The Collection of BioBridge Global
ART GUIDE INTRODUCTION
RENEWAL
For 50 years, renewal has been at our heart. The community, selflessly giving more than 5 million donations, bringing life to patients who need blood. Tissue donors easing pain and making patients whole again. Cord blood helping cancer patients. Birth tissue speeding healing. Donated cells adapting to unique uses. And now, assisting researchers in the search for cures for the incurable.
For almost 30 of those years, our walls have carried reminders of that commitment.
Art With Heart: The BioBridge Global Collection was a visionary concept conceived to bring human warmth to what could have been a cold facility. Artists from the same community as our donors, transforming and renewing raw materials – paint, canvas, wood,
fabric, found objects and dozens more – into a remarkable and growing collection that is as vibrant and eclectic and thought-provoking today as when it was produced.
The collection began with pieces welcoming donors to a new home for the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, today known as the Headquarters Building. More art joined when the mission of renewal expanded – new lab space in the original facility, then the Donor Pavilion, QualTex-Georgia, laboratories at VelocityTX.
Today, Art With Heart: The BioBridge Global Collection includes 120 pieces that continue to remind us on a daily basis of our mission of renewal.
This guide includes insight into many of the artists and the pieces in the collection and was produced during our 50th anniversary celebration by BioBridge Global Corporate Communications. Tours of major parts of the collection are available by appointment Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For information or to schedule a tour, call 210-731-5522 or email content@BioBridgeGlobal.org.
ANN ADAMS ARTIST
Ann Adams is one of the original artists from the collection. Her contribution Natural Soul was created in 1995 and features motifs of ravens, foliage and bugs. It is bright, eye-catching and bold.
Quilting correlates closely to the collection’s original theme of reuse and recycling. For pioneers, material was scare, and resiliency was needed: every scrap of cloth was repurposed. Quilting became art in the late 1700s when quilt guilds were commonplace. At gatherings women would sew quilts and build fellowship.
“The process of construction with cloth is exciting for me, and the visual effects that result from sewing lots of pieces of cloth together satisfy an urgency I feel to communicate through fiber,” Adams said in the book Great American Quilts , 1991.
In 2000, she was commissioned by the City of San Antonio to create Trolley Station Tiles , a series of decorative mosaic tile work incorporated into trolley station columns. The series is comprised of 11 columns, four tiles per column, and 44 total tiles. It can be seen at 100 S. Alamo St.
Adams’ most-famous piece, Big Chiller Blues , is a 10,000-square-foot installation of glass tiles at the Austin Convention Center.
CLAUDIO AGUILLON ARTIST
While growing up in a small town in Mexico, Claudio Aguillon found artistic inspiration all around him, from the colorful buildings to the vibrant vehicles that transported goods to market.
He began to sketch as a child, and his skills were recognized from an early age. He was sent to live with his brother in the United States, where he learned English and eventually earned a degree in fine arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000.
His artwork is well-known for embodying the Mexican cultural identity, as well as
addressing political and social issues. His work is centered in San Antonio, much of it in murals.
In his work as a teacher for students in the Say Sí arts program, he led a group that produced the four murals called Ronatio Flores . The pieces were specifically designed for the Headquarters Building, and though the atrium where they were displayed is gone, the expression of the four seasons still can be seen on the third floor of the Headquarters Building.
STUART ALLEN ARTIST
Stuart Allen describes himself as an analytical man interested in how art can manipulate time. His piece in the Donor Pavilion corridor, 30 Minutes of Air , proves it.
A single kite in the piece encompasses 398 cubic inches, approximately the volume of air he breathes one minute at rest; therefore, 30 kites equal 30 minutes of air.
This piece reflects Allen’s appreciation for his upbringing in Kansas. Allen uses sailcloth to create similar pieces, reflecting his passion for sailing.
Allen also finds joy in kite flying and finds deep meaning behind the activity and the creation of them in his artwork. While a simple object, Allen feels the success of the kite’s construction is based merely on its ability to relate to the wind, which can be unpredictable at times.
“The process of building and flying kites exposes the vital relationship between artist and environment, from and space, nature, and culture,” he says.
More of his work can be seen at StuartAllen.info.
BRYAN ALYEA ARTIST
Bryan Alyea’s art, which was developed for the facilities at VelocityTX, comes from a technique he developed in his studio at home.
“I had been playing around with this acrylic technique that allows you to add silicone to it and it breaks the paint up, giving you kind of a cell formation,” he says,
The cell-like structure of the artwork reflected the cell expansion work planned for the facilities. A sample piece led to more, including one he did in 2007 that had been hanging in his home.
“My whole house is full of my art,” he said. “I do everything from abstracts to portraits to landscapes. I like abstract art because it shows your emotions at a particular moment.”
Alyea managed construction of the facilities and served as its facility manager after it opened.
JESSE AMADO ARTIST
Jesse Amado’s piece in the collection, Untitled MCMXCV , exemplifies his unique style of combining formal beauty with intellectual rigor.
Untitled MCMXCV , which was drawn on paper using charcoal, tire black and graphite, is a perfect example of Amado’s ability to take basic materials and turn them into meaningful depictions of human experience.
Amado stressed how important it is for his art to draw from personal experience, saying his creations are closely connected to his life and the people who have shaped it.
He characterizes his creative process as a lyrical exploration of material transformation, mirroring the always-evolving character of modern civilization.
TRE ARENZ ARTIST
Tre Arenz’s Head exemplifies her signature style of fusing humor and somber themes.
One of the recurring themes of her art was giving ordinary items, animals, and domestic themes new life and significance. The blue and white stripes in the ceramic piece give Head a modern, whimsical appearance while adding a layer of historical depth.
The blue and white stripes also allude to ideas of individuality and uniformity, which is consistent with her larger investigation of the diversity and similarity of humankind.
Over the course of her career, Arenz helped transform ceramics from pragmatic purposes to a medium capable of significant artistic expression.
RICHARD ARMENDARIZ ARTIST
Neither of Richard Armendariz’s parents were artists, and he had little guidance in the field until coming to UTSA in the early 1990s.
That in part led to his piece in the collection, The road a mi corazon es under construction , translated as “The road to my heart is under construction.”
The native of El Paso looks to the hybridization of Mexican, American, and indigenous cultures to inform his work.
“Themes involving power dynamics, destiny, and the role chance plays in our lives
make up the conceptual backbone of my work,” he says.
Armendariz’s artwork tends to be reflections of his life in El Paso, as images and words are craved and burned onto his pieces, which have artistic, historical, biographical, or cultural references.
Multiple examples of his other work can be seen at RickyArmendariz.com.
ESTEVAN ARREDONDO ARTIST
Estevan Arredondo takes inspiration in everything from Aztec art to nature to musical styles to develop his distinctive paintings – including Indigenous , his piece in the collection.
Arredondo’s abstract work – sometimes done by manipulating paint with his fingers instead of brushes – celebrates spontaneity.
“They’re just idiosyncratic shapes,” he said. “They’re my interpretation, or manipulation, of organic shapes that I’ve seen in nature.”
Learn more about him at the city’s Arts & Culture page.
MORGAN BAILEY ARTIST
Dr. Morgan Bailey meshed her love of art with science to create four truly remarkable pieces in the collection, showcasing the delicate yet resilient way the human body recovers from injuries.
The series Healing was part of an undergraduate project she did at Southwestern University while working on a double major in fine arts and science. (She went on to earn a medical degree and is now a practicing physician.)
She imagined the canvas of her pieces as skin and stretched a reflective preserving paper over it. When dried, it resembled
skin. She began tracing on details based on imperfections on her own skin.
The pieces were an experiment, and she wanted them to mirror the earth’s topography as well. That explains the ridges, bumps, and swirls across the art. She also picked certain areas to place sutures.
Bailey became involved with South Texas Blood & Tissue through her family. Her grandmother Barbara Olsen was diagnosed lymphocytic leukemia and needed multiple blood transfusions. Her parents have been longtime members of The Blood & Tissue Center Foundation board of directors.
JUDY BANKHEAD ARTIST
Photographer Judy Bankhead worked for years on documenting what at first appear to be simple images of her hometowns – first, Tyler in East Texas, and later, San Antonio. She took thousands of images from both locations and then developed them into meaningful, contextual looks at the two cities.
Her two pieces in the collection, Eric’s Knees and Both Ends of a Candle , have a similar depth that goes beyond what appear to be simple images – a boy’s bandaged knees and a candle fallen from a candlestick.
Some of her other work is displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Tyler Museum of Art. She studied under noted Depression-era photographer Russell Lee at the University of Texas in the early 1970s, and her images bear a resemblance to his style.
TIM BLONKVIST
ARTIST
The architect who came up with the award-winning design for the Headquarters Building and encouraged the organization to launch an art program almost felt obligated to contribute to the new building’s art collection.
Tim Blonkvist’s Matisse Jazz Series in 3D is the result. It is a series of 12 cutouts based on Henri Matisse’s Jazz Series , created while Matisse was bedridden after stomach cancer. Matisse and his assistant would cut collages from colored paper using a technique called pochoir.
“I had the idea to take a book of his series,” Blonkvist says. “And I bought several books, took out all the pages, and I cut it all out and I made it three-dimensional the way that he originally hung it on the wall the way he saw it.
“I took his Jazz Series two dimensionally and cut it up and made it three-dimensional. I made a series of 12 and then gave them as a gift to the to the center from me.”
The Headquarters Building was one of the first projects for Blonkvist and Overland Partners, which has grown into a globally recognized architectural firm.
SUSAN BUDGE ARTIST
Susan Budge is dedicated to clay. And she is like her material: resilient, colorful, and beautiful.
“Ceramics, when not damaged, is one of the strongest materials that we have,” she said. “The oldest art relics we have are ceramic because it will literally last thousands of years. It lasts longer than bombs and metal.”
Her piece, Life Forms , was commissioned for the collection.
“I did my research on microscopic views of blood cells and skin cells,” she said.
Each of the little critters climbing up the wall of Donor Pavilion corridor are reminiscent of cells in the bloodstream.
Upon closer inspection, the little realistic eyes in Life Forms peek at you. The little eyes in her work remind her to be a good example to her son, who was born when she was 43.
Since then, she’s incorporated them into her pieces, as a sort of “evil eye” to remind her to keep doing good. More of her work can be seen at her website, SusanBudge.com.
DAN BURKHOLDER ARTIST
Photography as an art medium is constantly evolving, and Dan Burkholder’s work has profoundly influenced that evolution.
In 1992, he became the first fine art photographer to create the digital negative: a photo that does not require any additional enhancements and is produced only through digital photography and photo editing software.
His piece Bicyclist With An Uncertain Future uses a process called platinotype
printing, which involves coating paper with a light-sensitive mixture of platinum and palladium salts. The paper is then exposed to ultraviolet light and the print is developed.
Burkholder is the author of several books, including “iPhone Artistry,” “Canon EOS Rebel T2i/550D for Dummies,” and “Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing.”
See more of his work at DanBukholder.com.
MARGARITA CABRERA ARTIST
With pieces ranging from soft sculptures to an 80-foot-wide installation on San Antonio’s Mission Reach, Margarita Cabrera’s art examines issues related to the border, labor practices and immigration.
Her piece in the collection, Craft of Resistance , is a flight of butterflies that stretches from outside to inside the Donor Pavilion. It is dedicated to tissue donors and their families throughout South Texas.
Her work has been displayed in shows throughout the nation. Her pieces are made
from a range of materials – the butterflies, which range in size from two to four inches, are fashioned in copper.
Her recent focus has been on community art, including an 80-foot-wide sculpture called Árbol de la Vida: Memorias y Voces de la Tierra on San Antonio’s South Side. She is an assistant professor in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University and more of her work can be seen on her website, MargaritaCabrera. com.
REGGIE CAMPBELL ARTIST
When Reggie Campbell was undergoing treatment for a rare form of leukemia in 2017, he did what came naturally to him –he documented it in photos.
A fitness trainer and professional photographer, Campbell called the set of raw and powerful images Septua and accompanied them with a journal on his website, RegCampbellPhoto.com. His photos captured both his battle and the things that become mundane to cancer patients during treatment.
After less than a year in remission, his blood cancer returned in November 2018. He passed away in May 2020, but not before he chose pieces from Septua for an exhibit that wound up being delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2022, those pieces – now a part of the BBG collection - opened at the Photography Center of San Antonio.
“ Septua is an ongoing personal project I started in my first run with cancer in 2017,”
he said in March 2020. “Finding a visual representation of leukemia is very hard. Septua gives future patients a visual idea of what they will be going through.”
ISABEL CAMPOS
ARTIST
Isabel Campos has more than 20 years of experience in graphic design art direction, creative conceptualization, and production. But she also is a painter, as shown in her untitled piece in the collection.
It was created with canvas and acrylic and was a gift to the organization. She had originally painted it and hung it in her son’s room, but she said it needed a new life elsewhere
– making it another piece that touches on the collections theme of recycling.
The piece showcases her attention to detail and geometric shapes. When observed straight-on, the painting looks three-dimensional. She said when she painted it, she was experimenting with perspectives, shadows, and primary colors.
DANVILLE CHADBOURNE
ARTIST
Danville Chadbourne is a prolific artist who remains connected to the past through his use of primal materials and forms.
Working primarily with wood and clay, Danville is threaded to ancient artists whose material came directly from the Earth and expressed a fundamental relationship between humanity and creation.
With thousands of works cataloged in his studio, the breadth of his work is the result of tempering his use of technology for the sake of remaining connected to a more natural and creative state of being. As a result, nature expresses itself through Danville’s work.
He is an award-winning artist with work exhibited in collections around the world.
“My art is an objectification of my ideas and the manifestation of my philosophies,” he says.
Two of his pieces, At the Edge of Forgetfulness – The Twin Progeny of Misconception and At the Edge of Unconsciousness - The Twin Progeny of Misconception are located in San Antonio. A third piece, Meditative
Device: Awareness of Influence , is in the QualTex Laboratories offices in Norcross, Georgia.
More of his work can be seen at DanvilleChadbourne.com.
JAMES COBB ARTIST
The Substance of Things Hoped For , James Cobb’s piece in the collection, is the only one made via giclee printing, which requires an image scanned at a high resolution and printed on ultra-high-quality paper.
Cobb, who is from California but has lived in San Antonio since 1982, has produced both painted and digital art – sometimes combining the two – as well as audio-visual projects through the years. He has moved away from painting human figures and toward abstract art, while still combining media.
He had multiple individual shows of his work throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, including exhibits in Japan and France, but today exhibits only occasionally. Cobb also has played saxophone in musical ensembles around San Antonio through the years, including a psychedelic band called Pseudo Buddha.
Additional work by James Cobb can be seen at JamesCobb-art.com.
CATHERINE CUNNINGHAM-LITTLE
ARTIST
Catherine Cunningham-Little’s piece, Breathe , is made from neon bulbs and plexiglass, but what it illustrates is up to the viewer’s perception and interpretation.
“Viewers are asked to become an active participant in a dialogue with the work as they experience the dissolution of boundaries between substance and space,” she says.
“The perceptual ambiguities cause viewers to question the nature of perception
and to consider the expansion of their state of consciousness.”
Cunningham-Little’s interest in visual perception, time, and space was sparked by her father, a shortwave operator who experienced eidetic hallucinations.
She uses a range of materials, including glass, neon bulbs, light, wire, string, and other materials to demonstrate light and color perception.
ANA LAURA DE LA GARZA ARTIST
Ana Laura De La Garza is the artist behind Maria , one of the most visually striking and challenging pieces in the collection.
She studied at Laredo Junior College for two years, then enrolled at UTSA, spending one summer at the Graphic Arts at Santa Reparta Graphic Center in Florence, Italy. She received her bachelor of fine arts in 1987 from UT Austin and her MFA in 1993.
Her inspirations in life came early on. Her aunts owned a business where they would provide cakes, floral arrangements and wedding gowns. The rituals involved in a wedding fascinated Ana, and she later would depict them in her art.
Unlike idealized, romanticized images of brides found in wedding photographs, Ana’s painted brides have accentuated masks, highly exaggerated lips and rouge: it is a visual tactic Garza uses. To her, lips are the most sensual aspect of a female, hence her focus upon them.
Her pieces have been seen in many Chicano art collections and exhibits, including pieces in the Joe A. Diaz collection and
exhibits at Centro de Artes, UTSA, and Gallery 201, in her hometown of Laredo. Maria is located at QualTex Laboratories in Norcross, Georgia.
DAVID DEMING ARTIST
Prominently displayed at the entrance to the Headquarters Building, David Deming’s Desert Flower makes a dramatic statement to visitors.
Desert Flower , which is dedicated to tissue donors and their families, is part of a series called FLORABELLA . The statue in the collection was one of the first in the series, which Deming still adds to years later.
Demning specializes in metalworks, and he’s had his share of abstract, figurative and realism. Many of his works are located in highly public places. He was even commissioned to create bronze statues of President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush, which are prominently displayed in Midland.
He began teaching at the University of Texas in Austin in 1972, and when he left in 1998, he was the dean of the College of Fine Arts. He only left because his alma mater, the Cleaveland Institute of Art, asked him to come back as its president.
Many of his other pieces can be seen at his website, DemingArt.com.
BRUCE DUDERSTADT ARTIST
Bruce Duderstadt was an architect by trade, working at the noted San Antonio firm Ford, Powell & Carson.
But in 1978, he found a new vocation –making intricately patterned hook rugs. An example of his work is Weaving , made with wool over cotton.
In an interview with Texas Architect magazine, he said his art was designed to complement the architecture where the
piece was displayed. His art complemented design at the San Antonio Public Library, Cappy’s on Broadway and at other buildings in San Antonio and Austin.
He was active in the King William neighborhood, hand-dyeing banners for the King William Fair during Fiesta.
Weaving is located on the third floor of the Headquarters Building, across from the Library Conference Room.
JANE DUNNEWOLD ARTIST
Jane Dunnewold was still early in what has become a highly successful career as an artist and teacher when she made Ordering Chaos , a stitched quilt located in a conference room at QualTex Laboratories in Georgia.
But even a piece from 1995 reflects her dedication for creating works of art with fiber, one that has earned her multiple awards, including the San Antonio Art League Artist of the Year in 2019.
In addition to offering online classes in quiltmaking on her website, JaneDunnewold. com , she has published multiple books on the topic and has more than 14,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, which features 158 videos.
Her philosophy about art is simple: Everyone has an inherent creative intelligence.
HEATHER EDWARDS ARTIST
Of all the artists in the collection, Heather Edwards may well be the one with the most exposure.
As far back as she could remember, Edwards had wanted to be an artist. Her early inspirations came from her family farm in Utah, and she developed a multi-layered style that makes the central figures in her pieces pop off the background. Say Kids, What Time Is It? , her piece in the collection featuring the 1950s-era TV character Howdy Doody, was done in that layered style.
Today, she is widely known for her highly detailed paintings of scenes for Disney movies, using the layered techniques found in Say Kids . They often are dark and filled with far more color that the original images from the animated Disney films, and they are displayed in major galleries as well as extensive online sites. Her more-recent posts include signed pencil drawings of scenes from Disney movies.
Her work for Disney can be seen at her page on the Disney Fine Arts site. There also are examples at her personal site, TheDogAndTheDragon.com .
HANNA ESHEL ARTIST
Born in Jerusalem in 1926, Hanna Eshel was a trailblazing multidisciplinary artist. Her journey through a variety of media, including oil painting, marble sculpture, and collage, reveals her research of fractal space and elemental forms. After studying at the Bezalel School of Art and spending time in Paris and Carrara, Italy, Eshel’s artistic career finally led her to New York City, where she carried on with her creations and experiments, mostly in solitude.
The photo drawings Texas Limestone and Colorado River Rock are two of her notable pieces. Eshel’s profound affinity for natural forms and her skill at capturing their essence through the nuanced play of light and shadow are evident in these pieces. Her exacting attention to detail and ability to convert ordinary natural components into deep artistic statements are evident in the photo drawings.
Texas Limestone and Colorado River Rock demonstrate Eshel’s skill at transforming their forms and textures into visually compelling stories. Her continuous conversation with nature is embodied in these pieces, which also highlight her singular ability to blend the organic with the abstract. With
its stark minimalism and futuristic style, Eshel’s art has a timeless quality and a universal beauty that draws inspiration from ancient civilizations.
JOEY FAUERSO ARTIST
Open , which was added to the collection in 2008, is Joey Fauerso’s view of the night sky in Roswell, New Mexico.
Fauerso painted the watercolor while on a fellowship in the remote New Mexico desert in 2005-06. It was part of a series of 334 paintings she scanned into a computer and turned into an animated short called Wide Open Wide , which debuted in a show that also featured some of the paintings done for the animation.
A member of the faculty at Texas State University, Fauerso recently published a book, You Destroy Every Special Thing I Make . A decade in the making, it addresses themes important to her – family, gender and humor. The title is taken from an overheard conversation between her young sons, and the book includes her art, as well as essays and poetry by friends.
More of her work is featured on her website, JoeyFauerso.com .
CHARLES FIELD ARTIST
Charles Field came to San Antonio to teach at UTSA in a notable year for the organization – 1974, when the South Texas Regional Blood Bank, which became BioBridge Global, opened its doors.
Field, a native of California, painted mainly figures until he looked out of the window of his studio in Helotes in the late 1970s.
“I was first drawn to the landscape when I moved to a second-floor studio on a hillside near San Antonio,” he said in a retrospective.
“Suddenly, I could see an epic drama - the relentless expansion of the city into the surrounding countryside. Above, the luminous expanse of sky evoked nature’s endurance.”
He has since painted his abstract-inspired landscapes in places as different as rural Ireland and Tuscany in central Italy, but now his inspiration comes from vistas in Texas and New Mexico. He was the San Antonio Art League’s Artist of the Year 2005 and has had multiple solo and group exhibitions.
JANET LENNIE FLOHR
ARTIST
Janet Lennie Flohr is one of the original artists in the collection. Her piece, Crossing #4/12 was created in 1995 and is located in the QualTex Laboratories offices in Georgia.
Crossing #4/12 was recycled from an old photograph her father took in Brazil and was fourth in a series of 12 (hence the title). At the time, Janet was obsessed with horses, and the aged picture struck a chord.
“I was horse crazy, but I didn’t get to pursue it very much,” she said. “My daughters got very involved in horses, so during that period that I was making these prints,
we spent a lot of time with horses, and I did a lot of horsey prints.”
Janet used a traditional photogravure process to achieve the rich colors and soft blurring of Crossing . She turned the photo into a film, shot into another film, then applied to a copper plate which was etched and printed on. The colors chosen for the foliage are intentional and unnatural, chosen to give the piece an “exotic” look.
To find out more information about Janet’s printmaking, visit HareHoundPress.com.
DAVID ANTHONY GARCIA ARTIST
One of the most iconic pieces in the collection, David Anthony Garcia’s Duet was added when the Donor Pavilion opened in 2008. The acrylic-on-canvas work is an abstract version of the double hearts logo.
David has been the art teacher at Lackland Elementary School for more than two decades, and he has contributed to three major textbooks during his career as an educator. He also is a contract artist for the McNay Museum of Art and the San Antonio Museum of Art, and he was a featured artist at the McNay’s 60th anniversary gala.
He has worked in multiple media through the years, including painting and sculpture. Recently, he and his students have produced plaster art masks, and his mural work is featured around the city, including at Lackland.
Work by David and his students can be seen at his website, DavidAnthonyGarcia.net.
GINI GARCIA ARTIST
Gini Garcia has been a glass artist and designer in San Antonio for more than 20 years. Her piece in the collection, Blood Studies Tryptic , was created from kiln-cast glass and fiber optics.
As blood plays an important role in our organization, Gini took inspiration from her prior studies as a pre-med student, creating a visually striking piece representing the closeup of a blood cell.
Gini conceptualized Blood Studies and sketched out and fired many types of cells and protypes of the piece, including one of a sickle cell, which now adorns the window at her studio on 715 S. Alamo St.
The light filtering through the intense red hues of Blood Studies tells a story, showing the vibrancy of blood and life itself. Like Gini’s medium, it is delicate, and intense, showing that the human body, with all its tissue, blood, cells, and valves is a miraculous work of art itself.
Gini was so inspired by the initial piece that she continues to create work along that vein to this day.
Blood Studies is in the lobby of Headquarters Building. More of her work can be seen at her website, GarciaArtGlass.com.
LARRY GRAEBER ARTIST
Larry Graeber was one of San Antonio’s most-established and prolific artists long before Sky became part of the organization’s original collection.
Graeber grew up in Austin and moved to San Antonio in 1972. He had his first major one-person show, Works from a Small Duplex , at the McNay Art Museum in 1974, and has been producing notable work ever since.
“Painting, sculpture and work on paper are my present confidants in expressing and exploring,” he said. “In a modest studio, quiet and familiar their activation has a momentum, that is exhilarating for me to be a part of.”
Graeber also has a studio in Marfa, the West Texas artist haven, and recently had a major show, Water’s Edge , at the Rockport Center for the Arts.
More of his work can be found at his website, LarryGraeber.org .
YVETTE GRUTTER ARTIST
Even after 30 years, Yvette Grutter’s work Soles is a prime example of her skills and her artistic eye. It combines her papermaking abilities – developed in Japan, Spain, Mexico and the United States – with her love of natural elements, in this case sunflowers in multiple layers.
Yvette, who studied at UTSA under several of the artists in the collection, has been featured in exhibits in Mexico, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, Japan and the United States. Today, she works in multiple media out of her studio at the Silos at Sawyer Yards art complex in Houston.
Her most recent show, Red & White , featured pieces balancing those two colors, with white representing inner peace and red representing inner strength. Some of the mixed-media pieces included painting with sand to create additional layers, with others featuring elements of nature.
Yvette’s recent work and her exhibit schedule are listed on her website, YvetteGrutter.com .
MIGNON HARKRADER ARTIST
The 12 pieces of Mignon Harkrader’s untitled work in the collection are typical of her work in the 1990s, as she used scraps of cloth, paper and oil paint to illustrate processes within the body. At 48 inches wide and 84 inches tall, each large piece complements the next.
A native of New Orleans, Mignon took inspiration from the carnivals of her youth to produce boldly colored painted work. She also has used discarded materials and even wigs in some of her pieces.
Her other work includes a series of drawings called Punchinella , based on satirical and political drawings of the same name from the late 18th century. She also used pieces of clothing sewn into a canvas as a background for painting images taken from old medical books and photos.
The 12 pieces from Mignon are on display in the second floor of the Headquarters Building rotunda.
MARK HOGENSEN ARTIST
Mark Hogensen has always been passionate about art and how people perceive various art forms differently.
“For me, art-making has been and is about interpreting, altering, and reorganizing expected perceptions” he says. “Each of the elements that make up our surroundings seemingly beg for a re-assignment or new orchestration.”
His piece in the collection, Art Structures I , is from early in his career (1988, when he was a student at UTSA). But even his more-recent work, including a mural at the UTSA downtown campus, reflects both his background in architecture and construction, and his use of irregular shapes.
Mark also spent 30 years on the art faculty at Palo Alto College and taught workshops and classes worldwide, including Spain and Italy.
DAVID HUFF ARTIST
David Huff takes an unusual approach to his work, including Ley Lines (Red) , his piece in the collection. Huff’s process begins with a “finished” painting, which he then modifies by painting over some areas, sanding down others and leaving some untouched.
“During the process of creating these paintings, I tend to view them as some strange, animated narrative that tells a story of man’s fight for, destruction of, and need to obtain and dominate space,” he once said.
David said that his major painting influence was contemporary German art, with influences from Japanese printing.
Ley Lines (Red) was first shown at the artist’s solo show at the Mattress Factory gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2009. It was added to the collection in 2011 and currently is displayed in the QualTex Laboratories offices in Georgia.
DEBORAH KELLER-RIHN ARTIST
Deborah Keller-Rihn has many titles, from artist to cultural explorer, but there is a central theme to all her art – her beliefs and philosophies. Her art examines concepts of religion and culture, often influenced by Hindu philosophy.
Most of her work is in mixed media, with a combination of photos, watercolors, pencil and computer software.
Her interest in Eastern philosophies began in 2001, and in 2012 she traveled to India to learn more about traditions and customs. Since then, her shows often are influenced by that trip.
Her piece in the collection, Angela the Liberating Tara of Great Peace , reflects that influence. The hand-painted photograph on canvas is part of a larger collection, 21 Aspects of Tara , which includes 21 views of the Tibetan goddess of compassion.
More of her collections can be seen at DeborahKellerRihn.com.
LESLIE KOPTCHO ARTIST
Leslie Koptcho’s untitled piece in the collection came from her first major exhibit in San Antonio, Natural Selections , which debuted in December 1993.
Her show featured a variety of print techniques, including etchings, woodcuts, silk screens and the medium for the collection’s piece, intaglio. The pieces, as she explained in 1992, are abstracted metaphors for things she has observed in nature. Many featured the upside-down funnel shape and the spiral in the BBG collection piece.
Leslie, who was named to the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame in 1991 in recognition of her contribution to the local art community, has work in permanent collections around the world. She is a longtime professor in the School of Art at Louisiana State University.
More of her work can be seen at her website, LeslieKoptcho.com . Her untitled piece is in the Headquarters Building bistro area.
RHONDA LYNN KUHLMAN ARTIST
When it came to her art, Rhonda Kuhlman had a motto: “Recycle, reuse, redeem, reborn.”
Candy Striper , which is woven from recycled T-shirts, is the epitome of that philosophy. It also is one of the last works by Rhonda, who was known for making art from anything from bottle caps to tin cans. She died from congestive heart failure in September 2009, less than a year after Candy Striper became part of the collection.
It was part of a series of pieces she did with recycled T-shirts. After a shopping trip to Goodwill, she built a loom and used fabric loops cut from the T-shirts to create patterns in heavy wooden frames.
MARILYN LANFEAR ARTIST
Marilyn Lanfear is one of the original artists in the collection. Her vision and craft are synonymous with the original theme of reuse, recycling and giving from the heart.
Many of her pieces were crafted from found objects, old wood, stones, collected mother-of-pearl buttons, upcycled paper and ink. Her art was inspired by her family history and preserving memories, re-interpreting events and memories in new and inventive ways.
“Everyone has a family and has experiences that relate to family. My work helps others to recognize the validity of personal stories,” she once shared with the Express News
Her piece in our collection, Ben/Ben , is a piece from her 1989 The Wardrobe is Destiny series. It is a child’s shirt, something a pilgrim would wear, created from recycled paper. It was likely a handmade shirt that her grandson Benjamin wore as a baby.
The native Waco was born in 1930 and raised in Corpus Christi. She always wanted to be an artist, and earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas and
received an MFA from the University of Texas San Antonio in 1978.
She passed away in 2020, at the age of 89.
KEN LITTLE ARTIST
Ken Little developed the sculptures Hurt and Heal , during a residency at the J.M. Kohler Art Center at the Kohler cast iron foundry in Kohler, Wisconsin.
He noted on his website that the cast-iron pieces were conceived through a process of “meditation, dreaming and other-hard-toexplain intuitive practices.” As he worked on them, he saw them as a reflection of how world history is comprised of accumulated small personal histories as they interlock and overlap around the world.
He says making the pieces as feet symbolizes the basic way we travel through life. The medium – iron – comes from the earth itself. And the smiling and frowning expressions reflect the successes and failures of each generation. The two in the collection are part of a larger set displayed around the country, including at Chicago’s Navy Pier.
More of Ken Little’s work can be seen on his website, KenLittle.com.
CONSTANCE LOWE ARTIST
In her career, Constance Lowe has worked in media as varied as sculpture, leather and collage. Her two pieces in the collection, both untitled, reflect that diversity.
One features pastels, acrylics and metal grommets on paper. The other: snaps and metal handles on vinyl. The latter piece is similar to a collection she did in the 1990s called Appetite for a System , which combined seemingly unrelated and non-functional items in poetic order.
Her more-recent work is inspired by satellite photographs of center-pivot farmlands in the Midwest. Color-coded, the pieces depict the oddly regular grids of circles and
squares and how they are interrupted by clumps of green space at meandering waterways. Garden City (Air to Ground) includes work done with multiple media, from translucent drafting film to felt.
Her work can be seen at her website, ConstanceLowe.com .
JEANNETTE MACDOUGALL ARTIST
Jeannette MacDougall’s Las Acrobatas #8 , which was part of the organization’s original collection, was one of the pieces that helped her develop her current style of painting. Her recent work is filled with intimate looks at nature, using mixed paint media layered on plywood.
“It is in the underbrush and the dark beauty in nature that appeals to me,” she said of her current style on her website, JeannetteMacDougall.com . “Dead limbs, fallen trees are evidence of our impermanence. Perfection is unreal but the imperfect is perfectly beautiful.”
She also notes that her earlier work, which also included abstracts and dream narratives, helped her develop her current layered style. Las Acrobatas #8 was done with charcoal and acrylics on canvas.
ROBERT MAXHAM ARTIST
Robert Maxham is one of the original artists in the collection. His contributions, Photo 1993 and Photo 1994 are photos of snippets of life in San Antonio and Mexico City.
Robert has captured life though his lens, photographing some profound moments, famous artists and events across the world. He is known mostly as a fine arts photographer but studied economics and filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin, so he’s got an interest and skill in other media.
His keen eye captures subtleties: moments in time come and gone in a flash. He has lent his innate skills to many local advertising agencies and has photographed for Texas Monthly as well.
ALBERTO MIJANGOS ARTIST
Alberto Mijangos developed his abstract style – expressing his interests in the spiritual as well as social issues – while growing up in Mexico City and attending the San Carlos Art Academy.
He came to the United States to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then moved to San Antonio in the 1950s. He quickly established himself as an influential artist within the Mexican-American community.
He operated his own studio space, Salon Mijangos, where he taught emerging artists and provided a space for them to exhibit. His two pieces in the collection, Apples and The Snake , are prime reflections of his style.
Appointed by the Mexican government as the director of the Mexican Consulate’s art gallery in San Antonio, he was given diplomatic status to strengthen relations between the United States and Mexico through the arts.
HOLLY MOE ARTIST
Holly Moe’s Rain Forest is unusual in multiple ways.
It is made from inexpensive carpet scraps of various colors – certainly the only piece in the collection made with that mediumand the images on it were outlined by burns from, of all things, gunpowder. Its inspiration came from an old magazine photo.
Her other pieces vary in size from small rugs to a full-room installation called Good
News , which was created when she was artist in residence in Artpace and reflected verses from the Bible.
She also was involved in the development of the Blue Star project, codirecting the Blue Collar Gallery, which featured works by younger artists using challenging concepts and styles.
GARY NICHOLS ARTIST
Gary Nichols’ piece in the collection, The Garden #6 , is a testament to his mastery of printmaking and colors. The lush colors, the depth and vibrancy and intensity can only be created using a tedious, time-consuming and complex process.
When he created The Garden #6 , he was working at a vacuum press shop. He had his lightbulb moment leaving work one day, coming upon huge, discarded plexiglass pieces.
“The company would make these things and use this big press to cut them out of the plastic,” Gary said. “They looked exactly like etching plates to me, so I collected a bunch of them, and tried to ink them up like etching.”
It took three hours just to ink them, he said.
During that time Gary was naming them on a whim, he was inspired by his backyard.
“I had this backyard and this massive garden and it’s, you know, constantly in bloom or in winter, like your colors,” he said. “You’re always evolving and changing, and you know, with the seasons, you know, you get oranges in the fall, you get, you know, greens in the summer.”
CRISTINA SOSA NORIEGA
ARTIST
Born and raised in San Antonio, Cristina Sosa Noriega understands the culture to a T – and it shows in every piece of her art. That is why she was specially commissioned to create a mural for the newly renovated Southeast Donor Center.
Cristina has two of the latest additions to the collection. Her mural at the Southeast Donor Center depicts donors and recipients, including Uvalde shooting survivor Mayah Zamora and her donor hero, 17-yearold Adrianna Garcia.
In 2025, she completed a two-story mural in the entrance to the BBG Advanced Therapies offices. It depicts patients who may
be cured or have been cured via advanced therapies, as well as large-scale versions of the cells used in those new treatments.
Some of Cristina’s work can be seen at the UTSA School of Data Science, and down the street at 114 Main Plaza, where she showcases the Girl Scouts’ centennial. Cristina also has connections in Uvalde, where she painted a larger-than-life depiction of 10-year-old Amerie Jo Garza, a casualty of the Uvalde shooting.
You see more of her work at her website, Cristina Paints . Her piece is located in the Donor Pavilion first-floor donor canteen.
MICHAEL NYE ARTIST
Since traveling to Mexico in the early 1990s to record images – including Photograph Chiapas , which is his contribution collection – Michael Nye has traveled the world and spanned the United States for multiple in-depth projects.
His recent work has been in the form of documentaries, combining photography and audio. The latest is About Hunger and Resilience , for which he traveled the country for 4½ years talking to people who had experienced hunger, for any of a multitude of reasons.
He spent seven years on My Heart is Not Blind: On Blindness and Perception , listening to and documenting stories from people who are blind or visually impaired, and has produced similar multimedia projects about teenage pregnancy and parenting, as well as one about mental illness.
Michael has produced podcasts on his three most recent projects. They can be found, along with details about his other work, at MichaelNye.org
DENNIS OLSEN ARTIST
Prolific local artist Dennis Olsen was a master printmaker, teaching the skill for years at UTSA. His piece in the collection, Agora XXII , is a watercolor monotype that came from his fascination with ancient forms of communications.
He was one of the first printmakers to use computer technology in the early 1990s, creating pieces that took on more depth and color when he worked with them digitally. And he worked almost up until his death from cancer in 2015.
Besides teaching printmaking, drawing and digital media as a professor at UTSA, Dennis also founded the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy, where he served as teacher, administrator and president for more than 40 years.
Dennis and his wife Meredith Dean, who also served on the faculty at UTSA, were once referred to as an art power couple in San Antonio.
SUZANNE PAQUETTE ARTIST
Suzanne Paquette’s art focuses on the natural sciences and the environment. She uses natural materials in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture and installations.
For example, Boardlands is made with oilstained carved plywood, a medium she also used in the 1990s to create multiple pieces.
“I enjoy working in natural materials with a low-tech process,” she told the San Antonio Express-News. “I attempt to manipulate
materials to evoke some quality of the inherent nature of that particular substance. I am most satisfied when the energy of the image and the medium carry an equal balance of visual interest.”
The longtime San Antonio resident’s art evolved into large-scale installations in the years after Boardlands , though she still focuses on nature.
ESTEBAN PATINO ARTIST
Possible Structure for a New Language is part of a collection of pieces that Atlanta-based artist Esteban Patino has produced using a system of six symbols, each of which can rotate four times, to create 24 characters.
The alphabet creates the illusion of a language, which Patino says he uses to create text-based pieces with speech bubbles, palindromes and metaphors.
Esteban explores the creation and perception of language in his art, which includes sculpture and collage as well as the medium used for Possible Structure for a New Language , painting (it is acrylic on wood).
Possible Structure for a New Language is displayed in the QualTex Laboratories offices in Georgia. More of his work can be seen at his website, Esteban-Patino.com.
KIM PAXSON ARTIST
Kim Paxson has been on a journey in her art career, trying out many mediums until she finally found her calling as a textile artist.
When her pieces Six Views of the Ground and Concealed and Revealed were added to the collection in 1995, she was at a different point in her life.
“It was a time I was less snarky,” she says.
Kim she now focuses on atmospheric landscapes, using her own pictures as reference and strives to try and find the best impact from mediums with the least amount of effort. Both Concealed and Revealed and Six Views of the Ground remind us to enjoy the smaller things in life. Six Views of the Ground was inspired by her walks with rescue dogs.
In 2015, Kim began making wool felt by hand and embellishing it with embroidery. She liked the physical process of making wool felt and the environmental sustainability of wool aligned with her values and hopes for the future.
You can see more of her pieces at KimPaxson.com
CHUCK RAMIREZ ARTIST
One of San Antonio’s most widely exposed artists, Chuck Ramirez was known for taking everyday objects – often discarded – and turning them into commentaries on the fleeting nature of human existence.
His piece in the collection, Heart of Gold , is no exception. Heart of Gold , made with pigment on an inkjet print, takes an empty, heart-shaped candy box and turns it into something more profound, as well as being a nod to the organization’s double hearts.
His subsequent work has included insightful images of everything from Whataburger cups to battered pinatas. As one website noted, “he transformed the language and power of advertising into a call for action compassion, expression, and self-actualization.”
His artwork can be found in galleries across the United States, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin.
HENRY RAYBURN ARTIST
Henry Rayburn, whose iconic piece Shrine greets visitors to the Headquarters Building, was renowned for his creative use of media and subjects.
Shrine , constructed with 21 recycled school desks, is a prime example of his dedication to repurposing and recycling waste materials. With its intricate details and Alamo imagery, Shrine reflects one of the collection’s key concepts – finding beauty and new life in forgotten items.
The prominent location of Shrine in the Headquarters Building lobby brought substantial attention to his work. He noted that
it embodied his approach of elevating the commonplace into the spectacular, a recurring motif in his work.
A print of his pencil sketch of the Alamo – which includes a detail seen in Shrine –recently was added to the collection.
ROLAND RODRIGUEZ
ARTIST
From the beginning of his art career, Roland Rodriguez has defied categorization. He is a contemporary artist, a graphic designer and writer, at times merging all three disciplines.
His piece in the collection, Chronology , is one of his earlier works, and it shows both the artistic and graphic design side. It mimics the proportions of his noted local murals,
but was delivered in a size that makes it suitable for indoor display.
He has since moved to digital art, but as he notes on his website, RodriguezPortfolio.com , “I still see the value of work that employs pen and ink illustrations, collages and mixed media. It is, I think, enormously liberating to work simultaneously in both analog and digital camps.”
REGINALD ROWE ARTIST
Reginald Rowe’s piece, Delta II , is among the most-viewed in the collection, as it overlooks the Headquarters Building lobby and welcomes visitors to the executive suite.
Delta II showcases his ability to combine multiple media and methods to produce a vibrant and eye-catching piece of art. With its striking colors and complex textures, Delta II exhibits his signature style, allowing viewers to interact closely with the abstract parts.
Reginald started his creative career in the Navy during World War II. He studied at the Art Students League in New York and Princeton University, where he majored in Spanish literature. He earned an MFA at the Instituto Allende of the University of Guanajuato.
After relocating to San Antonio in 1964, he rose to prominence in the city’s art community. He was the head of the Witte Museum’s exhibition committee as well as the San Antonio Art Institute’s faculty chair. His work is in collections at the McNay Art
Museum in San Antonio, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio Museum of Art and St. Thomas University in Houston.
KENT RUSH ARTIST
While he has an extensive background in printmaking, drawing and painting, Kent Rush turned to photography as his medium of choice in recent decades. His photos of everyday surfaces – many of them concrete, as in Untitled (Thin Curb) – are then presented in a grander format.
Untitled (Thin Curb) , at first glance, seems mundane. But there is a scale to the piece that takes it beyond a simple print, that makes it monument-like. One critic noted that he prefers “blatantly discarded signs
of human existence – an eerie slideshow of human decay.”
He moved to San Antonio in 1982 and for many years taught art at UTSA while also evolving his craft. His work has been exhibited across the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, Mexico and France.
More about Kent and his collection can be seen at KentRush.com.
GARY SCHAFTER ARTIST
At the core of his work, artist Gary Schafter commits to the tradition of painting, which is to understand the historical dialogue between surface and illusion, the pictorial and the plastic, subject and content.
Throughout his career, Gary has analyzed concepts such as representation and what he believes is the problematic relationship between the image and its referent. He also implements irony and humor in his work. His oil-on-wood piece, Skeptic , which can be found in the Headquarters Building board room, is no exception.
Since 1985, Gary has been living and working as a professional artist in San Antonio. He originally moved to San Antonio to complete his MFA at the University of Texas of San Antonio. Since his graduation, he’s had 26 solo exhibitions and has participated in many group shows.
His work is online at GarySchafter.com
ANSEN SEALE ARTIST
Known for his cutting-edge approach to photography, Ansen Seale used a groundbreaking process from the 1990s to produce two pieces in the collection: Fertilia and Bath. Both are chromogenic dye prints, in which emulsions within the medium react to different wavelengths of light to produce colors.
During his long career, He has designed a digital camera to take hundreds of “slices” of an object and then stitches them together in a final image. He also has done extensive work using a genre known as slitscan photography, producing images that address his interest in time and humans’ place in the time continuum.
He also has completed numerous larger public art pieces in multiple media, including installations and lighting at the Lila Cockrell Theater and The Corn Crib, an installation in a small building that uses solar-powered light boxes behind transparencies for illumination.
More about Ansen is available on his website, AnsenSeale.com .
MARK SEMMES ARTIST
Mark Semmes’ art from the 1990s focused on landscapes, gradually growing scale from the size of the two untitled oil-on-paper pieces in the collection.
The pieces are just 10 inches square. Semmes gradually enlarged his landscapes, to the point where some were better viewed from a distance. They also took on more of a tropical feel.
“My paintings are about looking at nature and using it as a point of departure,” he said in an artist’s statement. “I am not so interested in an exact account of each and every detail as seen by the human eye, but rather a selective gathering of colors and reflections evident in nature.”
The UTSA art graduate has become better-known in the 2000s as a part of multiple punk-rock bands in San Antonio, including Platform of Youth, Lung Overcoat, Country Giants and the Rejects.
TRISH SIMONITE ARTIST
Trish Simonite began her art journey 50 years ago when she and her husband took a class at the University of Texas at Austin.
This class drew both in so much that they modified their home to be able to pursue their newfound passion. Her art has evolved over the years into an experimental photographic journey, including two pieces in the collection: Blossoms and Unfurling , which are part of a larger collection of her work.
“That series was about growth and aging, which is why many pictures they had to do with plants, but it’s not just physical aging they also have to do with psychological growth and aging,” she says.
The piece uses a process of taking pictures with different lighting, tearing up the pictures and then placing them back together. A photograph of the final product would be taken and printed on silver gelatin, with and coloring.
More of her photo can be seen on her website, TrishSimonite.com
F.L. “DOC” SPELLMON ARTIST
Of all the pieces in the collection, few are as uniquely identifiable to a particular artist as Blacks in Space .
Its layers of color, its depth, its assortment of found objects and its subject could only have come from the mind of F.C. “Doc” Spellmon, whose prolific output during the 1980s and ‘90s displayed his belief that the culture and heritage of African-Americans needed to be made more prominent.
His artwork included twists from African art that ranged from masks and tribal figures
to Black figures in American history like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He painted images from his childhood in East Texas, from his religious upbringing, from both urban and rural life – all done in a style unique to the artist who spent 20 years as a writer and teacher in the U.S. Air Force, taught middle school art, helped support charitable causes across the city and founded multiple art programs in both San Antonio and Austin.
HENRY STEIN ARTIST
Longtime San Antonio artist Henry Stein is famous for his work using found objects – items often found in junk yards and flea markets on the city’s South Side.
On the Waterfront is no exception, as it includes a well-worn violin, bronze and steel pieces and the “organization man” figure that has been a staple of his pieces for years.
His work The Traveler’s Notebook , which features three panels filled with photos and
found objects, is featured at the Henry A. Guerra branch of the San Antonio Public Library. The work honors the library’s connection to Kelly Air Force Base and to longtime San Antonio broadcaster Henry A. Guerra.
His later work still often includes the “organization man” figure, as well as old maps salvaged from local schools.
GARY SWEENEY ARTIST
Throughout his career, Gary Sweeney has used a variety of media to take humorous looks at serious subjects.
His piece in the collection, Kindness is the Golden Chain , features found objects and pieces of commercial signage to convey a message. He has used the same technique in several larger pieces, including Art is the stored honey of the human soul , which can be found in the parking lot at the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Gart, who grew up in Southern California and lived in Colorado before moving to San Antonio, is still one of the best-known artists in the city.
His most-seen pieces may be the ones gently poking fun at the city at the San Antonio International Airport, entitled Nostalgic, Texas . In the style of old postcards, they include the messages “Summer in San Antonio: Black vinyl car seats? Not a good idea” and “Winter Wonderland: San Antonio, Texas.”
GILBERTO TARIN ARTIST
Gilberto Antonio Tarin is the oldest living artist with a contribution to the collection.
His untitled piece hangs in the Headquarters Building board room.
Gilberto has sold more than 8,000 pieces of art, and his work is in many high-profile collections, including that of President Jimmy Carter.
A San Antonio native, he graduated from the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City. He found his style there by immersing himself in Mexico’s humanist and socio-political art traditions.
His creations tend to be surreal, dark and abstract. His painting style meshes his intense Catholic background with the iconic and distinct style of CDMX art of the ‘70s. He was one of the first board members at Blue Star Contemporary and has had multiple shows through Texas and Mexico.
CATHARINE TARVER
ARTIST
Catharine Tarver’s pieces Samsara and The House of Tiles V are part of the original collection, and they stand out because of the unusual media she chose: Polaroids and steel.
In 1995, she was still a budding artist. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, she explained. Samsara captured that emotion. She photographed her face in multiple angles and meshed them into one piece showing the confusion she felt.
The Sanskrit term samsara translates as “wandering through,” or “aimless wandering.” Samsara is the concept of reincarnation, a cyclic existence where our spirit or individual soul is trapped in an endless wheel of life, death and rebirth, which corresponds to the title.
Her piece The House of Tiles V is a tribute to Mexico City’s Casa De Los Azulejos, an 18th-century baroque palace. Both her pieces are located in the QualTex Laboratories facility in Georgia.
You can find information on Catharine at CatharineTarver.com
TINKA TARVER ARTIST
Catharine “Tinka” Tarver lived her life through art. Whether it was sculpting, dancing, writing, or teaching, her creative reach was wide.
From a young age, she knew art was her passion in fact, it was in her DNA. Her father was Bartlett Cocke, the well-known architect, and her mother Mildred was a painter and ceramicist.
Tarver graduated from UT Austin with a degree in fine arts. After college, she worked as a fashion illustrator for the locally owned and high-end department store Frost Brothers.
She married fellow artist Lewis Tarver, and had three children, who each went on to become artists themselves: Banks, Catharine, and Clay. Tinka and Lewis were integral in the contemporary arts scene in the Alamo City and rallied for creatives for decades.
JAN TIPS ROWE ARTIST
For more than 50 years, Jan Tips Rowe sculpted and painted abstract art. Her art referred to landscapes and the power of memory. A prolific art educator, she taught at UTSA, the San Antonio Art Institute and St. Mary’s Hall. She also critiqued art for the San Antonio Express News
She fiercely concentrated on her pieces. She loved the subtleties of colors and texture in her pieces and was always happy to help those who needed help with their artistic endeavors.
Santiago #112 and Santa Barbara #110 look similar, but closer inspection shows subtle variations and showcases her intellectual vision and attention to detail.
Her first husband Reginald Rowe was also a prolific abstract artist. The two created art until his passing in 2007.
KATHLEEN TRENCHARD
ARTIST
A trip to San Antonio developed Kathleen Trenchard’s appreciation for the city’s unique culture and historical atmosphere –and that led to a more-profound passion for papel picado.
Papel picado, which means “punched paper,” is a Mexican folk art that involves cutting designs into several sheets of paper. These designs typically have a cultural or religious meaning behind them.
Her piece in the collection, Peaceable Kingdom , illustrates the Louisiana native’s admiration for San Antonio and the medium. Located in the third-floor atrium of the Headquarters Building, it was inspired by the animals and vegetation of South Texas.
“I enjoy the juxtaposition of folk decorations with my interpretations, contrasting the decorative with the contemplative,” she said. “Subtle gradations of light and shadow are almost impossible to achieve in cut paper, which epitomizes perfectly the duality of positive and negative space, both graphically and literally.
“This challenges the artist to rely on graphic design and composition for the success of the work.”
More of her work can be found at her website, Cut-it-out.org
LOUIS VEGA TREVIÑO
ARTIST
Louis Vega Treviño’s art focuses on geometry and color, and as he describes them, each work contains information about all his other sketches, paintings and colors.
His piece in the collection, Easter , was done early in his career, in 2008. As he describes it, the oil-on-canvas work was completed while he was still trying to find his way in life.
His start in art came early – beginning at the age of 5, Louis spent long hours in his
room coloring, drawing and developing a love of the artistic process. He got his start creating smaller pieces on napkins that he would carry in cigar boxes.
“I never chose art, it chose me,” he says.
More about him can be found on his website, LouisVegaTrevino.com .
MARGARITA URQUIZA ARTIST
Margarita Urquiza, an architect by trade, produced a number of unique pieces in multiple media during the 1990s. In Oriental #1 , produced in 1995, she used oil and wax on linen. Other pieces from that time included prints done by Hare and Hound Press in San Antonio.
Margarita is a senior architect with the San Francisco-based firm Jensen Architects. Her projects have included commercial and residential towers in Asia, as well as academic buildings, retail structures and private residences in California.
A graduate of the architecture program at Cornell University, she spent a number of years in Mexico, time that greatly her influenced her building designs as well as her art.
ZUZKA VACLAVIK ARTIST
Georgia-based artist Zuzka Vaclavik has evolved in her media through the years. Her piece in the collection, Chill Beneath, Love Submarine , was done in 2011 with watercolor and gel pens on paper and is in the QualTex Laboratories facility in Georgia.
She has since expanded into ceramics, with her work displayed in multiple countries, including a show at the National Czech and Slovak Museum in 2023.
She is the child of immigrants who escaped communism, and she grew up in both Germany and the United States before earning a bachelor’s degree in art at UT Austin and an MFA at the University of Georgia.
Her painting style is influenced by her Slovak heritage, and she holds dual U.S. and Slovak citizenship. More of her work can be seen at her website, ZuzkaVaclavik.com
LUIS VALDERAS ARTIST
Luis Valderas has become noteworthy in the local art community for large-scale projects, including one billed as The Texas-Size Print that was so big it had to be displayed on the football field at Alamo Stadium.
So it’s fitting that he produced the largest piece in the collection, Coatlicue-La Earth-Mother-Moderna . Luis’ art before and after Coatlicue reflects his interest in
intermingling cultures, of merging the past and the present, of a flexibility in a changing world.
He and business partner Kim Bishop are working to build fulfillment, identity and cultural impact at the individual, collective and community levels.
More of work can be seen on his website, LuisValderasArtist.com
JIM VALDEZ ARTIST
Jim Valdez made a big impression on San Antonio’s art community in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with multiple collections displayed in public places, including a series called Curanderos of San Antonio and another at the offices of KVDA-TV.
But his piece in our collection, Study for a Mural , is relatively small, and it reflects more
of his early work with faceless characters of multiple ethnicities.
He has produced multiple full-sized murals through the years, including one in San Francisco and several across San Antonio. His most-famous local one may have been on the now-departed Pig Stand restaurant on the South Side.
ANITA VALENCIA ARTIST
Anita Valencia’s work comes from her love of two things: origami and recycling.
She utilizes a variety of materials, including brown paper bags, CDs, tea bags, foil candy wrappers and aluminum, to make large sculptures and smaller multimedia pieces.
Her work Rain is located in the lobby of the Headquarters Building. Rain was created using recycled aluminum cans and nylon strings, and it was her first major public work that used aluminum – in the form of crushed beer and soda cans.
She has returned to recycled cans in subsequent projects, including a three-dimensional installation called Butterfly Waystation and Perinolas , in which she made 2,500 figures from 4,000 cans.
KATHY VARGAS ARTIST
Kathy Vargas is a renowned artist and activist, with an impressive resume of national and international exhibits. An advocate for social justice, she has brought Chicano art, struggles and injustices to the forefront with her art.
In the 1980s, Kathy was well-established in the local art community. She was the art critic and writer for the San Antonio Light newspaper, as well as director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.
She credits a lot of her connections to Ted Warmbold, one of her best friends and mentors. Ted was named executive editor of the San Antonio Light in 1981, and throughout the 1980s he fought for equal rights and promoted Latino voices into politics, education and art. He died in 1989 following a 10-day struggle with cryptococcal meningitis, one of the conditions related to an AIDS infection.
AIDS was a polarizing topic in the 1980s - a time of fear, stigma and ignorance, of silence and even censoring of artists who tried to speak about the disease, which ravaged art communities nationwide. Ted was the first friend Kathy lost to AIDS.
Her response was The AIDS Series , a tribute to Ted and her friends dying from a disease. The collection was even glossed over when displayed in South Texas simply as “The A Series.”
In 2000, she joined the Art/Photography Department at the University of the Incarnate Word, where she currently is a tenured professor of art.
BETTIE WARD ARTIST
Bettie Ward’s piece in the collection was a departure from her style in the early 1990s, when much of her work was done with black-and-white prints and photocopies, enhanced with pencil.
But Monet Series #14 , a colorful multiple-plate monotype that debuted in a show at Austin’s Flatbed Press, has become much more of her style in the last 30 years. Her paintings are, as she wrote on the Flatbed Press website, “proof that I exist; they are the evidence of my personal energy.”
Her son Pendleton Ward is the creator of the animated series Adventure Time , and she designed the cover for one of the Adventure Time comic books produced by Cartoon Network.
She also is a musician – she appeared in the Adventure Time soundtrack recording –and performed with multiple combos while living in San Antonio. She now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
BECK WHITEHEAD ARTIST
Beck Whitehead was known around the country for her skills in papermaking, as both an artist and a teacher, and she taught the skill at the Southwest School of Art for more than 30 years.
Her work in artistic papermaking can be found in galleries across the United States, Canada and Mexico, but her piece in the collection isn’t paper. The Garden Door , which is reminiscent of the back doors on houses all over San Antonio, is made from mixed materials, including a wooden screen door and its frame.
Beck is noted for a special installation of 2,996 paper airplanes she created at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi to honor the victims of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.
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