11 coups de cœur 12 publisher’s insights 15

Performing arts schedule 52 reviews 56

* G i ss et t e Pa d i l la 5 8

16 feature

An Art of Gold Jody T. Morse 22

The Art of Writing Houston Art Holly Walrath 28

The Menil Drawing Institute Arthur Demicheli 32

Showcasing Texas Art Jacqueline Patricks 36

To Reach Beyond the Usual Layla Al-Bedawi

* J o n a t h a n P a u l J a ck s o n 6 0 gallery listings 62 Exposure 76 colophon 79 Ed i t o r ’ s P i ck 8 0

* Fresh Arts’ interviews

40

Conspiring Beauty’s Meaning Meghan Hendley-Lopez 44

Midtown Arts District Cynthia Alvarado 46

Sawyer Yards Susannah Mitchell 48

KCAM Thrives Through Vision Meghan Hendley-Lopez

On the cover: Bran Symondson, TEXAS, Beat of a Wing is inspired by the artist’s utopian vision, that even while the world is being slowly engulfed by man’s greed, the butterfly’s wings might create tiny change in the atmosphere, ultimately perhaps altering the path of the planet’s condition returning it back to an earlier prelapsarian state. The butterflies become a statement of beauty and potency, in the face of something that brings destruction, their numbers engulfing the AK47.

On view at La Colombe D’Or Fine Art Galleries, 3410 Montrose. www.lacolombedor.com

5 5 ess ay

Art

Holly Walrath 68

Hope Art Karine Parker-Lemoyne

arthouston 5

News Bits

aarrtthhoouussttoonn 66

Raúl Martínez, Rosas y Estrellas (Roses and Stars), 1972, oil on canvas, courtesy of The Farber Collection, New York. © Raúl Martínez

ORIGINS OF THE SELF

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Teen Council is presenting Origins of the Self, a group exhibition featuring work by Houston-area teen artists.

The exhibition will focus on questions of personal identity.

This is the 10th biennial youth art exhibition organized by CAMH’s Teen Council.

Every other year, CAMH’s Teen Council organizes a Perspectives exhibition in the Zilkha Gallery featuring new work by young, Houston-area artists. The Teen Council selects the theme and title of the exhibition while partnering with CAMH staff to develop exhibition design, a printed catalogue, and public programming. Drawing from an open call, the Teen Council selects work that effectively responds to the questions: What is the real you?

Where is the real you?

How do you define the real you in a constantly evolving landscape?

Opening Reception: Friday, January 27, 2017 | 6:30-9PM On View: January 28 – May 7

cine ball

Sawyer Yards

Adiós Utopia

On Friday, February 24th from 8pm - 12am, the Sawyer Yards campus will transform into an Academy Award-winning extravaganza to celebrate Fresh Art’s impact in the Houston Art Community.

The Ball will be honoring Steve Gibson, Jon Deal and Frank Liu. For tickets go to: www.fresharts.org.

Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950 looks at how Cuba’s revolutionary aspirations for social utopia—and subsequent disillusionment—shaped 65 years of Cuban art. The exhibition brings together more than 100 of the most important works of painting, graphic design, photography, video, installation, and performance created by more than 50 Cuban artists and designers.

Anchored by key moments of 20th- and 21st-century Cuban history, Adiós Utopia is the most comprehensive and significant presentation of modern and contemporary Cuban art shown in the United States since 1944, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented Modern Cuban Painters.

Although many artists have emigrated from Cuba to live and work abroad, Adiós Utopia focuses on the untold narrative of those artists who remained in Cuba or whose careers took off after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. Through a selection of pivotal artworks—created in each of six decades since 1950—the exhibition explores Cuba’s artistic production through the lens of utopia, both its construction and its deconstruction. Adiós Utopia introduces U.S. audiences to key events in Cuban history and explores how this history affected individual artists, shaped the character of art produced on the island, and conditioned the reception of Cuban art both in Cuba and abroad.

On view: March 5 - May 21, 2017

Jaelynn Walls, Funny Anyway (detail), 2016

Turquoise at The Match

NITC

Next Iteration Theater Company (NITC) presents Turquoise, three plays in one, by Deb Margolin. With themes of memory, love, symbiosis, and mortality, this award-winning playwright has woven together vignettes that reflect on the simultaneity of everything, while capturing the hearts and minds of the audience with relatable simplicity and humorously quick-volleying dialogue. Turquoise is a theatrical hybrid of literary proportions not to be missed.

March 17th through April 1st 2017, matchouston.org.

news bits 7

Fractus V choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Company Eastma, Belgium. Photo by Filip Van Roe

A Must-see Destination

Miami Art Week

dance salad

Wortham Center

From its early beginning in 2002, Art Basel Miami Beach has attracted so many collectors, art luminaries and an array of art aficionados that the event has mushroomed into Miami Art Week. This all-around title is used to describe the private parties, openings, events and growing number of satellite fairs that are spreading like wild fire across the city, from art fair tents pop up on the sand, to hotel ballrooms and empty lots across town.

In addition to the prestigious Art Basel, Miami and Miami Beach hosted over 20 satellite fairs including stalwart like Art Miami, Design Miami, Scope, Red Dot Untitled, Context, Aqua, Pinta, X Contemporary, Pulse, Fridge, INK and NADA to newcomers like Miami Projects, Superfine!, Satellite, Prizm, Conception and Art Concept.

Houston was timidly represented by a handful of galleries.

Sicardi Gallery was the only one to be included in the influential and prestigious Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. Laura Rathe Fine Art and Octavia Art Gallery chose Context art fair. Up Art Studio picked Scope, while Nicole Longnecker Gallery and Cardoza Fine Art exhibited in Miami Projects.

So mark your calendars early, get some comfy walking shoes, and head straight to Miami the first week of December to experience what Miami New Time writer Jose Duran calls, “art walk on steroids”. For more info: www.artbasel.com/miami-beach.

Now celebrating the 22nd anniversary in Houston and the 25th season since its inception in Brussels, Belgium, Dance Salad Festival promises another gathering of world-class performers. Famous in their own countries, the dance companies/ dancers have won praise from critics and audiences wherever they have toured.

1. Carolyn Carlson Company will have its USA premiere of a curated version of Carlson’s Black over Red (My dialogue with Rothko), a contemplative solo intertwining visual, performing arts and poetry, based on Carlson’s book, Dialogue with Rothko, Untitled: Black, Red over Black on Red (2012), in dedication to American Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko.

2. Susanna Leinonen Company, Finland will debut in Houston (and the US) with a curated version of Romeo & Juliet choreographed by Artistic Director Susanna Leinonen and Jouka Valkama, set to music by Sergei Prokofjev.

3. Eastman from Antwerp, Belgium, presents the Houston Premiere of a curated version of Fractus V* choreographed

by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Founder and Artistic Director.

4. Norwegian National Ballet, Oslo, Norway, will mark its 6th appearance in DSF with the US premiere of a curated version of the solo production, Player choreographed by Argentinian born, award winning dancer/choreographer Daniel Proietto, danced by American born dancer, Whitney Jensen, set to music by Mikael Karlsson.

5. Shantala Shivalingappa, Indian born, Paris raised, wellknown Indian classical dancer, will debut in Houston with an adapted version of the Rasalila piece from Shiva Ganga (interaction between Krishna and Radha).

6. Charles “Lil’ Buck” Riley is a jookin’ street dance style virtuoso. For Dance Salad Festival, Lil’ Buck will perform his acclaimed solo The Swan as well as Blooming, a dance duet with Shantala Shivalingappa.

Performances are in April: Thursday,13; Friday,14 and Saturday,15, 7:30 PM at the Wortham Center, Cullen Theater.

To Buy Tickets, $25-$58, go to: www.dancesalad.org

aarrtthhoouussttoonn 8

Art League Houston

Sawyer Yards

Downtown

Cistern art

France Pavilion

Art League Houston is showcasing Loschmidt’s Column (The Reversibility Paradox), a durational sculpture by Houston-based artist Trey Duvall. The project explores the passage and blending of material states subjected to the manipulations and processes of entropic time. Comprised of a porcelain and steel sculptural intervention, the project focuses on irreversible material change and exchange based on specific conditions of a particular space in forward moving time.

Loschmidt’s Paradox puts time reversal symmetry at odds with any attempt to infer from the second law of thermodynamics, which describes the behavior of macroscopic systems. www.artleaguehouston.org On view until March 11, 2017

The Washington Avenue Arts District will once again come alive for a fantastic evening of fine art when the studios at The Silos, Winter Street, Spring, Silver, and Summer at Sawyer Yards host their Spring Biannual Art Event.

Over 300 artists will open their doors and invite the public inside to view new work, shop and become collectors.

A variety of art works will be showcased including painting, sculpture, ceramics, glass, mosaic, photography, mixed media, and jewelry.

This year’s Spring Biannual charity partner is The Houston Arboretum. Each artist who participates in the charity component of the Biannual will be donating an art decorated wooden birdhouse. The birdhouses will be for sale for $100 during the Biannual’s regular hours.

They will be hung collectively in each building in a predesignated area. A select group of artists will create their masterpiece together with a local “Celebrity”.

The “Celebrity” birdhouses will be part of a silent auction to take place at Spring Street during the preview hours from 3pm to 5 pm. www.sawyeryards.com April 22, 2017, 5 - 10 pm.

The Water Works Underground “Cistern” is a Historic Houston Space preserved and converted into an artistic and intertaining venue - an amazing underground experience.

As the Buffalo Bayou Park Shepherd to Sabine project began in 2010, a structure was rediscovered below the lawn that is to become the signature Sky Lawn at The Water Works. The “Cistern,” as it has been dubbed, was built in 1927, and was Houston’s first underground drinkingwater reservoir. It provided decades of service until it was drained when it sprang a leak that couldn’t be located or contained.

Unused for years, the 87,500-square-foot expanse includes 25-foot tall, slender concrete columns set row upon row, hovering over two inches of water on the reservoir’s floor. Buffalo Bayou Park designers recognized immediately that this highly unusual space brimmed with potential for new life as a public space and they turned it into the park’s newest attraction, currently featuring an amazing video art installation by Magdalena Fernández.

Open Wed. - Fri. 3pm to 7pm and Sat. & Sun. 10am to 7pm.

Reservations are required at buffalobayou.org.

FRANCE PAVILION, a curated selling exhibition of French Contemporary art, will be open in Houston from Thursday, March 2 through Sunday, March 5 at Winter Street.

After successful editions in NYC, Miami, DC and Raleigh, FRANCE PAVILION, exhibiting for the first time in Houston, will showcase selected French contemporary artists, a mix of world-acclaimed and emerging artists.

Held under the High Patronage of H.E Sujiro Seam, Consul General of France, and First French Lady Jane Ren, FRANCE PAVILION, will also celebrate the unique FrancoAmerican friendship, by partnering with Texan French Alliance for the Arts.

Curator Sebasten Laboureau and guest curator Yvonamor Palix present Richard Orlinski, one of the world’s best-selling sculptors; fashion icon Maurice Renoma, well-established artists Raphaelle Ricol and Flore Sigrist, but also local artists Emilie Duval, Romain Froquet, Marlot & Chopard and Agnes Bourely. NUIT DU CHAMPAGNE will celebrate the 30-year career of Houston artist Sebastien Boileau.

Free admission: Open each day from 10 am to 7pm. www.FrancePavilion.com info@FrancePavilion.com

Loschmidt’s Column Spring Biannual

Trey Duvall, For Once, Again, 2016

Horszowski Trio

The Menil Collection Da Camera presents the Horszowski Trio in their Houston debut at the Menil Collection.

Two-time Grammy-nominated violinist Jesse Mills joins with Raman Ramakrishnan, the founding cellist of prize-winning Daedalus Quartet, and acclaimed pianist Reiko Aizawa in this celebrated ensemble. The Trio

Horszowski Trio.

Photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

takes inspiration from Mieczyslaw Horszowski, a legendary pianist and Curtis Institute of Music teacher; like their namesake, the group presents a repertoire spanning the traditional and the contemporary. Their program includes works by Fauré, Schubert and Joan Tower.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017, 7:30 p.m.

Winter Sreet

news bits 9

focus on india

FotoFest 2018 Biennial

The FotoFest 2018 Biennial takes place March 10-April 22, 2018, in Houston, Texas, and will focus on contemporary photography and new media art from INDIA, a nation of over 1.3 billion people, and the world’s largest democracy. This is the second time in its 35-year history that the FotoFest Biennial will focus exclusively on photographic artwork from Asia. The Biennial draws over 275,000 visitors during the course of its six-week run. It attracts visitors and participants from over 35 countries, and is one of the world s longest-running, largest, and most respected international contemporary photographic art events.

India and its society are at the forefront of a changing world. The Indian subcontinent has been a center of culture for millennia, and is widely known for its relics and antiquities. Its history over the last seven decades, since independence from Great Britain, reflects India s complicated society and emergence as a world economic and cultural power. As one of the five BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), it is acknowledged as an advanced, growing economy - currently the seventh largest in the world.

The FotoFest 2018 Biennial will focus on this emerging powerhouse, and the artists that live and work there, as well as the Indian diaspora. Lead Curator Sunil Gupta is organizing the INDIA: Contemporary Photography and New Media Art exhibition program. Gupta, a Delhi-born artist and curator, splits his time between India and the U.K., and has curated over 30 exhibitions in four countries. Steven Evans, FotoFest Executive Director since 2014, is Biennial Director and exhibition Co-Curator. Together, Gupta and Evans bring nearly 60 years of curatorial experience with contemporary photography and art to the project.

The 2018 Biennial will present artists and collectives that work in dialogue with the long history and emergent future of India and its people. The exhibition will focus on the contemporary moment, and a mix of approaches will be included, including

Irena Sendler (Poland) by Barbara Hines.

A Celebration of Survival Holocaust Museum Houston

The Holocaust Museum Houston presents an immersive exhibition designed to honor the heroes, victims, and survivors

of the Holocaust, A Celebration of Survival, by Barbara Hines, masterfully addresses the Holocaust framed in a message of redemption and forgiveness.

“Barbara Hines is known for using art as a way to bring understanding and peace into the world,” said Dr. Kelly J. Zúñiga, CEO of Holocaust Museum Houston. “Her work is breathtaking with its incoporation of different colors, sounds, textures and interactive technology that stimulates all of one’s senses to contemplate her message.”

Sunil Gupta, Lead Curator, FOTOFEST 2018 BIENNIAL. Photo by Charan Singh.

art photography, contemporary practices, installation, moving image, journalistic and documentary photography. Themes will include, caste and class, the partitioning of the sub-continent, gender and sexuality, conflict, religion, nationalism, new technologies, the environment, human settlement, and migration.

“As a large, multilingual subcontinent, India has always relied on images to maintain a cohesive whole across myriad subcultures, regions, castes and languages.” states Lead Curator Sunil Gupta.

Gupta continues, “This exhibition will address the legacy of the last twenty years, a period when photography and moving image media have been consistently included within critical exhibitions of fine art.”

Upon entering “A Celebration of Survival,” visitors will pass through Veils of Remembrance, diaphanous silk veils featuring life size portraits of children of the Holocaust, creating the effect of walking among them.

“Portrait Walls” throughout will don 16 righteous non-Jews of the 26,000 “Righteous Among the Nations” who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust, while Quotations will project prolific words by local survivors and other prominent Jewish thinkers.

Deeper into the exhibition, an audio-visual installation featuring New Dimensions in Testimony, created by USC

Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, will invite students and adults to hold a “virtual conversation” by “talking” with a Holocaust survivor. This pioneering project integrates advanced filming techniques, specialized display technologies, and next-generation natural language processing to provide an intimate experience with Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter, an eyewitness to history who can answer direct questions while sitting in front of you in a three dimensional, face-to-face interaction.

January 20 - May 30, 2017

arthouston 10

BOO K S 1 1

BOO K R E VI E W S

Gulf Coast: The Archive Issue

adrienne g. perry, editor

Get 300+ pages of the best writing from emerging and established writers.

Gulf Coast, A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, is the nationally-distributed journal housed within the University of Houston’s English Department, home to one of the US’s top ranked creative writing programs. Published twice a year Gulf Coast can be found in a number of independent bookstores and art galleries, or by emailing gulfcoastme@ gmail.com.

Gulf Coast, Fall 2016

From Terra to Verde Sharon Kopriva

From Terra to Verde: The Art of Sharon Kopriva, explores issues of faith and doubt, and life and death. Working in an imagist style, she conveys her personal spiritual journey through her art.

Moving from earth tones of her early expressionistic landscapes and mummies to more recent magical realistic depictions of forests as cathedrals, this book reveals the breadth and unity of her career. Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2016

Texas

Jack knox

Stretching from its Great Plains in the Panhandle to its 367 miles of coastline, Texas is one of the most diverse and expansive state in the US. In TEXAS: Ghost Towns, Gas Stations, and a 20foot Cowboy, the adventurous reader will explore a vast collection of images that capture the allure of timeworn buildings and landmarks through the lens of photographer Jack Knox.

John M. Hardy Publishing, Inc,. 2016

In Medias Res: Stories from the In-Between writespace

In Medias Res: Stories from the InBetween is a collection of stories put together by Writespace, a Houstonbased literary center. These stories focus on characters who are thrown into or stuck between different cultures, communities, families, races, genders, self-images, dimensions, or continents.

They explore the gray area—the uncomfortable, the undefined. These are characters in the middle of it all: middle children, mediators, people in the middle of their lives, in the middle of a mess—“in-between. Writespace, 2016

Convict Cowboys

Papel Chicano Dos

Mitchel P. Roth

Melissa Richardson Banks

Convict Cowboys is the first book on the nation’s first prison rodeo, which ran from 1931 to 1986. At its apogee the Texas Prison Rodeo drew 30,000 spectators on October Sundays.

Mitchel P. Roth portrays the Texas Prison Rodeo against a backdrop of Texas history, covering the history of rodeo, the prison system, and convict leasing, as well as important figures in Texas penology including Marshall Lee Simmons, O.B. Ellis, and George J. Beto, and the changing prison demimonde.

University of North Texas Press, 2016

Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper from the Collection of Cheech Marin presents 65 artworks by 24 established and emerging artists. Their work demonstrates a myriad of techniques from watercolor and aquatint to pastel and mixed media, dates from the late 1980s to present day, and offers iconic imagery with influences ranging from pre-Hispanic symbols and post-revolutionary nationalistic Mexican motives to Chicano movement of the 1960s and contemporary urban culture.

CauseConnect LLC, October 1, 2016

arthouston 12

coups de cœur jewelry artist

Jen Lam Parmer

Jewelry is a language. Her expression of color and shape is often influenced by nature. Showcasing the natural beauty here on Earth, She loves creating wearable displays for nature’s jewels: precious metals, gemstones, and minerals alike. Her Crystal Stalactite series is named after the beautiful icicle shaped formations found on the ceiling of caves. www.jenlamparmer.com

Artist

Celan Bouillet

Celan Bouillet is a mixed media painter based in Houston. Her work investigates ideas of home and our attempt to find our place in transient and surreal natural environments. These mixed media pieces like this gouache on cut paper are highly detailed and manipulate scale along with pattern to create complex narratives. Referencing folk tales, mythologies, and travel literature, her work blurs personal memories with fictitious histories of uncharted locations.www.comusinacelan.com

Artist

Jim Ferguson

Regular artist at Galley 1988 and Hero Complex Galleries in LA. Former Video Engineer at NASA. Ferguson brings his love of movie into story board style drawings. www.jimfergusonmakingascene.com

13

Book artist

Lee Steiner

This Vintage Hen and Chicks Writing Journal with Black Hardcover and Graph Paper Pages is made with love and skills. She master the many steps involved in bookbinding, from designing a format, selecting materials, cutting, folding, gluing, sewing to the use of all archival materials.

Her homemade books are produced today with a past, which will last well into tomorrow. www.domesticpapersshop.com

artist

Claire Cusack

She lives in a world inspired by ordinary objects. Whether in her native Texas or worldly travels, she invariably finds meaningful “trash” that she transforms into unexpected and exquisite sculptures. Cusack’s work evokes an honest passion that comes from the heart. The reinvented context of objects through her vision has many stories to tell. Ultimately, her art expresses a raw spirituality not unlike the art of many primitive cultures. www.clairecusack.com

Richard Stout, Another World, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 60x48 inches

arthouston 14

2143 Westheimer Road

Houston, Texas 77098

713.521.7500

Reavesart.com

insights 15

Where does our new President stand on the arts?

BY J o h n B e r n h a r d

Another glimpse of his artistic philosophy appears from That’s a serious question, one that matters deeply to artists, and the answer is up for grabs. the very first lines of his 1987 self-help book, now a busiBelow are some quotes and thoughts from the ness classic The Art of the Deal. “I don’t do it for the monman himself in hope to offer some clues to this ey. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll even need. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

While Mr. Trump’s election has been broadly questioned by much of the artistic world, Mark Bowden wrote in Vanity Fair last year that Trump doesn’t care much for the beauty of fine art, but on another note Trump has personally given at least $465,125 to arts-affiliated organizations in New York between 1994 and 2010.

In an attempt to respond to the question, Randy Kennedy from the New York Time wrote that, “Trump has been front-and-center in public life for more than four decades in the country’s cultural capital, Mr. Trump has left a meager trail to suggest what positions he might take on public arts funding and arts education, along with issues like censorship and economic policies that would affect creative industries, not to mention how he and the first lady, Melania Trump, might decorate the White House.”

In response to questions, asked by Alyssa Rosenberg from The Washington Post, concerning government arts funding, Trump answer was: “The Congress, as representatives of the people, make the determination as to what the spending priorities ought to be.

I had the great fortune to receive a comprehensive liberal arts education from an Ivy League institution. A holistic education that includes literature and the arts is just as critical to creating good citizens.”

Mr. Trump is the very definition of the American success story, and as an accomplished author, he has published over fifteen bestsellers and in his 2009 book, Think Like a Champion you can find the following: “There’s a certain amount of bravado in what I do these days, and part of that bravado is to make it look easy.

That’s why I’ve often referred to business as being an art.

I’ve always liked Andy Warhol’s statement that, ‘making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.’ I agree.”

or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

Reading further, I particularly liked the first chapter of the book, entitled Dealings: A Week in the Life, which presents the following passage: A friend of mine, a highly successful and very well known painter, calls to say hello and to invite me to an opening.

I get a great kick out of this guy because, unlike some artists I’ve met, he’s totally unpretentious.

A few months back he invited me to come to his studio. We were standing around talking, when all of a sudden he said to me, “Do you want to see me earn twenty-five thousand dollars before lunch?” “Sure,” I said, having no idea what he meant. He picked up a large open bucket of paint and splashed some on a piece of canvas stretched on the floor. Then he picked up another bucket, containing a different color, and splashed some of that on the canvas. He did this four times, and it took him perhaps two minutes. When he was done, he turned to me and said, “Well, that’s it. I’ve just earned twenty-five thousand dollars. Let’s go to lunch.”

He was smiling, but he was also absolutely serious. His point was that plenty of collectors wouldn’t know the difference between his two-minute art and the paintings he really cares about. They were just interested in buying his name.

I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists. I sometimes wonder what would happen if collectors knew what I knew about my friend’s work that afternoon. The art world is so ridiculous that the revelation might even make his paintings more valuable! Not that my friend is about to risk finding out.

When asked from a reporter about the identity of the artist, Trump could not recall his name. I guess that pretty much sums it up.

The Entrepreneur by Ralph Wolfe Cowan, 1987

a r t hf oe u a st u t or n e 16

The Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, is at home strolling downtown.

Photography by John Bernhard

feature 17

an Art of

Gold

BY J o d y T . M o r s e

Photography bY john bernhard

An Interview with our Art-L oving Mayor

“Great cities have great art and Houston is one of the best places in the world for the arts.”

With words like these gushing in earnest, the Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, continues to win over many artists in the Bayou City.

Comments like these—favorable to all who live and breathe by paintbrush, violin, prose, and verse—littered Turner’s mayoral campaign back in 2015 and have imbued his political policies since he took office in January of last year. These poignant, pro-arts comments also caught the attention of ArtHouston Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, John Bernhard, and journalist, Jody T. Morse. The following pages are a collaboration of the contemplative and invigorating conversations and photoshoot that commenced between the three. Viva la arts in Houston, Mayor Turner!

arthouston 18

Jody T. Morse: Houston boasts five state-recognized

art districts, including the Washington Avenue Art district— which is one of the largest in the country. Do you have any thoughts about this incredible accomplishment?

Mayor Sylvester Turner: During my last term in

the state legislature, I led a successful effort to secure $10 million in funding for arts and cultural districts across the state. Can you believe that this is the first time in history that the state has appropriated money for cultural districts?

What’s happening in Houston’s cultural districts is nothing short of extraordinary. Houston has cultural districts in the Greater East End, Midtown, the Museum District, the Theater District and Washington Avenue! I’m a firm believer in the concept of building complete communities, and the arts are definitely a crucial component of that mission.

JTM: Stepping to the more personal side of Mayor Sylvester

Turner for a minute, you’ve publicly listed quite a resume of arts groups that you’ve contributed to, enjoy supporting and/or collaborate with including the Texas Art Commission, Ensemble Theater, Miller Outdoor Theater, Hobby Center, Houston Museum District and the Community Artists’ Collective. I’m curious who you might credit with planting the seed for such a love of the arts in you?

MST: I was born in the Acres Home community in northwest

Houston. There wasn’t a lot of focus on the arts there. But once I was in High School, there seemed to be more emphasis placed on the arts. Being a part of the speech and drama team also peaked my interest in the performing arts. Quite frankly, certain artists just brighten your life. John Biggers of Texas Southern University was an artist that I really

“... art can even effectively represent your internal soul and deeply express how you feel...” across the country in helping cities to develop new longrange visions. As Houston continues to grapple with our long-range plan and the kind of city we want to be, it is only appropriate that we tap local artists for their critical perspectives.” This statement came from your campaign website. Can you expand upon this further, Mayor Turner?

MST: Artists have been a major part of my Transition

Committee and invaluable to the process of crafting the City’s Arts & Cultural Plan. They are the reason we encouraged Artist INC—a program being supported through Fresh Arts and Mid-America Arts Alliance—to come to Houston. Artist input is also why we’re looking at all of our guidelines and policies related to art commissions, making sure they are readily accessible to Houston artists.

JTM: Mayor Turner, in your inauguration speech you spoke

about Houston being a city of innovation, creativity and inspiration. These words are music to artists’ ears. Why do you think these concepts are important for making Houston a successful city?

MST: Creative, vibrant and strong cities are attractive to

investors in industry, business and tourism, and in turn, generate employment opportunities, expand the tax-base and generally add to the real wealth of the community. My Office of Cultural Affairs is focused on ensuring the city’s investments celebrate Houston artists, cultures and communities and we are doing all we can to increase transparency, accountability, access and equity.

came to like, especially for his murals. And later I discovered some intriguing statues—I can’t recall their names—but there were three pieces, each one was showing a man rising above his challenges. He was pushing through and when he reached the top, he achieved success. That set of sculptures really epitomizes, in many ways, my own life experiences. Art resonated with me from that point forward.

And over the years, my interest has continued to grow. I’ve come to feel that art can even effectively represent your internal soul and deeply express how you feel.

JTM: What a great story! Thank you for opening up, Mayor Turner. Can you share what type of art has in the past or currently hangs in City Hall?

MST: What you see in the public areas of City Hall is a

commitment to inclusion, representing Houston’s great cultural diversity. Throughout my first year in office, we’ve had works on view by Kelly Alison, Michelle Barns, Lori Betz, Jon Clark, Carolyn Crump, Barbara Jackson, Gail Mebane, Steve Murphy, Robert Pruitt, Shaheen Rahman, Anat Ronen, Tra Slaughter, Liz Conces Spenser, Cecilia Villanueva, and Stephen Wilshire. As well as, young men and women participating in the Mayor’s Art Scholarship Program, Rodeo artists and the work of Karenni weavers from Burma/ Myanmar, and much more.

JTM: Wow! That’s quite a list of visual artists. Last summer,

you met with a different variety of artists, Hip Hop artists, to work on a program to help stop violence in our city called Hope for Houston. Do you think artists have the power to

The Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner. Photography by John Bernhard

JTM: “Artists and creative professionals have proved valuable

19

arthouston 20

make substantial shifts in our city’s culture? If so, what would you like to ask the artists of Houston to do to support positive changes in our city?

MST: Artists have had and continue to have a lot of influence on our culture. At its most basic, the arts—both the visual and performance arts—can either entertain or educate.

When you are moved by a play, inspired by a piece of music, or surprised by a mural on the street, that’s art influencing your everyday life. Art that instigates self-reflection or explores the human condition can be very powerful. What I would ask of local artists is what I would ask of every Houstonian, for us to work together as one city to solve problems so everyone benefits. The great Barbara Jordan hit the mark when she said, “The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and they help to shape our identity. What is there that can transcend deep difference and stubborn divisions? The arts. They have a wonderful universality. Art has the potential to unify.

The arts do not discriminate. The arts can lift us up.”

Historically speaking in our country—time and time again— artists of conscious have advanced important issues and conversations at critical times. You can look from the Civil Rights era to more modern day relief concerts to find plenty of examples. Here in Houston, the city even hosted a concert for flood victims. There are always artists, as well, who donate portions of the sale of their work to benefit affordable housing, especially at the Art on the Avenue auction.

I know the arts are not usually the highest paying professions, so when artists give of their time and talent to help their neighbors it’s a very special and meaningful act.

“What’s happening in Houston’s cultural districts is nothing short of extraordinary.” & Recreation Department is providing access to cultural programs through after school activities. I am being very ambitious with public art!

The City is utilizing public-private partnerships for stewardship of parks and green space. Additional private investment is being brought in to add permanent and temporary artwork to these spaces and in many, if not most cases, is engaging Houston-based artists. We’ve started turning utility boxes into canvasses and invested in new murals all over the city in conjunction with several of our Council Members. CM Green has been very active, as well as CMs Cisneros, Cohen, Davis and Gallegos, along with management districts and private sponsorships. Lastly, the Civic Art Program is the city’s percent-for-art initiative that invests in public art as part of the capital assets of the City and conserves the city’s arts collection.

JTM: I’d say that’s a decent amount of contributions and

allocations toward the Houston art scene and beautification of our fine city. Last question. We’d like to close our conversation with a funny, rather silly, but insightful inquiry.

Mayor Turner, if you could have any artist—from the past or present—paint your portrait, who would it be?

“What I would ask of local artists is what I would ask of every Houstonian, for us to work together as one city to solve problems so everyone benefits.”

JTM: Well said. Thank you. Mayor Turner, you’ve put forth

at least one proposal for increasing funding for the arts.

Have you been able to make any progress toward lifting the cap on the HOT (Hotel Occupancy Tax) for arts funding? And are there any other ways you hope to funnel more funds into the Houston art scene?

MST: The City of Houston is investing the maximum amount of

Hotel Occupancy Tax allowed under State statute to promote tourism through the arts. This is more than $15 million annually that we use to engage residents and visitors with over 200 nonprofit cultural organizations, contributing to more than 9 million estimated visits (including duplicates) each year. In addition, Houston Public Library hosts arts and cultural exhibitions, lectures and events. Plus, the Parks

MST: First to come to mind is Bert Long Jr., who Houston

sadly lost too soon. I can’t imagine what he would have come up with but if I had been lucky enough for him to have done my portrait, I know it would have meant something special to him and to me. Plus, you can bet it would have been truly original. I’m so glad the City has a 30-foot mural of his in the Looscan Library.

JTM: Well, if you’re listening from the Great Beyond,

Mr. Long, know that you’re remembered fondly by a champion of the arts, Houston’s 64th mayoral incumbent, Mayor Sylvester Turner. Thank you to Mayor Turner for taking the time to provide us with these artful answers.

For more information about Mayor Sylvester Turner, visit www.houstontx.gov/mayor/.

21

art

arthouston 22

THE of writing houston

feature 23

BY H o l l y W a l r a t h Ph oto graphy bY Nathan Lindstro m

It’s no secret that Houston’s art scene is growing – in a city that encourages discussion and continues to fund new projects, there’s little doubt as to the thriving future of the arts. But perhaps the biggest secret behind the city’s successful and vibrant art community is its writers. Those fortunate personages hiding in the back at openings, scribbling notes at press conferences, and stepping forward online or in print to ask critical questions of Houston’s art movers and shakers. News avenues fluctuate, but Houston’s variety of critical voices makes it an important center for the art of writing about art. For artists, much hinges on the press’ willingness to engage with new ideas, to build up the public’s interest in worthy works, or to call out the institutions who need challenging. Art writers hold undeniable power. But what is the weight of this influence?

In pursuit of this and other truths, I sat down with three of Houston’s resident art writers to discuss the state of the arts in Houston and their role in it.

Molly Glentzer is Arts, Design & Culture Writer/Editor for the Houston Chronicle, Rainey Knudson is the Founder/Publisher of Glasstire, and Catherine Anspon is the Executive Editor, Visual Arts/Features for PaperCity Magazine.

From left: Rainey Knudson, Catherine Anspon and Molly Glentzer These portraits were created as an homage to Philippe Halsman, one of the world’s greatest portrait photographers. In 1959 he made history by introducing the brand new science of “jumpology.”

arthouston 24

From left: Rainey Knudson, Catherine Anspon and Molly Glentzer.

Hair Styling by: Dennis Clendennen.

Makeup by: VCI Artists Victoria Callaway Amber Livingston.

Wardrobe Styling by: Summar Salah.

Photography by: Nathan Lindstrom

Holly Walrath: As a new writer, I’m often fascinated by how people came to their genres. Art writing in particular feels like a very specific type of writing. How did you get started writing about art?

Molly Glentzer: That’s hard to recall. It’s always been

part of my DNA, since I studied journalism in college. I was freelancing for a number of years in 1998 when a friend at the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau told me the Chronicle needed a dance critic. I got the job and have been there, in various capacities, ever since. Visual art has been one of my coverage areas for about five years.

Rainey Knudson: The first review I ever wrote was as a college student for the Rice University paper, of a show

by Karin Broker. My editor was Shaila Dewan (who became the Houston Press critic and who now writes for the New York Times). Shaila and one of my English professors at Rice were encouraging, and I thought “maybe I can do this.”

Catherine Anspon: Ever since childhood I had the idea of being a writer. But what to write about? History and art history were fascinating, and I’d studied both in college and grad school. I worked at Meredith Long & Company in the early 90s, where I penned press releases to pitch to the Chronicle and the Post. Then in the mid-1990s, after a stint at a local auction house, I approached Public News, a scrappy alternative weekly (later acquired by the Houston Press) and voila, got a chance to be a contributor. When the actual art editor decamped, I stepped in and so began

a weekly column. Incredibly, this was before the internet, pre-email, no Facebook. In Houston the press corps was welcomed and it didn’t matter that a writer was a complete novice – you were granted access to artists, museum directors, and curators. My big break came after Public News folded in the late 1990s, and PaperCity Editor in Chief Holly Moore agreed to give arts coverage a try.

I came on staff full time in 2004 and the rest has been a fascinating, fortuitous path.

HW: When you think about your path as a writer, what

articles have you written that stand out to you as formative to your voice?

MG: It’s impossible to choose. I used to write more essays, not necessarily about art, and one of the strongest was “Loved to Death,” for Texas Monthly. It told the story behind my parents’ death from AIDS in the early 1990s.

RK: The most fun to write was my 2014 comparison of rocks in the Houston Museum of Natural Science collection with artworks. It’s not nearly as boring as it sounds. The article explores natural rock formations and how they resemble architecture, paintings, and sculptures. The one I probably worked hardest on, and I’m proudest of for that hard work, was my 2015 review of the Mark Rothko show last year at the MFAH. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t like the show.)

CA: Sharon Kopriva, Bert Long Jr., and McKay Otto are very special because of what they taught about the artist’s

feature 25

intent – and sensitivity – as well as being my first extended interviews in the 1990s. They opened my eyes and brought me into a network of fellow artists, and the rich Texas scene. Recently, meeting and interviewing senior painters Michael Chow [aka Mr. Chow] and Neltje [Doubleday] – including studio visits respectively in L.A. and Wyoming – were revelatory, and offered bigger insights about the challenges of being Chinese or a woman in 21st-century art world and beyond.

an exclusive. Or cover in a special way. It’s essential to ask artists what they’re working on – as well as museum curators, so big stories, or developing happenings can be tracked. The grass roots and the off-the-radar are some of the most exciting articles to write about.

HW: What kind of research do you do when prepping for an article? What advice do you offer for new writers in seeking out stories?

MG: I have never forgotten what James Turrell once told me, which I think is a good standard: “I like art that has some ambition to it.” Beyond that, I want to be moved in some way, intellectually or emotionally. Good art should not tell you what to think; it should inspire you to think for yourself. It goes without saying that the technique, in whatever medium the artist employs, must be wellexecuted.

RK: First of all, there is good art and bad art, despite what some muddle-headed people would like to believe. So thank you for the question. Good art is 80% idea and 20% skill … maybe 70/30. Superlative craftsmanship is luscious and desirable and I’m always happy to see it. I’ll forgive a lot if a piece is exceptionally well-made. But craftsmanship alone doesn’t make something art. I see artwork all the time that demonstrates technical competence, and yes, if you saw it in your dentist’s office, you’d be impressed, but it’s fundamentally just decoration. It doesn’t say a thing

MG: Depends on the article. Generally I start with Google to see what’s out there about the subject. If the story involves an art exhibition, I of course view the show, often with the artist or curator, and read the catalog if one has been produced. Depending on the depth of the story, I may also interview others, including people who are not directly involved with the project.

RK: I always try to talk to people who know more than I do.

They’re easy to find.

CA: Begin with the press release, but then dig in. Ask questions and seek a deeper level. Ask for a studio visit, curator interview, or hang around after the press conference to look more closely. But most importantly, be on the grapevine, know what is up and coming. Ask for the scoop,

HW: This is a question I hear those who are new to the appreciation of art ask often, so I’ll pose it here: What’s makes art “good” or “bad”?

arthouston 26

worth saying about the world you and I live in every day.

This is especially true of painting. As for ideas, mostly the ideas out there are boring, or obvious, or repetitive, or just absent. You see these vacuous installations with some sort of conceptual underpinning trussed up as “intellectual,” and you have to read a mile of wall text to get the gist, and it’s still like eating uncooked oatmeal to look at them. (This is the “pile of trash in a gallery representing algorithms of endangered species” syndrome.) Kunsthalles are particularly guilty of encouraging this kind of thing.

Good visual art succeeds visually, of course, as well as mentally: the eye and the brain are both engaged when considering it. As for bad art, I think truly bad art is rare.

The majority of art is just middling. It’s fine, but it’s nothing I want to write about.

CA: Art must have intent and be about more than technique.

It should not be decorative, but about an idea. Also, good art is not made looking over the artist’s shoulder but by being aware of forebears and inspiration (if the artist is not an outsider); it should mirror that artist’s own way of seeing the world. It can bubble up anywhere, so it is important to seek out new artists, or look closely at artists who may be overlooked who have been on the scene for years. Ed Wilson is a case in point. There are plenty of talents in Houston who deserve museums shows and are under vastly appreciated. The obsessive, original H.J. Bott comes to mind.

The CAMH’s focus on Houston makers is a welcome ongoing series in that direction.

HW: Do you think your commentary can have power to

influence the art scene? Do you feel like you need to audit yourself because of this? Why or why not?

MG: Anyone can participate in the scene these days via social media and blogs. That said, the Chronicle has a huge, diverse audience. I do not aim to “influence” the scene, but when I can start a conversation, contribute to one or help to right a wrong, I voice my opinion as appropriate. Sometimes what you don’t say is as strong as what you do say.

I do not “audit” myself, but as a newspaper journalist I am ethically bound to present issues fairly in reported stories that are not presented as arts criticism or opinion.

RK: God, I hope so. I wish so. One of the few rules we have at Glasstire is “never punch down.” If you’re going to really eviscerate a show (which we do very rarely), you pick on a target that can take it.

CA: Our role at PaperCity is less of being a critic, more of being a Sherpa. Readers just need to be pointed in a direction or made aware. My boss says “Aim high, or aim low, but never muck around in between.” We like to cover off-theradar places showing authentic art that in a few years may appear in a Whitney Biennial – alongside extraordinary events like the current Degas exhibition at the MFAH.

HW: Writers often have the privilege of seeing around the next bend in the river. What do you think is the most exciting thing happening in Houston art right now, and what do you see as the future of art in Houston?

MG: Sophisticated public art projects that engage people and inspire imagination are a strong point right now, especially in Houston’s parks, and I am happy to see civic leaders proclaiming art is essential to our lives. I also appreciate the diversity and breadth of Houston’s art ecosystem right now: It’s still small enough to be a community but encompasses such a wide range – big institutions, mid-sized organizations, artist-run venues and commercial galleries. It’s crazy how much of an appetite Houstonians have for art, and thrilling.

Looking forward, the expansions of the MFAH and the Menil are going to elevate the scene another notch, as will new venues such as the Moody Center for the Arts. CAMH, the Blaffer, Lawndale, and DiverseWorks are pushing the envelope already by presenting work by artists with hardto-define, often multi-disciplinary practices. In the future, in Houston as elsewhere, the most engaging art experiences are going to be less about standing in front of objects and more about sensory immersion.

RK: At the risk of sounding jingoistic and obnoxious, I think Texas is the future of our country, and therefore I think Texas will be the future center of art production here. We’ll never have museum collections like New York, but we’ve got the necessary “do whatever the hell you want” attitude.

Right now Houston hosts a lot of large-scale projects, from Houston Sculpture Month at the silos to the cistern at Buffalo Bayou. There’s more civic energy around art, which is good. Houston’s biggest strength is its relatively large population of people who buy art in the $5,000 - $25,000 range. It’s what keeps our commercial galleries going. What we need more of is artist-driven spaces and endeavors – the grassroots action has been a little tame as of late.

Artists need to remember it’s their job to drive the conversation, not the powers that be.

CA: It is a great time with the third MFAH building and new Glassell coming 2018 into 2019, the Menil Drawing Institute and the 30th anniversary of the Menil Collection fall 2017, ensuring Houston will be on the international art map. There’s also heroic research being done here on our art history from the standpoint of the artists and curators that forged the scene – artists Dorothy Hood, the epic Bert Long Jr., Suzanne Paul, and museum man and iconic curator Jim Harithas. In terms of the scene, the most exciting story today is the explosion of new spaces, usually artist-driven, adding a dose of raw energy reminiscent of the 1970s and the mid-1990s, challenging us all to participate, look, think and for the collectors, to acquire and support.

T H E

feature 27

F I N E A R T O F P RINTIN G

Absolute Color is a Quality printing company based in Houston, Texas.

Our Fortune 500 company customers know us for our superior quality printing, low discounted pricing and exceptional service.

We offer the best online pricing calculator in the industry to ensure that you are saving the most money on all your printing and signage needs 5810 Windfern Road Houston, TX 77041-6215 713-996-0202 absolutecolor.com

arthouston 28

29

All images courtesy of Johnston Marklee / Nephew

MENIL DRAWING INSTITUTE

THE

MDI Opening Will Lead the Way Toward Gala Commemoration of the Menil Collection’s 30 th Anniversary.

BY Arthur D emi cheli

arthouston 30

T h e M e n i l D r a w i n g I n s t i t u t e has been a program of the Menil since 2008, organizing major traveling exhibitions and undertaking scholarly projects including preparation of the catalogue raisonné of the drawings of Jasper Johns. MDI’s home, designed by the Los Angeles based firm of Johnston Marklee with the collaboration of landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, will be the fifth art building on the Menil’s 30-acre campus, joining the celebrated main museum building, the Cy Twombly Gallery, the site-specific Dan Flavin installation at Richmond Hall, and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel (now a venue for long-term installations of contemporary art), which are situated amid green spaces and residential bungalows.

To celebrate completion of the 30,000-square-foot, $40 million MDI building, the Menil will organize two exhibitions of major gifts of art that have transformed the museum’s growing collection of drawings.

From February 23 through June 18, 2017, in its main museum building, the Menil will present The Beginning of Everything: Drawings from the Janie C. Lee, Louisa Stude Sarofim, and David Whitney Collections. The wide-ranging exhibition will feature almost one hundred master drawings, which represent a selection of the gifts promised to the Menil by Trustees Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim and bequeathed in 2005 by David Whitney. Johnston Marklee’s Menil Drawing Institute building, opening October 7, 2017, will be inaugurated with The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns, an exhibition spanning the artist’s entire career.

Rebecca Rabinow, Director of the Menil Collection, said, “The Menil Collection opened its greatly admired main building in 1987 with an installation of artworks that John and Dominique de Menil resolved to make accessible to the public, free of charge and in perpetuity. As we approach our 30th anniversary, it is wonderfully appropriate that we inaugurate a new building dedicated to drawing, a medium that speaks to the essence of creativity. The opening exhibition celebrates masterworks donated by three of the museum’s most generous patrons. We eagerly look forward to welcoming visitors to our upcoming exhibitions, to commemorating our anniversary, and to debuting the new Menil Drawing Institute.”

Development of the Menil Drawing Institute is funded through a $115 million Campaign for the Menil. The campaign supports additional capital projects including construction of a new Energy House, expansion and enhancement of green spaces, and improvement and refurbishment of infrastructure, as well as an increase in the endowment, enabling the Menil Collection to always remain free of charge. Rebecca Rabinow has announced that the campaign has now passed the $100 million mark.

The act of drawing gives a material trace to thought and transcends many disciplines. It is as valuable to the choreographer, composer, and architect as it is to the visual artist. “When I see a white piece of paper,” Ellsworth Kelly once remarked, “I feel like I’ve got to draw.

And drawing, for me, is the beginning of everything.”

Acknowledging the primary place of drawing in creative life, the exhibition The Beginning of Everything: Drawings from the Janie C. Lee, Louisa Stude Sarofim, and David Whitney Collections will be on view exclusively at the Menil Collection from February 23 through June 18, 2017. Artists represented in the exhibition include Magdalena Abakanowicz, Frank Auerbach, Balthus, George Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Vija Celmins, Paul Cézanne, Willem de Kooning, Edgar Degas, Dan Flavin, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Gober, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Lee Krasner, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Piet Mondrian, Bruce Nauman, Georgia O’Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly, Rachel Whiteread, and Terry Winters.

To inaugurate the MDI building in autumn 2017, the Menil will be the exclusive venue for The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns. The title of the exhibition comes from a notebook entry Johns made in 1968. By not establishing a predetermined path through the exhibition, either physically or chronologically, the exhibition aims to emulate the profound capacity in Johns’s art to give the viewer a better sense of his or her place, the poetry, and mechanics of being present. With the promised gifts from Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim of 15 Johns drawings and 17 drawings in the bequest from David Whitney the Menil is now one of the world’s largest repositories of drawings by Johns and a primary institution for viewing and studying this important aspect of the artist’s practice.

The exhibition will trace both the chronology of the career as well as the artist’s recurrent use of images.

Johns works in motifs—not in series—so, for example, that the target or the flag reappear in his art over decades.

The exhibition will include drawings made in graphite, ink, charcoal, watercolor, colored pencil, acrylic, water-soluble encaustic, pastel, powdered graphite, gouache, and oil stick, on surfaces ranging from paper to plastic.

This will be the third exhibition of works by Jasper Johns presented at the Menil Collection, following Jasper Johns: The Sculptures (1996) and Jasper Johns: Drawings (2003).

Additionally, for the past 6 years, the Menil has undertaken the research and preparation of assembling the complete drawings of Jasper Johns. The Jasper Johns Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings will include more than 800 works including their exhibition and publication histories.

31

Jasper Johns, Study for 1st Version of Map (Based on Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Airocean World), 1967. Pastel over Photostat on paper, Image: 24 ½ x 51 3/16 in. The Menil Collection, Houston, Bequest of David Whitney. © Jasper Johns / VAGA, New York

“ As we approach our 30th anniversary, it is wonderfully appropriate that we inaugurate a new building dedicated to drawing, a medium that speaks to the essence of creativity.

”

Rebecca Rabinow Georgia O’Keeffe, From a River Trip, 1962. Charcoal on paper, 24 ½ x 18 5/8 in. Collection of Janie C. Lee. © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society, New York

arthouston 32

ShowcasingTexas Art

The William Reaves and Sarah Foltz art gallery is a unique Houston destination. Established in 2006, they’re the only Houston gallery devoted to showcasing the best of Texas art and artists.

Fascinated, I decided to dig further into the history of their gallery and their professional collaboration and perspectives on art.

Jacqueline Patricks:

William, did you intend for the gallery to be centered on Texas specific art and artists, or did that evolve?

William Reaves: It was always our

intention to focus on important Texas art and artists, an area in which we held an abiding interest for many years. As collectors, my wife, Linda, and I realized that Houston and its artists played a vital role in the development of Texas’ visual arts history; however, no Houston art gallery was actively showing or promoting it.

BY jacqueline patri cks Ph oto graphy by jo hn bernhard

Sarah Foltz and William Reaves in their gallery.

Photo by John Bernhard

JP: Since you opened the gallery, how has it grown?

WR: The gallery has been fortunate to receive great support from art patrons across the state, as well as avid collectors within the local art community. Therefore, we’ve experienced significant growth in all facets of our operation—sales, artists, staff, space, and art inventory. We opened with a group of about seven active artists, almost all local modernists from the 50s and 60s. Today we represent over 25 living artists and three major estates. We opened

33

arthouston 34

in a small gallery on Brun Street—a retrofitted cottage, really. In 2015, we moved to our current location at 2143 Westheimer, which affords us multiple galleries and about two and half times more space. .

JP: Sarah, do you think Texas art/artists are undervalued?

Sarah Foltz: The focus on art

centers like New York and Los Angeles and the international rise in globalization of the art market does make it a challenge to assert the importance of our own artists and gain recognition outside the state. However, this is a noble cause in our mind as many of the artists’ work merit recognition.

JP: Was there ever a time when you

doubted the gallery would be successful?

SF: Despite what some may think, running an art gallery is not an easy business. You have to work hard every day while always planning for the next season, or the next big project. It’s a fine balance, and there are moments when worry creeps in about short term concerns, but we’ve been fortunate to work with a great group of artists, collectors, and patrons. We’re grateful for their continued interest and support of our gallery’s mission.

JP: How do your work styles complement and contrast each other?

SF: While our backgrounds are very

It’s always been part of the gallery’s mission to “reintroduce” the forgotten greats of Texas art through our exhibitions, catalogues, lectures, and book/ museum projects. We view scholarship, education, and art appreciation as a priority. It’s encouraging to see past endeavors culminating into wider appreciation and renewed interest in the artists and artistic progressions within Texas.

different, we work well together as we have similar approaches and appreciation for the art and the history of Texas. Bill’s has been collector and a vocational-art historian of Texas art for over 40 years, and he’s worked in higher education administration while my background is as an appraiser and art historian. I received my M.A. from SMU where I focused my thesis on postwar Texas and Latin American Art.

We agree on programming and presentation while constantly discussing new ideas on how to integrate current artists with future projects. Our biggest difference is in our aesthetic preferences. Bill prefers bright colors, reds and oranges, and I’m drawn to more monochromatic, bluegrey palettes. We can usually guess which painting the other will prefer, which helps keep a balance when selecting artwork for exhibition.

JP:

Do either of you have any favorite themes you like to use in your displays?

WR: We enjoy showing a broad range of periods and styles of Texas art.

We deliberately try to “mix it up” as it relates to Texas work in order to demonstrate the quality and diversity of Lone Star material. We attempt to show “best of kind” for each period and always try to broaden collector knowledge and perspective.

SF: Our exhibition programming emphasizes the three “pillars” or “strands” of Texas art that we concentrate on Early / Historic Texas Art, Modernism,

35

Texas arts grace the walls of the 4,200 square foot gallery located on Westheimer Road. Photos by John Bernhard

and Contemporary Texas Regionalism.

When able, we make connections and illustrate the threads running between these genres.

JP: When patrons visit, what do you

hope they experience?

SF:

We hope our patrons feel comfortable and welcome during first and repeat visits. We want them to be impressed by the caliber of art and enjoy an incredible viewing experience. We hope they’ll feel informed. We strive to give each patron courteous service and ensure all acquisitions with us are their most memorable art-buying experiences. Finally, we hope they’ve learned something new about Texas.

JP: What vision do you have for the

gallery? Texas art?

SF:

I think we’re witnessing an exciting time of reassessment and resurgence of interest in Texas Art History, both early historic work and midcentury modernism. Within the past few years, numerous publications and major museum exhibitions have focused on different aspects of Texas artists and art history, including the Art Museum of South Texas at Corpus Christi recent exhibitions Bayou City Chic: Progressive Streams of Modern Art in Houston Art, 1945-1975 and the Dorothy Hood retrospective.

Scholar Katie Robinson Edwards’ recent publication of Midcentury

Modern Art in Texas is the first seminal text to lay the foundation for an overview of Texas art history. From this text, current and future scholars will be able to delve deeper into individual artists and movements.

When the gallery began, it was pre1975, but as we progress, I think that cut-off date needs to progress as well.

Art History is fluid and does not end with a certain date. We will continue devoting ourselves to Texas art and artists, telling the story of Texas Art, and reaching into the 21st century.

arthouston 36

to reach

beyond

usual the

An Intimate Look at Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s Art & Words Collaborative Show.

BY L a y l a A l - B e d a w i

Creative inspiration is a strange animal. The magic of not knowing

where a certain piece came from is something that I, as a writer of unusual, fantastical stories and poems, am intimately familiar with.

When I first learned of the Art & Words show in which visual artists and writers create work inspired by each other’s pieces, I was exhilarated by the concept, if not a little nervous when I made the decision to send one of my poems in to her call for submissions. Every year, Forth Worth writer Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam receives submissions from across the country, from which she chooses 12 pieces of visual art and 12 written works. The chosen writers then each pick an artwork and write a new story or poem inspired by it, and vice versa. The resulting 24 pieces of art are then exhibited alongside their 24 corresponding stories and poems at Art on the Boulevard, a longstanding Fort Worth gallery owned and operated by artist Jennifer Stufflebeam, Bonnie’s mother.

37

James Rosin, Self-Proclaimed Kings. (The very special piece Layla Al-Bedawi picked as inspiration)

arthouston 38

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam and her mother Jennifer Stufflebeam in the gallery during the 2016 Art & Words Show.

Growing up immersed in art, Bonnie helped out at the gallery and attended auctions from a young age. Her first paycheck, at age sixteen, was spent on a painting. And yet, Bonnie found that her own creative passions lay elsewhere. “I always gravitated toward storytelling,” Bonnie admits. “In the midst of all that art, I wrote and illustrated storybooks about my cat and her adventures. I wrote fiction and poetry all throughout my youth and ran writing clubs in middle and high school with my friends. I majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, because I couldn’t imagine concentrating so much attention on anything else.”

compositions. And in spite of being the organizer of an annual interdisciplinary collaborative show, experiencing her own work through someone else’s art form has not lost its magic for Bonnie. “It was amazing to hear his aural interpretations, specifically how in-depth he was in considering the stories. To hear the direct result of someone analyzing it that deeply was quite moving and affirming. That’s one of the things I hope to give people through Art & Words: that sense of affirmation, that step back that allows them to see their work as someone else might see it, in all its nuance. Also, to inspire people to work and get to know people across genres. To step outside the comfort zone.”

When I discovered that my poem had been accepted to the show, I was elated—but there was that nervousness again. The night I waited for the link to the pieces of art from which I was to pick one (with instructions from Bonnie to choose fast, as many pieces are typically gone within minutes) I was on pins and needles, and when the email finally arrived, I didn’t let myself think too hard. That’s how I ended up making an unexpected choice. I often gravitate towards abstract art, art that lets me decide what story to see. But in a spur-of-the-moment move, I decided to give myself an additional challenge and chose a painting I found intriguing because it was clearly already telling a story. Strange, boulder-like men rose from the ground, with one large, thick-knuckled hand gripping scorched earth in the foreground. Settling in to write, the details of the image kept nagging me, demanding to creep their way into my story. Self-Proclaimed Kings, the piece was titled, and the men were indeed wearing crowns. But they were also wearing suit jackets. Their faces looked simultaneously menacing and clownish. What story did I want to tell? And how to tell it in a way that respected the artist, James Rosin’s, intent?

This, for me, is one of the central benefits of the project: not just interdisciplinary collaboration and inspiration, but a reach beyond what you think you want to do, what you can do. Walking the line between honoring the original piece while wandering off the path far enough to make your own piece more than a description, a caption, taught me as much about my own writing as it did about looking— really looking—at art. But the other side of the project is equally important. Suedabeh Ewing, a watercolor artist from Wylie, TX, chose my poem to create her own beautiful abstract interpretation of it. Getting to meet Suedabeh and the other artists on the show’s opening night, hearing the writers read their pieces and talk about their process, and seeing my own work reflected in someone else’s art were experiences I won’t forget soon.

The show is not Bonnie’s only collaborative project.

Strange Monsters, an album she put out with her partner, jazz musician Peter Brewer, features actors reading a selection of her short stories set to his original jazz

For writers and readers, for artists and art lovers alike, the Art & Words show is a unique event that offers a rare and surprisingly intimate glimpse into the inner workings of inspiration.

To learn more about Bonnie, her writing, and her collaborative projects, visit bonniejostufflebeam.com.

Submissions to Art & Words are open from March 1-31, 2017.

Art on the Boulevard 4919 Camp Bowie Boulevard Suite B, Fort Worth, TX 76107 817.737.6368 https://artontheboulevard.com/

39

arthouston 40

41

Kings in Converse, mixed media, 48”x64” in.

Conspiring

beauty’ s meaning

Lyle Carbajal Brings His Resplendent Series to Art League Houston

BY Meghan Hendley-Lopez O p e n i n g J a n u a r y 2 7 , 2 0 1 7 a t A r t L e a g u e Houston, Lyle Carbajal’s latest exhibition Romancing Banality features a visual synthesis of folk and contemporary themes straining through the essences of art history along with references in the realms of culture, economics, and geography. The additional layer of personal references and experiences from travels will create an allencompassing installation of substantially layered mixed media paintings. Carbajal’s lucid yet unpolished style further propels his narrative from a nomadic viewpoint through not only his paintings but also through his work in sculptural formations that forge found materials to new visual traditions. Images found in the paintings are all familiar to a viewer but the way Carbajal presents them elevates their meaning while still adhering to their original vibration in the culture that created them, the culture that cradles their meaning and allows for a lingering imprint of their existence from interactions.

As an artist, Lyle Carbajal has had the continuous opportunity to elevate what an average person can or is willing to do over time. After shedding the staleness of his work as designer and editorial illustrator in Silicon Valley, Carbajal found himself drawn to being on the other side that cultivated ideas and visuals

verses cranking out cogs into a corporate machine. Around this first initial twinge outside the daily grind, Carbajal was asked by a client to take part in a solo exhibition of his more detailed work.

“I always had told myself that if an opportunity arose to show as a painter, it would qualify as some sort of signal that would allow me to fully realize my potential…”, says Carbajal. “This new chapter in my artistic career enabled me to begin the process of building a concept and developing the visual language seen in my work today. In those first few years, I attempted to juxtapose illustration and fine art by developing them simultaneously.”

Although his own hand was being developed and expressed outside the confines of his day to day, Carbajal quickly realized the vast abyss between his corporate work and his fine art work.

Attempting to keep all the plates spinning, he quickly noticed that both endeavors began to wear on his creativity. Carbajal decided to quit his illustrative position in order to fully develop his love and talent in the realms of visual arts.

This newfound freedom has lead to an intricate live bound together by travel and experiences, something that is fluidly and beautifully expressed in his work. When asked about the drastic change from one life to another, Carbajal notes that he made the

arthouston 42

right decision: “In that world, I found myself doing a whole lot of floating so to speak. I’m now swimming. It’s a different way of looking; a different way of living your life.”

Carbajal has held steadfast to the promise to not just travel but live and settle in various cities. His reverence for regionalism has had an impact on his personality and artwork for the better.

Through physical moves across landscapes, Carbajal has found flow in his life rippled into his pieces. “I’ve always envisioned a life for myself moved by arts and culture; art in the sense of what I understood the word to mean at an early age, and what that life would look like which turned out to be needing to change.

Impressionable experiences in various cities Lyle Carbajal inhabited shifted his perception on art. Specific appreciation of the cumulating of cultures has transported him from city to city, region to region. In the early 2000s, Cabrajal began to unearth a side of California that was far removed from the corporate clutter.

One particular gallery propelled him forward, igniting his imagination and desire to travel.

“During the summer of 2001, a friend introduced me to La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles’ now trendy Silverlake neighborhood, an area home to an eclectic gathering of hipsters, artists, and members of the city’s creative class. The gallery’s objective has been to introduce underground artists and counterculture to a larger public.”

Through this conscious collision with this populist art movement, Carbajal found himself moving towards a different direction than where he started. About a year later after his time in L.A., he found himself in Tennessee after being invited to exhibit with a small gallery in Nashville’s growing Hillsboro Village. One weekend turned into four years and with this southern stint, Carbajal had newfound appreciation for the appeal of ordinary objects.

Objects that were without an author or single creator whose significance to their surrounding culture were overlooked in the day to day.

In 2011, Carbajal settled in Seattle where he first started prepping ideas for his continuous series that will be featured here in our city.

“I found myself surrounded with people, friends, and colleagues whom first encouraged and then enabled what has become this traveling project so Romancing Banality is really modeled after my lifestyle with the city then acting as both subject and muse… it is a combination of these early impressions along with a recent trip to the Philippines that find their way into this latest project to be featured at Art League Houston.”

The result of this series combines cultural heritage both drawn from Carbajal’s background and through his interaction with other regions reflected upon through his journeys. Graffiti-style imagery unencumbered in nature dance with a primitive hand as

43

Left: Installation show in Nashville. Above: Untitled, mixed media, 40”x48” in.

“In that world, I found myself doing a whole lot of floating so to speak.

I’m now swimming. It’s a different way of looking; a different way of living your life.”

a colorful palate becomes the conversation that vibrates through the work. Subtlety and nuance hide within the shadows of the lines as the collaboration of culture including ideas and esthetic challenge the meaning of context.

“One of the challenges I sought out for myself when first developing Romancing Banality was to have it be a sight specific installation that would grow in size and scope with every iteration or city. This increase in dimension serves two purposes: to consistently challenge my ability and perceptions as an artist and also to incorporate the projects new location and regional culture by utilizing its elements and talents like local writers, artisans, and musicians.

The Houston iteration of Romancing Banality will have an entirely new film broader in scope and length than the project’s previous film but similarly filmed entirely in Juarez Mexico.

I developed the film along side Jaime Fernández, an artist and colleague whom among the job of shooting and editing the film, was responsible for the prop creations and recruiting the films extras. The film will be an important aspect to the project in similar way the 20+ paintings, musical rap opera or environmental and structural builds are.”

Viewers will have the chance to see how the presentation of this series will be framed within the constructs of our city’s cultural configuration, something that has presented a visual test for the artist and will yield a bountiful display of both visual and imaginative configurations that revere the origins of cultures.

The exhibition is on view until March 11, 2017.

Where

Art

Y e a r s o f h a r d w o r k a n d f o r wa r d t h i n k i n g have paid big dividends for Midtown Houston, transforming the area into a shining gem in Houston’s cultural and urban landscape. Just two decades ago, the Midtown Houston community, south of Downtown and north of the Museum District comprised of sections of Third and Fourth Wards, was filled with vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

The resulting residential flight and absence of businesses made this community ripe for a cultural arts inundation.

Consequently, modern-day Midtown Houston has experienced an explosive growth of arts, businesses, idyllic expanses of green space, and a blend entertainment and a vibrant nightlife scene.

This phenomenal growth, coupled with the exciting cultural amenities, has sparked a resurgence of live, work, and play options in Midtown Houston, underscoring its development as a vibrant, thriving community.

The Midtown Houston renaissance began in the early 1990s with the investment of highly successful mixed-use developments that created a transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly environment.

Named the most walkable neighborhood in Houston by WalkScore, clearly Midtown Houston was onto something.

In 2010 the community began the process of applying for a State of Texas Cultural Arts Designation. After months of public meetings, extensive community input, and numerous letters of support from area elected officials, arts organizations, and businesses, the application was submitted to the Texas Commission on the Arts.

aa rrtt hh oo uussttoo nn 54 64

Happens:

The validation of Midtown’s cultural success came in 2012 when the District was awarded the Cultural Arts and Entertainment Designation, a first for a management district in the state. The Texas Commission on the Arts designated the Midtown Cultural Arts and Entertainment District as a special zone that harnesses the power of cultural resources to stimulate economic development and community revitalization. With the designation, the District became a focal point for generating businesses, creating jobs, attracting tourists, stimulating cultural development, creating new audiences and arts patrons, and fostering civic pride. In 2012 there were approximately 23 arts organizations located in the community; today there are well over 90 arts organizations in the community with every type of visual and performing art represented. The designation has brought jobs to the area, increased awareness of the community, and provided the opportunity for Midtown Houston to apply for state, national and foundation grant funding to complete needed projects that will keep the community in the forefront of the arts in Texas.

Midtown Houston also represents the future of arts and entertainment in communities. A number of Houston’s most highly regarded long standing arts organizations and some new innovative upstarts call the Midtown Cultural Arts and Entertainment District home. The Midtown Cultural Arts and Entertainment Committee, led

by Eileen Morris (artistic director for The Ensemble Theater), meets monthly with area artists and arts organizations to develop projects

feature 45

Midtown Arts District

by Cynthia Alvarado

Midtown Love you mural by Eyeful Art. Lead artist: Sebastien “Mr.D” Boileau, and artists: Serty and Alex “Zu”Arzu. Photography by Aisha Khan. and seed new ideas that will benefit the entire community and further strengthen the economic impact of the arts in Midtown Houston.

Today, Midtown Houston is a beacon of light in the arts business and cultural scene. Fifty-eight percent of the area’s population of around 10,000 is between the ages 25 and 55, and the median age is 32. This particular age group view cultural arts as more than attending an opera or ballet. There is no doubt that technology and social media have rapidly changed audience behaviors and expectations, particularly as it relates to cultural arts and the way it is presented and experienced. This is a pivotal moment as it relates to the continued growth of the artistic community.

There is a deep need for diverse options; audiences want to interface with a wide array of culturally enriching programs and events in traditional venues like a theatre or gallery setting, as well as experimental spaces, such as warehouses or in an outdoor public park. In fact, people want to live a culturally enriched life, from the foods they eat, to the streets they walk, to the aesthetic beauty of architecture and iconic public art that marks a community. Serving as a touchstone for the culturally aware who want to engage the artistic history and future of Houston.

Taking a cue from successful urban planning, green spaces are a must for thriving cultural communities, and Midtown Houston has four spectacular parks: Baldwin Park, Glover Park, Bagby Park, and soon-to-open Midtown Park. All of these parks offer

cultural arts programming, such as fine art festivals, holiday markets, outdoor concerts, and play readings. Public art is also a key component in these parks. For instance, as part of the annual Art in the Park event, the community commissioned the famed “Love you” mural on the wall of a building that once stood on the site that is now under construction for Midtown Park. In 2013 this mural was the largest mural in the city. Midtown Houston also participated in the City Wide Mini Murals Program, a project to paint utility boxes at key intersections throughout the city; these designs bring public art up close and personal to the pedestrian, a perfect fit for Midtown, regarded as the most walkable community in Houston Another recent first for Midtown Houston is the outdoor Mistletoe Market. Taking a cue from urban holiday markets in other larger cities this holiday inspired project will become an annual event. Midtown has also secured grant funding to develop a new cultural arts website and completed a 10-Year Cultural Arts Master Plan. This plan will serve as a guide for the district to create new and exciting collaborative projects that will continue to propel Midtown Houston as a key destination for the arts tourist.

Its vitality serves as a reminder of both how far Midtown Houston has come, and its potential.

For more informations visit: midtownhouarts.com.

The Sawyer Yards Creative Campus located in the heart of the Washington Avenue Arts District, just a mile from downtown Houston, is densely occupied by art studios, galleries, theaters, boutiques, restaurants, breweries and fitness centers.

Sawyer Yards is home to a multitude of artists, but also to new creative entities like Writefest, FreshArt, magazine publishing houses, and theater performances. Additionally Sawyer Yards presents curated exhibitions and open house events including the Spring and Fall Biannual, the Summer show and the December Holiday event. Over the past few years, projects and events have included: SITE Houston at the Silos, an 800 foot Mural Wall, a curated Sculpture Month exhibition, and a monthly Arts and Craft market.

The 36 acre campus comprises multiple industrial buildings bearing names like Winter Street, Spring Street, Silver Street, Summer Street and The Silos. All buildings were repurposed with over 300 studios and galleries where a wide range of artists create and sell their work. Additionally, there are over 150 studios

B Y S usa n n a h Mi t c h e ll & J o h n B e r n h a r d

The Nation’sMost Creative Neighborhood.

S AW Y E R YA R D S

Around the U.S., creative communities seem to gravitate to historical and industrial neighborhoods that once faced a period of decline and Sawyer Yards is the perfect example of a successful move towards that direction.

arthouston 46

within a half-mile radius of the campus, thus forming the highest concentration of artists in the nation.

An outdoor plaza, called Art Alley, and several indoor galleries regularly host free art walks, exhibitions and markets- offering the public unique access to a myriad styles of fine arts, fine crafts, artisan jewelry and handmade goods. The large-scale public events hosted in the Silver Street event space also serves as major weekend draw, attracting over 150,000 visitors in 2016.

The Sawyer Yards project is the culmination of a decade of organic and market driven growth and is now managed through a partnership of three distinct development entities – The Deal Company, Western General and Lovett Commercial. The project’s overall design and development has happened in phases, tapping a range of architecture and design firms for innovative solutions to challenges such as parking and walkability.

The neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying—some might say the process has already reached its apogee—but the bars and cafés, boutiques and salons that continue to open here play an important role in the city’s creative community. Sawyer Yards is definitely one of Houston’s most important local arts and entertainment destinations.

The Formative Years, Discovering a Need The origins of Sawyer Yards can be traced back to the completion of Winter Street Studios in 2006, followed shortly by the opening of Spring Street Studios. Together, the renovated warehouses were converted into 150 artist studios and several gallery spaces. The first of its kind sanctioned in Houston, Winter Street Studios was issued the city’s first certificate of occupancy for legitimate artist studios. Remarkably unhampered by one of the

worst real estate markets in recent history, both buildings were fully leased within months of opening- revealing the great need for this type of space in Houston. The success of these projects, and the market demand they uncovered, became the catalyst for the eventual Sawyer Yards Creative Campus project.

To continue the expansion, Silver Street was acquired in 2014. The building once served as the Silver Eagle Distribution facility, and has

over 120,000-square-feet, encompassing 68 creative workspaces, a 20,000-square-foot event space and an impressive gallery corridor.

The largest project to date was completed in the fall of 2016. The old Riviana Rice silos and warehouses were converted into The Silos at Sawyer Yards, featuring 90 creative studios, multiple exhibition spaces and a world-renowned, experimental site-specific gallery inside of the old grain silos called SITE Gallery, which was recently featured in Arts and Culture Magazine.

summer

the silos

spring

silver

winter

47

Most recently, the removal of the old Union Pacific rail spur allowed for the creation of a connective outdoor plaza called Art Alley. This walkable space created easy access between the buildings and a new lively space for public programming, and furthered the identity as a single campus, rather than a group of buildings.

arthouston 48

Capturing Community Through Creativity KCAM Contemporary Art

Tucked into the historic downtown Katy in a repurposed lumber and supply store is the KCAM Contemporary Art Museum Fort Bend. Over the past 3 years of the museum’s existence, a constant current of eclectic electricity hosting social and cultural transformation to the greater Fort Bend area and neighboring regions has happened all through art. A place of conversation and collaboration, the mission of this establishment has been proven time and time again through the artistic vitality and progressive vision of Museum Founder, Director, and Curator Ana Villaronga-Roman. Surrounded by a competent and involved board and a network of art world game changers, the museum has been able to engage with the county and beyond by encouraging a deeper understanding of contemporary art.

Thriving as a self-sustaining community-centric art museum, the KCAM has been able to grab and hold the attention of its surrounding public with thought-provoking art exhibitions, effervescent educational programming, and unique art-centered events. KCAM stands as the only art museum in Fort Bend County and has continuously proven how the arts can be cultivated outside a major city’s core through remaining in a dialogue with major art institutions in Houston while forming their own voice in the visual arts. The museum is now actively engaged in a capital campaign to construct their own building that will host even more work and more communal art happenings in the future.

“I’m proud that our museum is still standing after an almost miraculous beginning and rough first three years…”, says Ana

feature 49

BY M e g h a n H e n d l e y- L o p e z

Museum Fort Bend Thrives Through Vision Villaronga-Roman. “…with the nature of the arts in our current culture and the intensity we have maintained over the past three years, I am not sure when I will be able to relax a bit, something always seems to come up. But with this we have exhibited such amazing artists, given back to the community through creative programming, and partnered with so many to make the arts flourish.

I have learned so much and matured tons. I’m thankful and amazed at the generosity of our members, artists and board members. It means so much to have their support.

This New Year brings many new beginnings. Among them, our first Go Texan Partnership exhibition via William Reaves / Sarah Foltz Fine Art, our current exhibition For the Love of Paper will travel outside the museum walls. We also have our first exhibition Photography by Srini Sundarrajan

that will tour overseas, traveling to Umbria, Italy, still in development. As the founder, I believe we crossed a line of some sort now, one that defines us as an important cultural organization.

I’m happy to say, we have the support of the county. We are looking forward to growing bigger and brighter in the coming years.”

Over time, Katy Contemporary Art Museum of Fort Bend has progressively grown in regional rapport and notice in arts circles.

From promoting local artists such as Ken Mazzu and Felipe Lopez, to dedicated exhibitions of young high school artists in the community, to showcasing established artists such as Roberta Harris and Ron Hartgrove, to displaying the vast talent in the state through their inaugural Texas Biggest 10 for Art Competition in 2016, the museum keeps reenergizing their space and their place in the arts.

arthouston 50

Photography by Srini Sundarrajan

“ I’m

proud that KCAM is still standing

KCAM has also been a cultural partner with the major art fairs in town the past couple of years, even providing profound work of local artists. Through the masterful intuitiveness of VillarongaRoman’s curatorial skills and leadership along with her trusted friends and aesthetic accomplices, the museum has honored many a medium while pushing the boundaries of the contemporary.

On the note of the contemporary, currently on view at the museum through January 15, 2017 is a series of works on paper that transform an artist’s view on pictoral space. Work expressed through drawings and collages, artist Alfredo Gisholt redefines the use of paper through exposing their pictoral structure through hues of gray, black, white, and sepia tones. This visual conversation on the duality of existence is also set to travel throughout Mexico in the New Year thanks to curator Mariana Debes.

after an almost miraculous beginning and rough first three years…

”

Also in the New Year, William Reaves | Sarah Foltz gallery, now one of the city’s premier art spaces, is teaming up with KCAM. Noted as one of the area’s most creative and dynamic suburban art centers to establish the Go Texan Fine Arts Partnership, both the gallery and the museum are ramping up a new public/private collaborative designed to bring the best of historical and contemporary Texas visual art to new audiences “outside the loop”. The innovative venture represents the first such partnership in the Houston area between a downtown gallery and a suburban art museum, and is aimed at increasing fine arts access outside the city center. This momentous forging only echoes the mission of the KCAM and will further prove how the tapestry of the visual arts is being reinforced repeatedly through vision and cooperation.

51

2000 Edwards Street, #218 Houston, TX 77007

Nich ole Dittmann

J e w e l r y

d e s i g n s

713-501-7290 nicholedittmann.com

Performing Arts Schedule HOUSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Jesse H. Jones Hall 615 Louisiana Street, Suite 100 713 227-4772

Andrés Orozco-Estrada, conductor

Andrés & West Side Story February 2 - 3 Yo-Yo Ma February 4 E.T. Film w/ Orchestra February 9 R&B Hitmakers February 17 - 19 Mardi Gras Menagerie!

February 18 Pictures at an Exhibition February 23 - 26 Eschenbach Conducts Bruckner March 4 - 5 Mendelssohn & Tchaikovsky March 9 - 12 Ben Folds March 16 Pink Martini Returns March 17 - 19 Beethoven 6 & 7 March 24 - 26 Beethoven’s Fidelio March 31 - April 2 Falla & Espana April 13 - 15 Exploring Mars April 18

The Pines of Rome April 20 - 23

arthouston 52

DA CAMERA 1402 Sul Ross 713 524-524-7601

Bond & Beyond April 28 - 30

A Little Day Music February 8, March 1, April 5, & May 3 (Foyer)

A New Requiem May 5 - 7

Christian Tetzlaff & Lars Vogt February 16 (Cullen)

Stravinsky’s Petrouchka May 11 - 14

Joshua Redman February 24 (Cullen)

Shaham Plus Brahms May 19 - 21

Brentano String Quartet March 3 (Cullen)

Classic Broadway May 26 - 28

Marquis Hill Blacktet March 11 (Cullen)

HOUSTON GRAND OPERA 510 Preston St. 713 546-0200

Requiem February 8 - 18, 2017 Some Light Emerges March 16 - 17

Terence Blanchard April 22 (Cullen) Vijay Iyer May 5 (Cullen)

THEATRE UNDER THE STARS 1475 West Gray 713 520-1220

2017 Ball April 8

An American in Paris February 21 -March 5

Gőtterdämmerung April 22 - May 7

Dreamgirls April 4 - 16

The Abduction from the Seraglio April 28 - May 12

Fun Home May 16 - 28

S C HE D ULE 5 3

HOBBY CENTER

Let The Right One In. Photo by Manuel Harlan

800 Bagby Street 713 315-2400

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time January 24 - 29 (Sarofim Hall) Scalable Heights February 12 (Zilkha Hall) Men are from Mars—Women are from Venus—Live!

March 9 - 12 (Zilkha Hall) The King & I March 14 - 19 (Sarofim Hall)

Alley Theatre 615 Texas Avenue 713 220-5700

DRY POWDER January 20 - February 12 Hubbard Theatre SYNCING INK February 3 - March 5 Neuhaus Theatre A Celebration of Reading April 20 (Sarofim Hall) Finding Neverland April 25 - 30 (Sarofim Hall) Don Quixote’s Excellent Adventures May 21 (Zilkha Hall) Something Rotten!

June 6 - 11 (Sarofim Hall) Disney’s The Lion King June 27 - July 23 (Sarofim Hall)

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN February 17 -March 19 Hubbard Theatre AN ACT OF GOD March 17 - April 16 Neuhaus Theatre A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE April 28 - May 21 Hubbard Theatre FREAKY FRIDAY June 2 - July 2 Hubbard Theatre

David Bintley’s The Tempest with Birmingham Royal Ballet Photography by Zena Holloway

HOUSTON BALLET Wortham Center, 500 Texas Avenue 713 227-2787

Cinderella March 2 - 12 Legends and Prodigy March 16 - 26 The Tempest May 25 - June 4 La Bayadère June 8 - 18

arthouston 54

E s s a y 5555

Art

Holly Walrath

What is art? It is a talent—a gift. The art of making friends requires subtlety and a willingness to play the fool. Art is a branch of learning, it’s the department of the college where the coolest students hang out in the wildest outfits, hidden away deep in the bowels of the basement and smelling of mineral spirits. For some art is an occupation requiring hard work and dedication, a desire to wake up each morning and hustle, a need to sell yourself.

We call artful the Dodger, that clever brigand and child thief. But most of all art is conscious skill and creative imagination boiled down to aesthetic. It may be decorative or illustrative alone, but better when it asks a question: What is art? Is it Degas or Picasso or Dali or Warhol? How does one separate the art from the artist? For the smallest orchid finely crafted by a gardener is more beautiful than a modern landscape. The brightest bulb on a string shining over newlyweds is more beautiful, fair star, than the brightest media installation. A bowl of soup made with love for a sick friend heals better than the most obscure sculpture. The right words spoken to a crowd incite more emotion than the drabbest watercolor. The sweetest song sung by a mother to her child is more lovely memory than a photograph. And yet, these canons of painting and drawing and sculpture are still essential. We call them fine—and in some hands they are just that—just fine. But in the hands of genius they take on their own magic. Works of art lead their own lives after they leave their creator’s mind.

One by one they travel through the consciousness of viewers and readers and listeners and spark a t h o u s a n d a s s o c i a t i o n s . O n e p e r s o n m a y l o o k upon a painting and see a tortured man, while another may see a revolution. Art is interpretable, uncontrollable, mercurial in wonderful ways. And it finds its way into s o m a n y p l a c e s we deem unmarketable. The most bold and eager art c a n b e f o u n d a l l a r o u n d u s — t h e c h a l k pa i n t e d o n a sidewalk or graffiti muraled on a brick wall, or else the busker’s compositions on the subway, t h e p o e t ’ s h a i k u o n b a t h r o o m w a l l s .

A r t i s s o m e t i m e s n o t f r e e a n d a r t i s n o t m o n e y .

A r t i s w h a t y o u w a n t i t t o b e .

arthouston 56

Reviews

Ashley Whitt, Mutation #1, Dass transfer on paper, 18”x37” in

Shayne Murphy, War Dance, 2016.

Oil and graphite on panel, 72”x48” in

Childs Pescatore & Ashley Whitt

SHAYNE MURPHY

The Jung Center Gallery

Anya Tish Gallery

The Jung Center Gallery presents two artists with very personal work – offering us a glimpse into both their personal consciousness as well as the collective.

In COMPOSITIONS: Dream Sequence I, self-taught Houston based artist and poet Childs Pescatore presents eighteen pen and ink drawings of dream images that inhabit our collective unconscious and the artist’s personal unconscious. Each composition/dream is accompanied by a poem written by the artist.

The photographs in The Haunted Mind emerged after the death of Ashley Whitt’s mother. This body of work addresses themes of duality, anxiety, and mortality. Multiple figures inhabit the frame to depict internal conflicts and the duality that exists within the self. Inspiration for the series comes from literature, film noir, nightmares, and an obsession with death.

For more than 50 years, The Jung Center has served as a nonprofit resource unique to Houston – a forum for dynamic and compelling conversations on a diverse range of psychological, artistic, and spiritual topics. The Jung Center’s building was originally designed as an art gallery and mounts approximately nine exhibits of work by both established and emerging artists each year. The Jung Center is an active member of the Houston Museum District. Admission to the gallery and opening receptions is free and open to the public.

Childs Pescatore’s exhibit will be on display February 2-27, 2017 and Ashley Whitt’s is on view February 11-27, 2017 The public is invited to a gallery reception celebrating both artists on Saturday, February 11, from 6:00-8:00 pm.

Houston-based artist Shayne Murphy’s work Fluorescent Gray visualizes the blurry line between reality and imagination. The artist integrates the opposing pictorial languages of realistic figuration and sharp, flat, geometric forms in a seamless alliance, conceiving hazy, dreamlike, glacial spaces.

Painstakingly perfect gradations of pigment, which could be mistaken for digitally rendered prints, live alongside smoky explosions of graphite that Murphy creates by hitting the tip of a pencil against the wood panel hundreds of times.

Executed in vibrant candy colors, blurry scribbles and clouds of dusty gray, these barren landscapes and their inhabitants beget an eerie atmosphere suggesting an existence somewhere between utopian and dystopian. Informed by his fascination in mythology, history, folklore and literature, Murphy assigns the occupants of his paintings specific archetypal roles—transient, protector, or destroyer—and depicts each character in a state of dynamic but halted action. Teetering between reality and reverie, Murphy’s work forces speculation of what we see, what we imagine, and whether these concepts are mutually exclusive.

Shayne Murphy holds an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of North Texas, and has exhibited his work across Texas in such venues as Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Texas A&M International University, Laredo; 500x Gallery, Dallas; Beaumont Art League, Beaumont; and the University of North Texas Main Gallery, Denton.

57

Fernando Botero, Standing Woman, 1998 Oil on canvas, 81” x 49” in

Justin Bower, Future Anesthetics, 2016 Oil on canvas, 6’ x 5’ ft

Fernando Botero

justin bower

For decades, Fernando Botero’s signature paintings and sculptures have spread across the world. He is a prolific artist, said to have produced over 3,000 paintings, over 300 sculptures, and a myriad drawings and pastels. Houstonians have a chance to see a major exhibition of this Latin American master at Art of the World Gallery. Both the exhibition and the gallery had a grand debut on October 28th and will be on display until February 11th, 2017. One of Botero’s oversized two-ton sculptures, Reclining Woman with Fruit, is featured outside the gallery at 2201 Westheimer Road.

What we have come to know as Boterismo dates back to the early sixties. That is when Botero’s signature style was born: impeccably executed portraits of people whose most conspicuous common denominator was their portliness. At first, the viewer might have thought that the rotundity of Botero’s subjects is a kind of social critique. In other words, that the artist is showing us that villains become obese as a moral result of their abuses, and their overindulgence in gluttony, greed, envy, mendacity, and such. But alas, the pictorial plumpness of Botero’s characters is no critique! Rather, it is an attribute shared equally by friends and foes, heroes and villains, victims and victimizers, literati and glitterati. The artist himself adamantly, albeit somewhat euphemistically, describes this conspicuous attribute of his figures as “volume.” In fact he has clearly stated, “I do not paint fatties. I have not painted a fat woman in my life. What I have done is to express volume as a part of sensuality.” By Fernando Castro R.

UNIX Gallery is presenting an explosive group show, Future Anesthetics featuring works by gallery artists Justin Bower, known for his anonymous portraits, uses his brushstrokes to give us an understanding of an extensive subconscious reaction to technology. The fragmentation of his subjects is a reflection of today’s generational influence from technology.

He intends to identify this disjunction and offer a perspective of techno saturation.

“The fracturing of the human, doubling of sense organs, opening of the flesh….are all ‘Humiliations’ to the autonomous and free willed human of the past,” explains the artist. “The uniqueness of the human species is contested by biotechnology and genetics; the singularity of the human mind is undermined by informatics, robotics, and artificial intelligence.”

Deeply influenced by philosophy and the notion of how we interact with technology today, Bower deftly communicates his message with an incredibly labor-intensive technique.

Only creating ten to twelve works annually, he is able to execute a tight, mechanized aesthetic with a series of organic, witting strokes. It is this analogue technique that separates Justin Bower as an oil painter; each exactingly crafted canvas encompasses the kinetic feeling of humanity’s singularity transitioning from one moment to another.

Other artists featured in the show are: Desire Obtain Cherish, Ellen de Meijer, Marcello Lo Giudice, Pino Manos, Tom McFarland, Josh Rowell, KwangHo Shin, Christian Voigt, and Llewellyn Xavier. Exhibition on view until February 11, 2017.

Art of the World Gallery

UNIX Gallery

arthouston 58

What types of mediums do you work in? Which medium are you the most comfortable with?

Te l l u s a l i t t l e a b o u t yourself.

As an Immigrant from Venezuela since the age of 8, my home is cut in half by where I was born and where I grew up. Both are equally home to me and as an artist I represent a larger whole of immigrants that live and call Houston their home.

To me, our home is visualized and experience by the combination of our cultural history and the place we choose to call home as adults.

My work deals a lot with what’s familiar to me; which includes my family and my home. My most recent work explores the issues currently happening in Venezuela. As all of my extended family is still living there, we get to hear first hand how hard it is to live and thrive in a country that found itself equally divided by politics. When I first began this exploration of work, I found most viewers sympathized with the issues but their connections remained as an “other “ situation. Our current political climate has since changed and with that the viewer has clear understanding about how easily things can change.

Using painting, drawing, and various printmaking techniques, I construct multi-layered images that evoke the experience of a bystander and the protester. The work is an amalgamation of real, distorted, and perceived experience built from fragments of personal photographs, memories, and current found images. Visually representing both the construction and crumbling of the society. Red hues are used throughout to mark the association with the extreme.

The pieces beg the question how political oppression alters individual and cultural identity.

The history of my process in constructing my work is an important element. To be able to see through the layers of the work washes; pattern, and line combine together yet retaining their individual identity.

The work walks the line between figurative, representational, and abstract art. With the use of pattern, color, and line, I am able to create a space that visually represents how these events might look over time with missing parts and images overlapping each other. Reimagining and decontextualizing the familiar into abstracted forms give the effect of a mix of unresolved political unrest with a calming formal logic.

T h e m a t i c a l l y, w h a t i s your work usually about?

The work stands in the intersection of formalist abstraction and social commentary. This work reflects the social life in Venezuela; as people deal with the uncertainty, food shortage, crime, and unrest. These

events may not be as extreme here but are commonplace in a lot of other countries. Venezuela’s heavy political instabilities aren’t new to our histories but are a clear reflection of our complex society and are common to our human experiences.

The stories are visually open-ended.

My goal is for the work to feel a little tense, complicated, but subtle.

Gathering of personal stories and found information make up the visual language depicted. I’m also using images and stories about the recent protest, the declining economy, and the everyday news to inform the work.

Is h av i n g a “s u c c e s s f u l career” as an artist something that is important to you? How do you define success?

My idea of a “successful art career” has nothing to do with what most people find success. To me, if I were to have a successful career it would include all of the hardships I am going through right now. I define success as continually working through those hardships with lack of funds, lack of time, and a constant questioning of my role in this community. I see success as being able to find the funds for my projects, continue to make work that is both therapeutic for me and thought provoking to others, and living with some comfort (house, food, family).

This is my version of success.

by Ariel Jones

59

arthouston 60

What was the very first independent creative project you worked on?

I was probably 10, and I went to my next-door neighbor’s house to play.

She and her dad had just finished making this really great diorama and I was totally blown away. A scene in a shoebox! I had never seen one before and was into it. So after she and I stared at it for about an hour or so, I went home and made very crude version. I remember going to my room and pulling everything and trying my best to remember her diorama, but I added dinosaurs. That is one of my earliest memories. Still love dioramas.

Where are you from?

G i v e m e y o u r l i f e s t o r y.

I grew up in West Texas, my grandfather taught me to draw. He wasn’t an artist, but did his best and it really resonated with me. As a child, my mom said she could just sit me down with a pen or Legos and that was all I needed. I continued to make art. Fast forward to my early 20s, I started working for visual artist J. Antonio Farfan and couple of

others. Then, I started curating art shows, festival logistics, and I continue to coordinate festivals today. I didn’t make any art for about 3 years, I just read about art history and art. Then I started working with artists in the studio again.

I worked for Angelbert Metoyer, Robert Hodge and Lovie Olivia; I was trying to find my African American voice. I am half Creole half Czech so it was a topic I was kinda afraid to talk in my work. So worked for those three artist and continue to do so.

And they helped me find my voice.

That led me to create some of my strongest works to date.

What is your work usually about? Why do you choose to focus on these issues?

My most recent work It’s a mixture of abstract expressionism painting and drawings of African Art mainly photos of sculptures that I look up in books and the Internet.

I feel instead of using imagery like Mickey Mouse, Bart Simpson or one of these pop culture reference characters, that are popular with some of the artist from my generation, I chose to create my own visual vocabulary using imagery from some of the oldest tribes In Africa. I love African art. It represents a time in art history before galleries when art was incredibly pure. I appreciate that, and I want people to appreciate that as much as I do. So the splashes of bright colors and broad strokes draw in the eye, then the African imagery gets them curious, and then conversation that I am having with the viewer through my work

is revealed. I choose to focus on it because not a lot of people from my generation and younger know much about African Art and reviving it is more important than ever.

Is h av i n g a “s u c c e s s f u l career” as an artist something that is important to you? How do you define success?

I love making art and to me that’s part of success, to really love what you do, I mean really love it. That’s something most people don’t experience. Then of course there’s the point were you make money from your work and that’s something most don’t get to experience. So to put money to more creative ideas that are bigger and better than those you did before that’s another way I measure or define success.

Do you see yourself staying in Houston? If y o u d o n’ t . . . w h e r e a r e you going and why?

Working on a few projects right now that will keep me in Houston for the next decade. I love the Houston art scene, so many creative people here that want to change how we perceive art. It’s like New York or L.A. where it’s a little more serious.

Here you can be serious and you can be relaxed and really push your imagination as an artist. Also, rents is not that bad.

by Ariel Jones

61

arthouston 62

Gallery Listings + Exhibition Schedule

Bisong Gallery 1305 Sterrett St. 713 498-3015

BOOKER•LOWE GALLERY 4623 Feagan St. 713 880-1541

capsule galley 3909 Main St. 713 807-7065

Donna Perkins, Stellar Chaos I, (detail), acrylic on canvas, 40” x 30”

ARCHWAY GALLERY 2305 Dunlavy St. 713 522-2409

Cardoza Fine art Gallery 1320 Nance St. 832 548-0404 Casa Ramirez Folk Art Gallery 241 West 19th St. 713-880-2420

F e b r ua r y Jane and Sandy Ewen Ma ​ rch Christie Coker & Andrea Wilkinson a p r il Donna Perkins

May Veronica Dyer ju n e PrintHouston J uly Annual Juried Exhibition A ugus t Susan Spjut

Aerosol Warfare 2110 Jefferson 832 748-8369

Arader Gallery 5015 Westheimer, #2303 713 621-7151

Cavalier Fine Art 3845 Dunlavy St. 713 552-1416

aker imaging GALLERY

ARDEN GALLERY 2143 Westheimer, Suite B 713 371-6333

Cindy Lisica Gallery 4411 Montrose Blvd. #F 832 409-1934

Art Palace 3913 Main St. 832 390-1278

Community Artists’ Collective 4101 San Jacinto, Suite 115 713 523-1616

4708 Lillian St. 713 862-6343

Art of the World Gallery 2201 Westheimer Road.

713-526-1201

Catherine Couturier Gallery

2635 Colquitt St. 713 524-5070

The Antiquarium Gallery

Art league houston

1953 Montrose Blvd.

713 523-9530

david shelton gallery 3909 Main St, 832 538-0924

Anya tish gallery 4411 Montrose Blvd.

713 524-2299

Asher Gallery 4848 Main St. 713-529-4848

Dean Day Gallery 2639 Colquitt St. 713 520-1021

Apama Mackey Gallery 628 East 11th Street 713 850-8527

Barbara Davis Gallery 4411 Montrose Blvd.

713-520-9200

d. m. allison gallery 2709 Colquitt 832 607-4378

3021 Kirby Drive 713 622-753

Deborah Colton Gallery 2445 North Blvd.

713 869-5151

DEVIN BORDEN GALLERY 3917 Main St. 713 529-2700

18 Hands Gallery 249 W. 19th St, Suite B 713 869-3099

Gspot GALLERY 310 East 9th Street 713 869-4770 Galeria Regina 1716 Richmond Ave 713 523-2524 Galerie Spectra 303 Memorial City Way, 832 656-9671 Gallery Sonja Roesch 2309 Caroline St 713 659-5424 The Gite Gallery 2024 Alabama St. 713 523-3311

GAlveston art center 2501 Market St. Galveston 409 763-2403

Glade Gallery 24 Waterway Avenue The Woodlands 832 557-8781 GrAy Contemporary 3508 Lake St. 713 862-4425

Gremillion & Co. Fine Art, Inc. 2501 Sunset Blvd.

713 522-2701

s p o t l i g h t/ t r e n d s 6 3

&

Grey Gold

Grey & Gold by Martha Sturdy will debut at Maison et Objet Paris, this month. Martha’s vision for an earthy and tranquil interior is here applied in its most luxurious and dramatic fashion. A new charcoal tone which is dual-poured in resin with gold metallic, represents light and optimism against a moodier backdrop, for absolute indulgence.

As ever, the form of each piece carries through Martha’s penchant for modern simplicity, but with an elevated sense of warmth.

“Life is too short not to allow ourselves warmth, comfort and the natural beauty that surrounds us. I wanted to show that the metallic, the shimmering beauty of gold can be understated. It can be elegant and refined. Imagine a warm fire on a cold day,” says Martha.

Sturdy Dining Table and Bench in Grey & Gold Resin

by Martha Sturdy.

Photo by Claudette Carracedo

Brushed brass and acidwashed steel bring depth and richness to the vast use of metal in the collection, which is met with hand-poured resin, Martha Sturdy’s most widely used material, hand-made in her British Columbia studio.

Retailers in Houston are: www.fortyfiveten.com and www.longoriacollection.com For more info on this artist visit www.marthasturdy.com

arthouston 64

Gallery Listings + Exhibition Schedule

HANNAH BACOL BUSCH GALLERY 6900 S. Rice Ave. 713 527-0523

La Colombe d’Or Gallery 3410 Montrose Blvd.

713 524 -7999

Hiram Butler Gallery 4520 Blossom St. 713 863-7097

Lucio Ranucci

Hooks-Epstein Galleries 2631 Colquitt St. 713 522-0718

2242 Richmond Ave. 713 520-9988

1441 West Alabama Street 713 529-4755 Hunter Gorham Gallery 1834 1/2 Westheimer Rd. 713 492-0504 Inman Gallery 3901 Main St. 713 526-7800 Jack Meier Gallery 2310 Bissonnet 713 526-2983 Jumper Maybach Fine Art Gallery & Emporium 238 W. 19th St., Suite C 832 523-4249 Koelsch Gallery 801 Richmond avenue 713 626-0175

SERRANO Gallery

2000 Edwards St. #117 713 724-0709

Octavia Art Gallery 3637 West Alabama Suite 120 713 877-1810

Harris Gallery 1100 Bissonnet 713 522-9116

Houston Center for Photography

Nolan-Rankin Galleries 3637 W. Alabama St. Suite 140 713 528-0664

McClain Gallery

Meredith Long & Co. 2323 San Felipe 713 523-6671

MOODY GALLERY

2815 Colquitt St. 713 526-9911 February Liz Ward Feb. 25 - April 1 april Debra Barrera April 8 - May 13 May Helen Altman May 20 - July 1, 2017

Off the Wall GALLERY 5085 Westheimer Galleria II, Level II 713 871-0940 Parkerson Gallery 3510 Lake St. 713 524-4945 Peveto 2627 Colquitt Street 713 360-7098 Poissant Gallery 5102 Center St. 713 868-9337 Post Gallery 2121 Sage, Suite 165 713 622-4241

REDBUD GALLERY

303 E. 11th St. 713 862-2532 Rudolph Blume Fine Art 1836 Richmond Avenue 713 807-1836

Debra Barrera

Nicole Longnecker Gallery 2625 Colquitt St. 713 591-4997

She Works Flexible 1709 Westheimer Road 713 522-0369 SAMARA GALLERY 3911 Main St. 713 999-1009

Rolando Rojas

sicardi Gallery 2246 Richmond Ave. 713 529-1313

SIMPSON GALLERIES 6116 Skyline Dr. Suite 1 713 524-6751 Texas Gallery 2012 Peden St. 713 524-1593 UNIX GALLERY 4411 Montrose Blvd.

713 874-1770 UP ART STUDIO 2101 Winter Street, B11 info@upartstudio.org

William Reaves Sarah Foltz Fine Art 2143 Westheimer Rd. 713 521-7500

Yvonamor Palix Fine Arts 1824 Spring St. 281 467-6065

Zoya Tommy 4102 Fannin St. 832 649-5814

65

Niki Serakiotou

Suzette Schutze

Luisa Duarte

Gretchen Bender Sparks

Vania Leporowski

Matthew Gantt

Vicki Hessemer

Nichole Dittmann

Lily Gavalas

Lisa Hardcorn

Valentina Atkinson

Jay T. Jax

Nataliya Scheib

Lyn Sullivan

Darlene Abdouch

Studio 110 713-992-1327 www.nikisartstudy.com

Studio 106 713-689-9709 www.constellationism.info

Studio 117 713-724-0709 www.serranogallery.com

Studio 306 281-881-8981 www.suzetteschutze.com

Studio 121 713-504-9118 www.vickihessemer.com

Studio 325 281-513-1691 FB - Jax Fine Art

Studio 122 281-857-5028 www.Luisa-Duarte.com

Studio 214 713-444-7562 www.gretchenbendersparks.com

Studio 218 713-501-7290 FB-Nichole Dittmann Jewelry Designs

Studio 115 571-212-9279 www.NataliyaScheib.com

Studio 119 713-859-7143 www.lilygavalas.com

Studio 211 281-520-1349 www.lynsullivan.com

Studio 310 832-812-9861 www.vanialeporowski.com

Studio 301 832-930-0109 www.cosmiccreationsart.com

Studio 306 713-569-8346 www.Abdouchart.com

where art lovers and artists connect visit artists’ studios every second saturday of the month

2000 Edwards st. Houston, TX 77007

12-5pm

silverstreethouston.com

arthouston 66

5P

Fall Run Park

A Gated Community in a Serene Park Setting

Spring Branch Living Fall Run Park, a new 35 home gated community in Spring Branch, offers unique close in living that combines an open, spacious environment. Many home sites look out to a beautiful, naturally landscaped park; featuring a lighted walking path, large oaks, native plants and trees.

True Value with style and elegance Choose your perfect home with a park view from 10 different unique plans and styles.

Build from the ground up reflecting your preferences from an array of high end finishes, or move in to one of our stunning models now ready. Priced from the $430,000’s to $599,500, homes range from 2253 square feet to 3329 square feet; all homes feature first floor living, several with master down. Beautiful granite counters throughout, including laundry room. All ceilings are 20’ and 10’ giving a spacious and open feel.

All homes have stainless-steel appliances.

7706 Hammerly Blvd., Houston, TX 77055

Tel: 281-685-3032 or 713-205-5215 | www.fallharborhomes.com

Perfect Location. Spend your time at home, not on the freeway. Beautiful Spring Branch. Minutes from I-10, 610, 290.

I-10 Antoine exit by IKEA. Close to Galleria, Memorial Park, Downtown, The Heights, City Centre.

67

HopeArt

arthouston 68

Be the Peace – Be the Hope was born from a spirit of hope and a spirit of concern.

B Y

K a r i n e

As of 2014, the number of people whom the United Nations classified as displaced by conflict and war totaled over 59 million.

A large segment of the displaced population are children. Separated from their homes or families, they are forced to live in refugee camps. Most of these children have little hope for a safe return and receive no education which limits their future opportunities. The number of displaced children in refugee camps increases daily.

Elise Boghossian, a close friend and a physician who created EliseCare, a French non-government organization (NGO) serving refugees in war zones, informed me of the tragic circumstances in which so many displaced children in the Middle East and in Africa are living. I felt moved to help them.

I am not a doctor, but still I wanted to help.

I resolved to do so with the skills that I had art, creativity, and self-reflection.

This led to create a taskforce and a program to mobilize the talents of Houstonarea students, platform that would also give them the opportunity to be the peace, the hope and the love they wished to see in the world. Many school children and students I interacted with locally had informed me of their desire to see more peace, more hope and more love in the world. “Be the Peace – Be the Hope” (BTPBTH ) was born.

In collaboration with Dr. Noël BezetteFlores, BTPBTH reached out in partnership to many generous organizations. These include the Texan-French Alliance for the Arts, IEDA Relief, FotoFest International Literacy through Photography, Harris County Public Libraries, Houston I.S.D., Cypress-Fairbanks I.S.D., the Harris County Public Libraries (HCPL), the Taiwanese Heritage Society, The Post Oak School, The Wide School, Aker Imaging, Let it Fly, David Lynch Foundation and Neighborhood Centers Promise Community Charter School. Noël contacted The United Nations Associations and its chair, Teta Banks, became one of the fervent supporters of the program. The City of Houston even welcomed the program and integrated

P a r k e r - L e m o y n e

it as part of the celebration of the 2016 Citizenship Month. Noël and I started building a strong international and multidisciplinary team with the help of many including Shirin Herman and Sarah Howell.

To actually reach people in the camps, BTPBTH owes thanks to Phil Malnuwa, Christine Angelani, Ghislaine Gatho and Thony Ngumbu (Senior Director of Programs at that time) of IEDA Relief, an NGO based in Houston which specializes in Refugee Camp management and humanitarian assistance.

They coordinated our work with teams in the Burkina Faso camps and advised BTPBTH to develop an arts education program with a view toward healing the psychological trauma from which many refugee children suffer. Children languishing in the refugee camps are vulnerable to the recruiting methods of extremist organizations such as Boko Haram. They also introduced us to the UNHCR and CONAREF representatives.

From June to September 2016, “Be the Peace - Be the Hope” (BTPBTH) worked with 600 Houston-area students from 36 schools, community centers and public libraries. The ages of the participating students ranged from 8 to 22. They were shown videos about the living conditions of children in refugee camps. They were also taken through an exercise with a tree diagram where they identify their own background (the roots), their values (the trunk) and ways in which they can reach out to others to effect positive change (the branches). Then students were invited to create messages and art as symbols of hope to be sent to the camps in an effort to encourage youth living there.

Elise Sheppard, a HCPL librarian, told us, “Many High school and college students didn’t know there were refugee camps around the world. This had been an eye opener for them. Many have said they would like to volunteer and help.” The art teachers we spoke to concurred.

This was a beginning of a life-changing journey. In October 2016, I led a team* of twelve educators, healing artists, facilita-

tors and videographers to Africa where we implemented the educational healing art program I had developed with the support of therapists, in two refugee camps in northern Burkina Faso: Mentao and Goudebou. The combined population numbered approximately 30,600. The two camps had been established in 2012 to house the thousands of displaced Malians who fled their homes to seek refuge from the violent extremism afflicting many surrounding countries. We worked with up to 600 children, performed 110 evaluations before and after the implementation of the program and trained 20 local teachers to assist in the process and create local sustainability. BTPBTH culminated with the installation of art-quilts on refugee tents, created by combining the Houston and Camp children’s individual art pieces to bring hope to the camps. In Houston, BTPBTH culminated in several exhibitions documenting the journey of Hope in schools, libraries and at the City Hall.

The response to the program was very encouraging. As Jolie Guifayou, a UNHCR program manager stated: “It is a good program, it allows children to know themselves. You are coming with a program that puts children’s lives at the center, it’s going to allow these children to imagine, to have hope, to understand that they are not unique in their suffering as refugee children. They will understand that they have value, they will understand that they have roots.”

This journey of hope is bound to continue in Burkina Faso and in many other places as the UNHCR and IEDA Relief are encouraging us to replicate the program in other camps.

To contribute to the BTPBTH project, contact Karine at info@texanfrenchalliance.org, or go to: www.BePeaceBeHope.org. *The Team in Burkina Faso included Alicia Campos, Curry Glassell, Eisha Khan, Fadila Kibsgaard, Nishtha Joshi, Leila Kengueleoua, Cecilia Norman, Cynthia Ouedraogo, Naiyolis Palomo, Karine Parker-Lemoyne, Lex Parker, Dimitri Pilenko, as well as Caroline Edmundson and Britain Venner in Houston. Contribution of Dr. Noel Bezette-Flores.

Ess ay 69

“Everywhere and always, seek tirelessly the remedy that soothes, sow hope, and your love can make miracles happen” Sister Emmanuelle

“Our pilot program had one mandate, one question to answer; can art provide healing to PTSD sufferers? Absolutely. There is not a single person in the program that hasn’t been strongly affected by the experience; it positively and permanently affected the lives of everyone involved.“ - Cody Vance

United in Peace and Hope The artworks of the refugee kids and the Houston kids brought together a very visual and colorful vision of Peace and Hope after being installed over a tent in each camp that they could see everyday.

Photography by Ceci Norman

arthouston 70

Hopeful Thought In another stage of the workshops, we invited the children to move beyond the images of painful memories. To do so, we encouraged them to draw inspiring images of what happiness and hope were for them. One child we worked with kept saying: “There is nothing at home, there is nothing at home� Photography by Ceci Norman

71

Electrifying intensity It is very difficult to find time to reflect on a traumatic experience when daily necessities like food/water/safety are the driving concerns.

Electrifying intensity occurred when the kids, through the activity of drawing, were able to release these memories. We began to experience transformation with the children, the children began to smile, they were more engaged, their eyes wide open.

Photography by Alexi Parker

arthouston 72

The Hope Stones At the end of the Healing box circle activity, each child received a Stone of Hope to remind them of the time spent together, the community, and give them strength, confidence, comfort and Hope when times get difficult. Most of the children kept their stone in their hand until the very last day of the program. Photography by Ceci Norman

Healing Box Circle In order to close this important phase of the program and give a channel to heal, the children/youth were invited to place their drawings depicting their hardships, challenges and difficult memories in the healing box, a place where their feelings associated with the drawings were kept safe. Then, as a community we sung of hope wrote with the teachers, in circle over the box a song of Hope as a way to lift the weight of the painful images that the children had put on paper so that it can start healing. Photography by Alexi Parker

73

a rt h o usto n 74

75

RICE VILLAGE: 2424 DUNSTAN 713.522.7602 UPPER WASHINGTON: 5922 WASHINGTON 713.868.1131 www.benjys.com

Fine Art Reproductions • Printing • Promotional Products • Signs

832-594-5258 www.gopherprint.com

a r tahrot uh sotuosnt o7n6 7 6

E XPOS U R E

Mao Li

Silver Street, 2000 Edwards St. #116 832 909-4674 www.limaoart.com

These talented featured artists are creating incredible masterpieces with great skills, and right here in your neck of the wood.

There’s no need to look beyond the local creative scene in Houston for amazing and beautiful art.

Michael llewellyn

713 864-5427

mike@mikellll.com

franz galo

Photographer franzgalo.com 832 995-8079

e x p o s u r7 e7 7 7

SYD MOEN

Spring Street Studios, #130 www.sydmoen.com

Verny Sanchez

www.vernysanchez.com

Silver Street, #314

syd@sydmoen.com

vernysanchez@gmail.com

832 727-8594

arthouston 78

artH o u s t o n

Lynn Bianchi, Caryatid III, 1999, gold-toned silver gelatin print, 16’’x 20’’

P u b l i s h e r - Ed i t o r - i n - C h i e f

John Bernhard

Ed i t o r - a t- l a r g e

Shannon Rasberry

Design

john Bernhard bernhardpub.com

Contributing writers

William Ropp • Philippe Pache • Xavier Zimbardo Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. • Ann Marie Rousseau Henrik Saxgren • John Bernhard • Lynn Bianchi • Virgil Brill We also have vintage prints for sale from: Laryew • Jack Lowe • Nan Goldin • Dan Weiner • Jack Delano • Ralph Gibson • Jock Sturges • John Everhard • Donna Ferrato

For inquiries contact Lisa 713 628 9547

Jody T. Morse Holly Walrath Layla Al-bedawi Karine Parker-lemoyne Meghan Hendley Lopez Jacqueline Patricks ariel Jones Fernando Castro R. Cynthia Alvarado Arthur Demicheli Susannah Mitchell

photographers

Hall Puckett Nathan Lindstrom

advertising

Victoria Puentes Jovan Abernathy Jacob Medina

typeset in

leto sans & Miller banner

De Frog Gallery

fine art photography representation

ArtHouston magazine’s advertising sales agents sell more than advertising space!

They sell ART!

Looking for enthusiastic

A ccount E x-

ecutive ,

charismatic media sales representative!

Join the team

713-854-3758

Printed by

Absolute color

co ntact us

arthoustonmagazine.com arthoustonmagazine@gmail.com

ArtHouston is published semiannually by Art Houston Magazine, LLC. ©Copyright 2017.

All right reserved. The entire contents of ArtHouston may not be reproduced in any matter, either in part or in whole, without written permission from the publisher. In addition, the artists within hold copyrights on their images and essays. Any use of or copying of their works without their written permission is in violation of the copyright law. Art Houston Magazine, LLC. is not responsible in any way for mispellings, omissions, incorrect phone numbers or addresses. Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, and other materials must be accompanied by postage and a selfaddressed return envelope. ArtHouston is not responsible for unsolicited submissions.

Address all correspondence to: ArtHouston Magazine, 217 Knox St. Houston, TX 77007.

c o l o p h o n 7799

Co n t r ibu t o r s Shannon Rasberry editor

Shannon Rasberry is a copywriter and graphic designer from Houston who has worked in the marketing, advertising, and publishing industries since 1999.

Since 2007, Shannon has been a creative services consultant for everything from startups to global energy companies. He holds an MA in Humanities from the University of Houston. He is an avid fan of art, film, and books. He currently lives in Clear Lake with his wife, Maria.

Meghan Hendley Lopez writer

Meghan Hendley Lopez holds 15 plus years of experience in music, education, and journalism. A classical pianist, composer, and vocalist she loves to write about the inspired city of Houston and beyond.

Meghan enjoys spending time and collaborating with her husband, a visual artist and sound engineer. Their latest musical project is GrayMatter, with a new album slated for release Spring 2016.

Nathan Lindstrom Photographer

Nathan Lindstrom is a commercial portrait and lifestyle photographer based in Houston with clients from all over the world. Having grown up in Iowa and lived in Argentina and Spain, Lindstrom draws on his experiences for inspiration. His work was included in two shows during the last FotoFest exhibition. Lindstrom has a studio in Silver Street Studios and lives with his wife and their dog, Kirby.

Jody T. Morse

Holly Walrath

writer

Ed i t o r , w r i t e r

Jacqueline Patricks

Layla Al-Bedawi

Multi-genre writer Jody T. Morse pens a variety of both fiction and nonfiction. She’s written prize-winning flash, contributes to numerous blog sites, boasts over a dozen magazine articles to her name and has published poetry. Jody’s also an editorial assistant, publishing house office manager, and professional beta reader. www.bountifulbalconybooks.com

writer

A PAN member of RWA and winner of the Seal of Good Writing from the IndiePendents for her first published novel, Dreams of the Queen, writing became Jacqueline’s passion as a teen. Life took a winding path for her, leading her through the Army, college, over 20 years as a paramedic, teaching, and all the death-defying adventures in between.

Meanwhile she memorized it all and continued to write.

Karine Parker-Lemoyne Curato r, educato r

Karine Parker-Lemoyne is a Texan-French curator, visual artist, educator and community developer. She currently runs the Texan-French Alliance for the Arts.

Some of the major projects she developed include Go West 1 at UNESCO in Paris, the Houston citywide “Open the Door” public art program, and in 2015 “From A Space to A Place” that strives to meet the challenges of increasing urbanization.

Holly Walrath is a freelance editor and the Associate Director of Writespace, a nonprofit literary center in Houston, Texas.

She attended the University of Texas at Austin for her B.A. in English and the University of Denver for her M.L.A in Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Pulp Literature, The Vestal Review, and Spider Road Press, among others. Holly resides in Seabrook.

writer, poet

Layla Al-Bedawi is a writer, poet, freelance translator, and bookbinder (among other things) currently liv​ ing​ in Houston. ​She is originally from Germany; ​English is her third language, but she’s been dreaming in it for years. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Crab Fat Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter under @frauleinlayla and at laylaalbedawi.com.​

Hall Puckett Photographer

Hall Puckett is a photographer based in Houston. Early on when friends and family asked him what he was going to do with a major in psychology and a minor in photography his response was “I guess I’ll just have to take pictures of crazy people!” Funny how things work out. He currently lives off the north loop in a “transitional neighborhood” with his wife, two rescue dogs, and a cat named Lalo.

arthouston 80

editor’s pick

u

Jennifer Dunn

Peeking Eyes, acrylic on Arches 300 lbs paper, 76” x 42” Artist Jennifer Dunn states that in creating her work, she allows for the meditation and dictation of feelings, stories, and ideas.

Words require a beginning and end -- structure and logic. Art remains open to mystery and contradictions. For more on this artist visit: www.jennifermdunn.com