Issue Magazine - February 2014

THE ARTS MAGAZINE OF THE ART STUDIO, INC. FEBRUARY 2014

B I RD S & M Y T HO L O GY PAGE 8

INSIDE: LASCAUX CAVE PAINTINGS, RANKIN ON THE RADIO, IM P R E S S IO N I S M A T M F A H , A N D MO R E

, t r A e n i F Food e n i F Two Magnolias r e s t a u r a n t in the Art Museum of Southeast Texas

Weekday lunch, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Wedding Receptions • Rehearsal Dinners • Meals to go

10 % d i s co un t fo r a r ti s ts 500 Main Street in downtown Beaumont, Texas

409-833-5913 www.2magnolias.org • www.facebook.com/TwoMagnolias twomagnoliascatering@gmail

WE WANT YOU FOR BAND NITE Hear original music by local musicians at

For upcoming gigs, visit The Studio’s facebook page

$5

admission

All ages welcome • 21 and up BYOB and have your ID.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED The Art Studio is looking for energetic people who have a few hours a month to help us in the following areas:

OFFICE SUPPORT BUILDINGS & GROUNDS SPECIAL EVENTS • MAILOUTS If you are interested in one or more of these opportunities or if you know of anyone who might be, give us a call at 409-838-5393

A View From The Top Greg Busceme, TASI Director

SOUTHEAST TEXAS HAS BECOME what I wished it was 30 years ago.

Of course, we first had to show others that the community would support such an endeavor and that it would work. And we did — in a fashion.

We didn’t change that many minds about art until people grew up with the idea that arts are everyday items.

Young people in Beaumont and surrounding areas are acutely aware of what we have, art-wise, and what we don’t. They have grown up with a certain expectation of cultural services: a few art exhibitions a month, several music events, a variety of venues that evolve and change.

My youthful expectations were much more limited, with two well-established visual art centers and no music except Lamar University’s music department and barroom cover bands.

Original work was relegated to the academic sector and George Jones.

Ultimately, that’s what was available and that is what I adhered to.

Forward 10 years and the start of The Studio, and the need became apparent that musicians need space and venue to practice and perform. It took a move to a bigger Studio and some encouragement from music lovers, but

ISSUE Vol. 20, No. 5 Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Art Studio, Inc. Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andy Coughlan Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tracy Danna Contributing Writers. . . . . . . . . . . . Elena Ivanova, Tracy Danna, Kristen Stuck, Jacqueline Hays Contributing Photographers. . . . . . . Kristen Stuck Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniel Dodson The Art Studio, Inc. Board of Directors President Ex-Officio . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg Busceme Vice-President. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angela Busceme Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Roberts Treasurer/Secretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beth Gallaspy Members at Large: . . . . . . . . . . . Sheila Busceme, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth French, . . . . . . . . . . Andy Ledesma, Stephan Malick, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heather Butler

The Art Studio, Inc. 720 Franklin Beaumont, TX 77701 409-838-5393 www.artstudio.org artstudio@artstudio.org The ISSUE is a monthly publication of The Art Studio, Inc. Its mission is to publicize The Art Studio and its tenants, and to promote the growth of the arts in Southeast Texas. ISSUE is also charged with informing TASI members of projects, progress, achievements and setbacks in TASI’s well-being. Further, ISSUE strives to promote and distribute the writings of local authors in its “Thoughtcrime” feature.

ISSUE is provided free of charge to members of TASI and is also available, free of charge, at more than 30 locations in Southeast Texas.

Regular features include local artists of note and reputation who are not currently exhibiting at TASI; artists currently or soon to be exhibiting at TASI; Instructional articles for artists; news stories regarding the state of TASI’s organization; and arts news features dealing with general philosophical issues of interest to artists.

Contents The Caves of Lascaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4 Impressionism at MFAH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6 Fontenot’s Printmaking at TASI . . . . . . . . . . Page 8 Rankin Promotes “Local Scene” . . . . . . . . Page 10 “Love Letters” Dinner Theatre . . . . . . . . . . Page 11 Around & About. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 12 Five Artists at BAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14 Thoughtcrime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15 Cover photo of Elizabeth Fontenot

by Andy Coughlan

Bandnite was born.

We invoked the “original music only” rule and challenged an entire generation of musicians to step up and create their own sound. It’s the best idea The Studio ever surmised, and it continues today and for the foreseeable future. It is a part of their lives now. As long as The Studio exists, this legacy will continue. _____________ Being a new year, I’d like to thank the many very special people without whose diligent service The Studio would be a very different place.

To all the folk who print the newsletters and invitations and get them to you on time, to the one who sends your membership renewal notice or does a myriad of other financial nuances that are dealt with day-in and day-out, to the person who is keeping up with our non-profit status and other federal and state requirements that have become active and demanding.

To the young people who organize Bandnite, assuring Southeast Texas has a rich musical heritage, and the myriad of decorators, organizers, teachers and cultural liaisons who put in time to make The Studio what it is.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS AT THE ART STUDIO FEBRUARY

MARCH

Elizabeth Fontenot Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 1

Aqua Obscura Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . March 1

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE ART STUDIO Membership in The Art Studio, Inc., provides invitations to all exhibitions and one year of ISSUE, the monthly arts magazine of The Art Studio. It also gives free eligibility for members to enter the annual membership art exhibition (TASIMJAE) and participate in various exhibitions throughout the year.

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4 • ISSUE February 2014

Volume 20, No. 5

More than grafitti Houston Museum of Natural Science explores spiritual roots of prehistoric art “It’s often said, ‘It’s because they became homo sapiens sapiens that they started to create art,’ but I tend to think… that it is through art that they became humans, and … through their creations, they invented us.”

— Jean-Claude Joiree, Philosopher

Story by Tracy Danna

EIGHTEEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO, early modern humans entered a cave complex in Dordogne, France, and created what has been christened the “Sistine Chapel of Prehistory.”

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is exhibiting “Scenes from the Stone Age: The Cave Paintings of Lascaux,”

through March 23.

Lascaux, a World Heritage site, is exceptional in a number of ways. It is much larger than most other painted caves in France and Spain, approximately 3,000 square meters consisting of one large room, two galleries and a downward vertical shaft. The depth of the cave varies from six to 20 meters. Also, the artifacts are so well preserved. Protection was initiated when the entrance collapsed at the end of the last glacial period.

Additionally, a thick coating of calcite crystals in the main room, on which most of the images there were painted, turned out to be an excellent substrate for preservation, and its high reflectivity would appeal to any artist. This site, which was added to by multiple successive generations, has lasted thousands of years without decaying or fading. In these magnificent frescoes, Lascaux artists revealed a shift toward the aesthetic spirit, the modernity of prehistoric man.

Created by The General Council of Dordogne, this worldwide exhibit offers a virtual tour of the entire Lascaux cave thanks to cutting-edge laser mapping and advanced 3D modeling technology. Multimedia presentations and interactive stations reveal the paintings’ complexities and provide insight into the talent required to create them.

The exhibit hall is dark and hushed, evoking the feeling of entering an actual cave. Low, flickering lights throughout the exhibit capture the ambience of the cave while the artists were at work. At the entrance, discreetly lighted panels describe the discovery of the cave by four boys and their dog on Sept. 12, 1940, in a country devastated by defeat, and the following excitement as pre-historians, paleontologists and archeologists from around the world realized the monumentality of this find.

From 1948 to 1963, daily tours of the cave attracted thousands of visitors each year.

One famous tourist, Pablo Picasso, is said to have

remarked in awed humility after seeing the paintings, “We [contemporary artists] have learned nothing.”

The walls of the first and main room of Lascaux, “The Hall of the Bulls,” are entirely decorated. In the first series of images, an animal dubbed the Unicorn is joined by a large bull and horses placed just above eye level. These figures are highly reflective and portrayed in yellows, bright reds and black. The Unicorn is mysterious and unique, being the only depiction of an imaginary animal in the entire complex, and the first animal encountered.

The parade continues as the calcite formation moves up onto the high round vault. Imposing masses of bulls seem to pull a succession of black and brown horses, aurochs, bison, and a herd of red deer. Analysis

proves that this hall was the result of a collective creative effort, evidenced by the preparation of paints and scrapers, installation of scaffolding, and an elaborate lighting system consisting of 100 portable lamps found at ground level and on ledges.

In one of the most impressive aspects of the exhibit, the 10-meter long “Great Black Cow” panel is presented in a small theater as a projection on the wall which constructs and deconstructs the painting, complete with audio commentary, uncovering engravings, hidden animals, and symbols. It reveals how the Lascaux artists began by engraving a shape, adding color and other elements, and even reworked the images. It also describes how the artists took advantage of the cave’s natural relief to create perspective and indi-

Volume 20, No. 5

cate movement.

An intriguing aspect of this presentation revealed large polychrome quadrangles painted beneath the animals’ feet. These squarish “coats of arms” are divided into almost symmetrical grids, each cell a different color, and are found in only one other known site. As these images do not represent anything found in the natural world, and also include exceptional mauve shades not used in the animal paintings, it is assumed that they had symbolic meaning to the artists or societies, but their actual interpretation remains a mystery.

The numerous abstract signs encountered in Lascaux include long rows of dots, star-shapes, plantlike sheaves, crosses, hooks and curved brackets, placed both on and around the animal figures.

One of the many wonderful features of this exhibit is a life-sized reconstructed cave through which one can walk and get the feel of actually visiting Lascaux. (The site has been closed to the public since 1963, as carbon dioxide from the breath of human visitors instigated mold-growth which began deteriorating the paintings.)

This cave also features an amazingly life-like stone-age family, created by world-renowned sculptor Elisabeth Daynès. An old man, an adolescent girl, a woman, and a child are dressed in clothing and ornaments made of materials available 200 centuries ago. These people, formerly referred to as Cro-Magnon, were not the “cave men” of popular imagery. They were sophisticated hunters and gatherers who lived in a structured society with a culture much more refined than most of us imagine.

Passing through this cave, one is struck not only by the massive size and depth of the images, but also that these animals are not just randomly placed, but depict stories and movement not just on the walls, but across the ceilings, as well. Artists created perspective with unpainted sections, for instance above the far legs of animals, suggesting distance. Entangled and overlapping figures bring the realization that everything is part of an intentional composition.

The artwork is complex, with a confidence of line, an emotive use of color, and a manipulation of form that vividly depicts movement. The artists were certainly predators, evidenced in their intimate portrayal of the animals.

According to Jean Clottes, a prominent French prehistorian, in his “Passion Préhistoire” (2003), “ This profusion of painting is even more striking in that the animals portrayed are unusually large and that [the artists] made extraordinary use of the possibilities of color and techniques. … The spectacular effects were deliberate.

The result is a carefully presented bestiary, dominated by horses, aurochs, red deer and bison. They seem to live on the walls, these animals that run, jump and tumble over backwards. It is an art of life, for spectators.”

One outstanding example of animals in movement is the “Frieze of the Swimming Red Deer.” Seams of different colored limestone were used to compose this scene, the five deers’ noses aimed upwards as they struggle to keep their heads afloat, the bulk of their bodies hidden beneath the surface of the water suggested by the rock ledge.

Interestingly, only a single human figure is depicted throughout this huge complex. It also happens to occur in one of the very few scenes indicating violence. “The Shaft Scene” includes a rhinoceros turning its back on a human form opposite an eviscerated bison. Described in “Lascaux ou la naissance de l’art,” by Georges Bataille, “The bison is literally bristling with rage, its tail raised and its entrails pouring out in heavy curves between its limbs.” The man, by contrast, is essentially a stick figure rendered only in simple black lines, lying prone, apparently dead or dying, and certainly with

February 2014 ISSUE • 5

The “Axial Gallery Overview,” far left, a detail from “The Hall of the Bulls,” above, and “Red Deer and Geometric Signs” are among the images on display in the exhibition “Scenes from the Stone Age: The Cave Paintings of Lascaux” at the Houston Museum of Natural Science through March 23.

Courtesy photos none of the detail afforded the animals.

Along with the paintings, this exhibit includes artifacts found in the cave. Among these were natural pigment cakes of ochre, manganese (black) and clays in warm earth colors, palettes, hollowed-out limestone bowls for mixing pigments or, filled with animal fat used as lamps, a pink sandstone lamp with a handle decorated with engravings, brushes made of plant or hair to apply and blend liquid paint, flint scrapers and chisels for engraving, even remnants of ladders required to attain the higher reaches of the walls and ceilings.

One technique used at Lascaux was spraying, particularly well suited to the irregular cave surfaces.

Pigment was ground to a powder and blown on the wall, sometimes dry but primarily in liquid form since no residue was found at most of the wall bases. There is also evidence of stencils being utilized to obtain clean edges or define fields of color more clearly. This method is noted particularly around the abstract signs, showing haloes of dispersed color that fell outside the

edge of the stencil.

Despite 70 years of research and analysis, the meaning and purpose of the Lascaux cave paintings remain a mystery. Whatever the purpose of the paintings, they possess an undeniable beauty and power.

Some believe they reflect visions seen by the artists when they were in a trance-like state. Others theorize the artwork is an account of past hunting successes or part of a ritual to improve future hunting. The most prevalent conclusion is that this cave presented an excellent, remote location for these people to gather, a cathedral in which to express the society’s values and beliefs, and to strengthen the spiritual connection between the people and the animals that nurtured both their bodies and their imaginations.

“Scenes from the Stone Age” invites us to contemplate these early masterpieces in their full splendor, and reflect on the creativity and humanity of our early ancestors.

For tickets, or more information, visit www.hmns.org or call 713-639-4629.

Impressionists are Coming!

6 • ISSUE February 2014

Volume 20, No. 5

‘THE AGE OF IMPRESSIONISM: GREAT FRENCH PAINTINGS FROM THE STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE’ AT MFAH

“For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.”

— Paul Cezanne

SHE CARESSES YOU WITH a dreamy gaze of her luminous brown eyes. The auburn hair forms a soft halo around the gentle oval of her face. The décolletage, accentuated by a pink rose pinned at the cleavage, reveals the bosom reminiscent of Rubens’s sensuous nudes.

Ensconced in a theatre box, she seems to have been studying a music sheet before something — or someone — distracted her. But whatever caused this disruption, there is no urgency in her response. She looks pensive as she leans against her elbow, cupping her cheek with a gloved hand.

Seated next to her is a teenage girl, probably a daughter, her figure providing a striking counterpoint to the mother. While the woman is facing us, the girl is shown from the back, her profile barely visible. She is wearing a white dress and her long, lustrous black hair is cascading down her back. Looking serene and composed, she is holding a large bouquet of red roses in her lap.

An observant viewer will be able to make out an almost invisible outline of a male face in the folds of the red curtain in the background — a reminder that the painting, known as “A Box at the Theatre (At the Concert),” was begun as a family portrait. However, it transcended its original purpose to become one of the masterpieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the Impressionist artist famous for his seductively beautiful representations of women.

This mesmerizing painting once caught the eye of the avid collector, Sterling Clark. Renoir was his favorite artist and Clark’s collection included 39 paintings by this acclaimed master.

The following diary excerpt reveals the depth of Clark’s admiration for Renoir: “What a great master!!!! Perhaps the greatest that ever lived — certainly among the first ten or twelve — And so varied — Never the same in subject, color, or composition both in figures, portraits and landscapes!!!! As a colorist never equaled by anyone — No one so far as we know ever had an eye as sensitive to harmony of color!!!! As a painter I do claim he has never been surpassed — As a colorist he has never been equaled.”

This winter, visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston have a rare opportunity to see not only paintings by Renoir, but a wide selection of works from the renowned collection of Sterling and Francine Clark in the exhibition “The Age of Impressionism.” Organized by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass, the exhibition features 73 paintings by famous French artists of the late 19th century.

The Clark Art Institute launched its collection tour in early 2011 at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, coinciding with a three-year expansion of its Williamstown facility. To date, the exhibition

Story by Elena Ivanova

Volume 20, No. 5

has been viewed by more than 1.8 million people around the world. Initially, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth was the exclusive American venue. However, the MFAH has been recently added as the second and final U.S. museum to host the exhibition, with lead corporate funding provided by TMK IPSCO. As we enter the galleries, we realize that “The Age of Impressionism” is more than a show of Impressionist artists. It provides a perspective on the complex art scene in France at the time when Impressionists stepped upon the stage. Looking at works by mainstream, or “traditional,” artists, such as academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, “orientalist” Jean-Léon Gérôme, or “photographic” realist Alfred Stevens, we become aware of the shock that art connoisseurs must have experienced when confronted with Impressionist paintings.

To illustrate this point, let’s compare “Young Woman Crocheting” (1875) by Giovanni Boldini and “Portrait of Madame Monet” (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Painted around the same time, they present the same kind of a casual domestic scene: a woman cozily seated on a couch, passing time crocheting or reading. However, a closer look at the artists’ techniques reveals significant differences. Boldini’s forms are solid, created with a thick, impasto brushwork. The color plays an important role in conveying volume and depth, but the forms have an internal structure, a “skeleton” provided by the underlying drawing.

By contrast, in Renoir’s painting the forms are defined by a loose brushwork with no underlying structure. At a close range, the image dissolves into a whirlwind of separate daubs of color. Another difference is the lack of depth. While Boldini’s model is comfortably snuggled into the spacious sofa, Madame Monet seems to hover against the floral couch which looks more like a flat backdrop than a three-dimensional piece of furniture.

Using color and pattern, Renoir evokes in our minds a familiar scene and leaves it to our imagination to fill in the blanks.

Today we appreciate the immediacy of Impressionist paintings, their ability to evoke memories so that we can use our own experience to “complete” the artist’s work.

However, to the public of the late 19th century these paintings looked “unfinished,” painted quickly with a broken brushwork, which was acceptable in a sketch, but not in the final product.

The exhibition holds a few surprises, one of which is undoubtedly the painting by Mary Cassatt, “Offering A Panal to the Bullfighter.” Painted while Cassatt was in Seville, it shows the influence of Velázquez in the choice of the subject matter, composition and the somber palette. At the same time, its sharply outlined figures are reminiscent of Edouard Manet’s Spanish-themed works.

The exhibition exemplifies the range of the Clarks’ collecting. Far from being focused exclusively on Impressionists, the couple appreciated the technique regardless of the style avowed by the artist. Sterling Clark in particular admired well-executed paintings which for him pointed to the continuing legacy of West-European art. In fact, he regarded Impressionists, somewhat paradoxically, as the artists who inherited and updated traditional Renaissance painting techniques. By contrast, he scorned Post-Impressionists and modernists for what he saw as breaking up with tradition: “I don’t care what Cézanne, Matisse, and Gauguin thought or what they wanted to express... the rules of painting cannot be broken.”

The story of the Clarks’ collecting is fascinating by itself. It started in 1910 when Sterling Clark, an heir to the fortune of Singer Sewing Machines Company, met in Paris the lovely actress Francine Modzelewska. By then, Sterling had already had a few extraordinary experiences in his life. As a lieutenant in the U.S. army, he participated in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China. Later, he led a geological expedition to map northeastern China. He was in the process of planning an expedition to Egypt when the encounter with Francine thwarted his plans. Instead, he stayed in Paris and began collecting art, initially focusing on Old Masters.

As a child, Sterling grew up in a home surrounded by art and developed an early appreciation for classical painting which his parents collected. But it was Francine who introduced him to Impressionism. He acquired his first Impressionist painting — “Girl Crocheting” by Renoir (on view at the exhibition) — in 1916. Over the years, the Clarks amassed one of the most important collections of 19th century French artists.

Recognizing the value of his collection, Sterling Clark deliberated whether to bequeath it to a museum in Paris or New York. But after the end of World War II he chose to build a museum of his own in Williamstown, Mass. His decision was motivated by security reasons: in the troubled atmosphere of the Cold War, it seemed that a small college town was a less likely target for a potential military strike than a large metropolis.

In 1955, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute opened its doors to the public.

According to an apocryphal story, Sterling’s brother, Stephen Clark, also a prominent art collector, was among early visitors of the new museum. The brothers used to be close when they were young, but later in life they had a serious falling out over the distribution of the family trusts and, as a result, had not spoken to each other for 30 years. Now Stephen showed up unannounced; he walked briefly through the galleries and, as he was leaving, said to the guard, “Tell my brother he did a good job.”

“The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute” will be open at the MFAH through March 23.

For more information, visit www.mfah.org.

February 2014 ISSUE • 7

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, A BOX AT THE THEATER (AT THE CONCERT), left, 1880, oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Image ©The Clark Giovanni Boldini, YOUNG WOMAN CROCHETING, top, 1875, oil on canvas. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Image © The Clark Pierre-Auguste Renoir, PORTRAIT OF MADAME MONET (MADAME CLAUDE MONET READING), above, c.

1874, oil on canvas. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. Image © The Clark

8 • ISSUE February 2014

Volume 20, No. 5

Avian Mythology in Print

Fontenot to present layers of romantic birds and culturally historic flowers ELIZABETH FONTENOT SEEMS TO enjoy the process of printmaking as much as the final result. She describes the smell of the wood, how the wood curls as it is carved and the fondness she has for the smell of oil-based paints and inks.

And there is the birch wood itself.

“It has that specific smell that is just warm, fuzzy feelings,” she said.

The Golden Triangle resident and Art Studio, Inc. tenant layers romance, nature and family history in her upcoming exhibition of prints, “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit: Recent work by Elizabeth Fontenot,” which opens with a reception Feb. 1, and will be on display at The Studio through Feb. 22.

Fontenot recently graduated with a master’s degree from Lamar University and found she had much more work than what was needed for her thesis exhibition, so she booked a show at The Studio with the idea of experimenting.

“With my master’s thesis, I was a lot more limited,” she said.

Fontenot felt the time crunch and having to write a paper explaining every decision eliminated some of the exploratory decisions she could have made with her work.

“I felt that there was a lot that I couldn’t do that I wanted to do,” she said. “So I am hoping to do that this time around. I’m hoping to mix it up more — have a little more fun in this show.”

Fontenot’s TASI exhibition is going to be mostly printmaking.

“I do a lot of wood cuts and I’m pairing animal imagery with textiles and wallpaper and floral patterns,” she said.

The result is more diptychs, using two panels stuck together.

“So they are not real diptychs, but they are a unit,” she said.

Fontenot began her higher education at a small women’s college in Virginia where she studied ancient Greece and Rome. She said the school was a bit small, so she transferred to Louisiana State University to pursue an undergraduate degree in art, but held onto her ancient studies background, which she falls back on when creating her art.

“Because I studied Greek mythology and read all the stories — I have done translations — so when you read it in the original text it kind of changes how you might interpret things after reading it in English,” she said.

Fontenot said the word choices and literary patterns in the original texts greatly influences the interpretation of the text. This comes up in her art, but not directly.

Fontenot’s exhibition consists of prints of birds on floral fabrics and wallpaper. “(Ancient Studies) definitely impacts,” she said.

“Like if I see an owl, owls are related with wisdom which comes through a Greek goddess Athena, who Story by Jacqueline Hays

is related to wisdom and earth and she had an owl next to her.”

Fontenot studied painting for her undergraduate degree and wanted a chance to explore printmaking more in depth for her graduate work.

“And I have always been interested in drawing things, even more than painting,” she said. “That’s where I lean. I like to draw things and I get satisfaction out of that.”

Fontenot said once she started to paint her drawings, she started losing satisfaction.

“So printmaking is kind of an ‘in-between,’ because I can still print things in color and get that vibrancy that you have in paintings and still maintain the drawing aspect of it,” she said. “I feel like I lose the immediacy as I continue to paint on to it, whereas with drawing, you kind of like rub it out, and most of it is gone.”

Although she can scrape away paint, Fontenot said something about it is just not the same.

With the “in-between” of printmaking, once a mark is made there is no going back, so it normally requires planning.

“I am not great at planning, so I’ll start with something and then lose focus and then just let my intuition kind of take over,” she said. “Then I realize maybe I don’t like something so then I have to sit back and think, ‘Oh, are you going to work with that?

Oops, or that is a mistake.’”

Fontenot wasn’t introduced to printmaking until she transferred to LSU as an undergraduate.

“My first class, I just fell in love with it,” she said.

“Here was a drawing and I could make ten impressions of the same thing. It is still my drawing — I was fascinated by it.”

Fontenot said that although printmaking is not for everybody, she thinks people are getting more involved with it and the processes, because there is screen printing, lithography, etching, engraving and things like relief and woodcuts. There are a lot of different processes that one can use, which may add to the growing popularity.

She said she also feels it is a lot more open as far as subject matter and how an artist wants to handle it.

“Most people are really open to experimentation, mixed media things,” she said. “I think it is really flexible.”

For Fontenot, painting didn’t feel authentic, but with printmaking, she can draw and just let things go.

“It is more along the train of your natural thought process,” she said. “For me, it was OK to layer a bunch of things and see what happens, but with painting, I’m always drawn to cover things up until they look right.

“I’m not sure what it was about printmaking that gave me that freedom. I think it is because I can make a whole bunch of one thing, and from that one thing, or from the multiples, I can go in different directions.”

Fontenot is not worried about messing up a “pre-

Woodpeckers by Elizabeth Fontenot cious object.”

“I like the drawing part,” she said. “I feel like I can draw by carving things out. And then I can change colors. I can cut things out.”

It’s the flexibility she enjoys most.

“I’m like, ‘OK, so I have this image and I can make it a wood cut or I can make it an engraving,’ and each has its own little qualities,” she said.

Each process lends a little bit different quality or

Volume 20, No. 5

February 2014 ISSUE • 9

Elizabeth Fontenot uses a gouge to carve a woodcut in her tenant space at The Art Studio. fuel to the work. Fontenot uses special tools called gouges for her wood cuts that are “V”shaped or “U” shaped. With engraving and etching, she can usually physically draw on it with an etching needle which has a steel point. Power tools can be used, but she prefers the small hand tools “I like using the little gouges,” she said. “You can get really fine lines with them and a lot of detail.”

Fontenot uses woodcuts, etchings, and engravings in her printmaking process.

“Even with the woodcut, it is a subtractive process, and once you carve away your marks, you can’t really glue them back in,” she said.

Even though some printmakers fill in mistakes with a wood filler, the texture doesn’t stay the same.

“I have been printing on birch plywood, so you get a lot of the wood grain showing through, but like I said, once you carve it away you can’t really put it back in,” she said.

Fontenot has to make adjustments as she goes along, balancing the lights and darks. She can be very picky about capturing the look and feel of the drawing.

“I like it to look as best as I can make it, so I’ll use a mirror, because when you print things, they come out in reverse,” she said.

Through her process of developing the cuts and printing she has learned many things and has adjusted her methods.

“I started carving less and less to kind of let the forms flatten out,” Fontenot said speaking about a piece depicting an owl. “I was looking at patterns,

like patterning in the feathers — how to make distinctions of what his beak looks like, what his wing tips look like versus his body.”

Fontenot found this also took a lot less time.

“When I decided this part is in shadow, I don’t need to make it lighter by carving into it, I started leaving parts blank,’ she said.

After the carving comes the printing process, which depends on what kind of fabric or wallpaper she decides to use.

“Like the image of the heron,” she said. “It had a really strong directional force, and then the fabric I paired with it had a lot of dark darks and light lights.

So I felt like the heron needed to be printed dark,to stand up to that black and white that is in the fabric.

So I try to balance the things out.”

Fontenot plans on setting up her studio space so she can make some little prints by hand.

She has been using Lamar’s printing press, which is basically two big rollers and a bed that is moved in between to sandwich the block.

At TASI, Fontenot uses a slab roller which is actually meant for making large, even pieces of clay, but can still be used for woodcuts. She admits it is a bit trickier finding the correct pressure thickness compared to the equipment that she had been using at Lamar, but she considers printmaking to be a trial and error process regardless of the equipment being used. Her long-term experiences with both devices has eliminated much of the guess work.

“I have been (at Lamar) for a while, so I know where to set the two rollers,” she said. “If you can put

ISSUE photo by Andy Coughlan

them closer together and put more pressure on it, or you can let it up. Like if you print from a wood block you need more space. I also print copper plates on it so you have to crank them down.”

“With the slab roller, it is a little bit trickier. I usually stick up newspaper to get it to the right height, so that is a little more trial and error.”

Fontenot said that when she was at Lamar, she could put her block on the press bed and ink it up right there, but moving them around was still a hassle. She also enjoys having her own space, “just to go and get away from stress and stuff and focus on the task at hand,” adding that she finds it is a lot easier if she has a place where she doesn’t have distractions.

Fontenot said what initially started her body of work was she kept going back to the same animals and their embodiment of symbolic meaning. She wanted to explore where those meanings came from because in their natural habitat, these birds don’t necessarily have all these meanings.

“It is our culture and our stories and our customs that we read meanings into them,” she said.

“For me, the owl is a universal life-force or wisdom, kind of like a god figure — it could just mean something that is bigger than you.

“And the great heron, for me, is a former professor who was always there watching, guiding with patience and generosity. He had a great generosity of spirit.”

See FONTENOT on page 13

10 • ISSUE February 2014

Volume 20, No. 5

t a l k i ng musi c, c u l t u re

Beth Rankin records “The Local Scene” in the KVLU 91.3 studios. The show airs every second and fourth Saturday.

Reporter, radio host promotes ‘Local Scene’ Story and photos by Kristen Stuck

“BEAUMONT NEEDS A LITTLE more weird.”

Looking around Beaumont lately, anyone can see that the city is changing and one person thinks Beaumont could change a little more.

Beth Rankin, writer for the Beaumont Enterprise, editor of the Cat5 magazine and the host of “The Local Scene” on 91.3 KVLU, is trying

to make sure this change keeps going.

“We’re lucky to be here right now,” she says.

“Beaumont is going through a real something. Two and a half years ago, when we started Cat5, there was no such thing as craft beer, there was no such thing as a food truck, there was no such thing as a bike lane, and there was no “First Thursday.” There were strip mall businesses and guys in bars playing acoustic guitar covers of ‘Wagon Wheel.’ There was definitely an underground culture that you could see through The Art

Studio and the Vortex, but they were having a hard time.”

Through the Cat5 magazine and “The Local Scene,” Beth has been chronicling the rise of the “young creatives” as she calls them.

“I think the recession took a lot of young creatives who would have left, who wanted to leave, who either had to come back or they just never left to begin with, and they just started opening their own businesses and doing their own thing,” she says. “I think young people in this town just got sick of strip malls.”

When Beth first moved to Southeast Texas from Ohio four years ago, she used this creative scene to make Beaumont her home.

“It was my first job out of college,” she says. “I’d been unemployed for nine months because the job market was really bad and I came here to be a crime reporter. I was afraid I was going to hate it and I knew I couldn’t just fly home on the weekends. So I just really dug in and I started going to a lot of shows, to The Art Studio, to the Art League — just kind of getting to know this creative community that Beaumont has really always had — because I didn’t have anything else.”

When Beth’s bosses at the Beaumont Enterprise realized her involvement in the creative scene, they asked her to leave crime reporting and start Cat5, which focuses on local food, fashion, arts and music. It was an easy transition to “The Local Scene.”

“Honestly, the radio show is kind of easy to make, as it’s my job to always know what bands are playing when, so I’ve already got a running list of shows and often I’m planning to interview the band, so now I can kind of kill two birds with one stone,” she says. “I’ll interview the band by email and I’ll have them send me a couple of tracks that I can play on the show.”

The show picks up where the magazine leaves off, delving listeners a little deeper into the musicians she interviews, and giving them a chance to actually hear the music. She uses the show as a chance to give local artists a rare chance at radio time.

“I just had this wealth of stuff, of music and band interviews that I was using for the magazine, and a lot of bands around here lament the fact that there is no way of getting radio play really,” she says. “A couple of rock bands might get a song on Big Dog 106, but otherwise there’s just no hope of getting your independently produced, original music on the radio.”

Beth says that it’s impossible to really convey music through words.

“I constantly wished that Cat5 could be like one of those musical greeting cards, where you open it up and it starts playing,” she says. “I would even put QR codes in the magazine, which I’m pretty sure no one has ever used, I don’t know why I keep doing it, but the idea is while you’re reading about the band, you can scan the QR code and it would go to their new music video so you could listen to the band. This show is a great opportunity for me to just play the damn song.”

The show doesn’t only play locally produced music though, it also plays tracks from bands who are going to be coming through town playing shows.

“Right now, I’m just working to create a database of local music,” she says. “I’ve had all the local bands who have material send me their stuff that I can just pull from every week. It’s about 50/50 in each show, locallyproduced music and music from bands that are going to be coming through town while on tour.”

Although Beth tries to give everyone a chance at radio play, not everyone is able to make the cut and she tends to skew towards certain genres, such as indie, alternative, blues and a little country.

“If I can’t listen to the music, it’s just not a good show for me,” she says. “I am getting a little more into

Volume 20 No. 5

February 2014 ISSUE • 11

‘Love Letters’ offers perfect date nights BEAUMONT — COUPLES LOOKING FOR A unique way to spend Valentine’s weekend have the perfect chance to fan the romantic flames with a night of theater and fine dining in sumptuous 1930s surroundings.

Outside the Box will present two chances to see A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters” at the Beaumont Woman’s Club, Feb. 14 and 15. The historic house opens its doors at 6:30 p.m. for dinner and the play begins at 8 p.m.

Tickets range from $65 to $90 a person, and include a gourmet six-course meal, live music and the play. The $65 “Elegance Ticket” features a roasted pork ribeye in a delicious wine sauce paired with bacon-wrapped haricot vert.

The upgraded “ Romance Ticket“ for $90 a person, features roasted medium rare beef tenderloin, a creamy lobster bisque, a fresh rose and premium seating for the play.

Tickets should be purchased in advance at www.outsidetheboxtexas.com.

“Love Letters” is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play which centers on two characters, Melissa Gardner (Roxane Gray) and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III (Eric Meadows), who read the notes, letters and cards that have passed between them over the decades.

“It is such a wonderful play for an event like this,” producer Ramona Young said. “It shows a couple who have been in love for nearly 50 years. It hearkens back to a time when people wrote their feelings about each other in more than 140 characters. As Melissa and Andrew discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats, they grow more in love — and their romance is guaranteed to bring couples closer together.”

The play has garnered critical acclaim.

“In the era of Twitter and Facebook, there’s something inescapably nostalgic about A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” a bittersweet lifelong romance seen entirely through the stack of handwritten correspondence it has left behind,” writes Gerald Fischman of The Capital.

DC Theatre Scene’s Sarah Ameigh writes, “‘Love Letters,’ the half-a-century-spanning story of two people falling in and out of love through paper,

country, but that pop-country shit, there’s no way. Even if I don’t like the song or love the song, I have to feel something. I find that with a lot of popular, mainstream music, it feels like its lacking that soul that I think is missing in radio.”

Beth uses her contacts in the community and music blogs to help keep up with what is happening.

“If you’re not in that community of young creatives, you might not know that shows are going to happen,” she says, “It’s a little more work. On the one hand, being in a city like Beaumont is less work because there is less traffic, you don’t have to worry about parking. I can go to 10 great functions in a weekend. It’s affordable, you can pop in and out and feel good about it.

“On the other hand it’s difficult, because Beaumont is kind of insulated and segregated in every way, culturally, racially. There are people who never leave Dowlen Road and there are people who never leave Old Town. You’ve kind of got to know different people and different crowds. Social media definitely helps keep track of all the things that are going on, but even still I miss stuff all the time.”

Beth thinks that Beaumont needs to foster its culture and atmosphere so that the talent and young people won’t leave and the city can grow. She also says that Beaumont gives an opportunity to these creative people that they wouldn’t get

elsewhere.

“You have this opportunity to create something where it would be a lot harder to create something in a city like Houston or Austin,” she says. “You’d be just one drop in a giant bucket. I think you should burrow into the ground and find your one little spot and one little thing that you do that makes you happy and that people want and need, obviously, and do that thing.

“I think a lot of young creatives found that they could do that in Beaumont

pen, and the twists and turns that make our lives worth writing down.”

The event will be held in the ballroom of the historic Beaumont Women’s Club at 575 Magnolia. Built in 1909, it has been redesigned in 1930s style and is on the National Historic Register.

“The setting just adds to the romance,” Young said. “It is the perfect way for a couple to spend an evening together.”

For more information, visit OutsidetheBoxTexas.com.

because it is cheap to live here, it’s cheap to start businesses, and then with this sort of cultural renaissance we’ve got, they’ve got the opportunity to really grow.

It’s kind of like having a baby business.

Maybe one day they’ll grow and take it to a new city, maybe not, but it’s a good opportunity for people, I think.”

Beth wants her show to be something that someone could just sit on the floor and listen to with their headphones on because of the nuance that the artists put into their records. She has also

Beth Rankin records “The Local Scene” in the KVLU 91.3 studios.

teamed up with Polarity Studio to record tracks and interviews with local bands.

“There’s a lot of local bands that I want to play, but they don’t have tracks recorded,” she says. “What we’re going to do is take these bands, and a case of beer, into the studio and make some recordings and see what we get.

“In a lot of cases these are just kids.

Some of them are traveling the country in rickety vans. The one thing that has always impressed me about Beaumont is all these great local musicians who spend so much time and money to buy studio time and create these beautiful records ,and I just want to play them on the radio.

I just want to get these artists as much exposure as possible. They deserve it and their music is good.

“People who say that Beaumont is this terrible cultural black hole are just wrong. They’re just not looking. We’re just trying to get this music out there.”

“The Local Scene” plays twice monthly, on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month at 9 p.m. on 91.3 KVLU. To submit profanity-free tracks, email beth@thecat5.com.

“The Local Scene” can be streamed the day after airing at www.mixcloud .com/beaumontbeth, or at kvlu.org/thelocal-scene.

Contact Beth at twitter.com/setxlocal scene or Facebook.com/setxlocalscene.

12 • ISSUE February 2014

Volume 20, No. 5

Around & About If you come across any interesting exhibitions, museums or other places on your travels, share them with us. Call 409-838-5393, or contact us through our web site at www.artstudio.org. Be sure to include the location and dates of the subject, as well as any costs.

MAD DOG MEDIA and PURE VIBES will present THE TEXAS MEDICINE SHOW, followed by BIGGIE KILLED BAMBI: A R@P'N'ROLL $WINDLE!, Feb. 1.

The Texas Medicine Show begins at noon and will be held at Pure Vibes, 1290 Calder Ave. in Beaumont.

The event will feature food trucks, fashion shows, face painting, door prizes and arts and crafts vendors.

At press time, the schedule for the Medicine Show, hosted by James Byron Wood and Lady Drama, is: Noon Intros/UNU 1 p.m. Todd Zane Walker/Calliope Musicals 2 p.m. Sic Holla/Courtney LaChausse/ Silas Feemster 3 p.m. Mickey J/Marion Foster/J Blu Jamal Bluitt/ Desiree’/Sure Music Coalition: Mday & M80 (Olamide Ao Oladunni) 4 p.m. The Hilary Hayes Experience/Pook Loc/ Raw Hunny/Booty Control 5 p.m. KJ the Great aka Karl Dunmore/Two Throwed Mindz/Captain Good Good 6 p.m. Supa/Broderick B. aka FAMUpBakerr/ 3rd Child At press time, the schedule for Biggie Killed Bambi, hosted by Phillip Philthee Trosclair, is: 7 p.m. Kourtney Eatorgetate Young/ Poo Joe/IczLandz/ Regina Sweeterthenaswisher Wilson 8 p.m. ZIG aka Z.I.G./ C-Dale/Sylent Atlantis/ Prince Albert In A Can Of Whoop-Ass 9 p.m. Beaumont Kings/409 Chapter/Delicious Fuzz 10 p.m. Trill Mob/ Cha Cha /Beau Records Showcase/The Ron Jeremies 11 p.m. Mob Boss Records Showcase 11:30 R@p'N'Roll Freestyle! Hosted by Rob Wellz and Freestyle Freddie King.

All-day admission for the event is $8.

For more information, visit the event Facebook page. ________________ The Art Museum of Southeast Texas is hosting two winter exhibitions that showcase the human form.

MIRRORED AND OBSCURED: CONTEMPORARY TEXAS SELF-PORTRAITS and FIGURES: ARTWORK FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION will be on display through May 11.

“Mirrored and Obscured: Contemporary Texas Self-Portraits” examines a range of self-portraiture from artists all over Texas. The notion of self-portraiture will be explored to include work that is literal and non-literal.

Participating artists include Adela Andea, Debra Barerra, Michael Bise, James Drake, Sharon Kopriva, Laura Lark, Lawrence Lee, Mary McCleary, Sherry Owens, Sam Reveles, Shaun Roberts, Rusty Scruby, Gael Stack, Kathy Vargas, Jonathan Whitfill, Ann Wood and Xiaoze Xie. “Figures: Artwork from the Permanent Collection,” features artwork from the permanent collection depicting the human form. This exhibition includes photography, painting, mixed media, ceramics, and sculpture from the museum’s contemporary folk art

and fine art collections.

Featured artists include: Carl Block, Enrique Chagoya, Bessie Harvey, Letitia Huckaby, Paul Kittelson, Sharon Kopriva, Mary McCleary, Rosemary Meza, Kermit Oliver, Gael Stack and James “Son Ford” Thomas.

AMSET is located at 500 Main in downtown Beaumont.

For information, visit www.amset.org. ________________ LAMAR UNIVERSITY’S DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE will perform Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece UNCLE VANYA, Feb. 27 to March 2, directed and adapted in a new version by faculty member Joel Grothe.

Originally produced in 1899, this classic play tells the story of the Voynitsky family living on a countryside estate and dealing with major political and social upheavals in Russia around the turn of the 20th century.

Grothe's adaptation moves the action to Reconstructionera Louisiana and examines the incredible cultural dichotomy of the region in the 1890s.

Filled with humor, hope and loss, “Uncle Vanya” has been translated and adapted thousands of times since its premiere and is widely considered one of the greatest plays of modern theatre.

The University Theatre is located at 4400 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Pkwy on the Lamar campus.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. each night, with a 2 p.m. matinee on March 2.

Tickets are $15 for general admission; $10 for senior citizens, students and LU faculty/staff; and $7 for LU students.

For reservations, call 409-880-2250.

For information, visit lamar.edu/theatre. ________________

THE BOOMTOWN FILM AND MUSIC FESTIVAL will return to downtown Beaumont and the Lamar University campus Feb. 20-22. This year marks the seventh year BoomFest will bring independent cinema and music to Southeast Texas.

Every year, BoomFest seeks to integrate film and music in new ways, a release states. This year, the festival will introduce a Crockett Street venue, The Gig as both a film and music venue, screening films inside during the day on Saturday while an outdoor stage hosts live music alongside food trucks and local vendors. The festival will also screen award-winning music videos using songs from artists from the festival’s lineup. Films will also be shown on the Lamar University campus.

BoomFest is also introducing a few new musical genres to this festival, such as country and metal. Local music lovers will enjoy listening to the top local indie bands as well as regional musicians on the rise, including a few bands that are listed as official SXSW bands. Musical venues include The Gig, Tequila Rok and The Logon Cafe.

The Logon Cafe will also host the festival’s kick-off party on Feb. 20, with musical guests

RECENT ART STUDIO NEW OR RENEWING MEMBERS Ann Andrus Everett Beaujon Sarah Boehme Kathleen Boudreaux Mr. & Mrs. Carlo Busceme, Jr. Sarah M. Cannatella J. Rob Clark Jake Daniels Melanie Dishman Randy Edwards Scott Eslinger Pete & Laurie Kelp Sirena & Scott LaBurn JoRita & Steve Lyle Marilyn A. Manson Family Holly Morrell Beth Rankin Michael Reed Jim Rozek Jef Russell III Rose Stark Vickie Vanover Bruce Varley Mary Ellen vonNetzer K.R. Wallon Here Come The Girls, a Houston-based group of DJs who spin vinyl in vintage outfits.

The films shown during the festival are both contest submissions and invited films showcased at other national film festivals. This year, the festival has seen three times the amount of submissions as previous years, according to Festival Director Bryan Lee. “By including both invited films and submissions, we’re able to highlight undiscovered talent alongside festival favorites from around the state and nationally,” Lee said. “The result is a stronger, more diverse film selection.”

In addition to celebrating local films and musicians, BoomFest is always looking for ways to incorporate local talent into the festival. This year, the poster was designed by local artist Lance LaRue, who’s garnered media attention for making tongue-in-cheek, vintage-style posters of Southeast Texas cities.

For the latest information concerning the festival please visit www.boomtownfestival.com or facebook.com/boomtownfestival.

Volume 20, No. 5

February 2014 ISSUE • 13

FONTENOT from page 9 Fontenot said she was able to draw many of the birds based on the ones she found at the natural science museum at LSU. They have a rather large bird collection and she would go there between semesters and draw. She has also used photographs and combinations of different images to create her drawings.

Fontenot has always been interested in where cultures overlap and she utilizes this interest in her art. She does research on many of the birds she is interested in, trying to uncover the meanings and symbolism related to them.

For instance, the owl can symbolize the death of someone or be some kind of omen, and the heron can symbolize good luck on a hunting trip.

She doesn’t research the flowers as much as the birds.

“Mostly I stuck with roses in my thesis show, because it also brings in my family ties,” she said. “We have this rose bush that came from my great grandmothers house. So we split it up and we have rose bushes all over the place.”

Fontenot said it is a kind of family history — “This ideal home that is imagined. I guess an imagined family history.”

Fontenot tries to layer her work to reflect the way cultures overlap.

“I have my own personal readings of different animals and flowers and stuff, and I try to leave it open ended to try for others to bring in their own backgrounds, cultures, and history.”

She said her birds are drawn a certain way because of what she has read and learned and they are idealized and romanticized in ways.

“I feel like that is my own personal twist,” Fontenot said.

“And also bringing in the roses places it in a context of family and where I am from.”

She said that with this show, “I just wanted to get really nerdy and carve out some feathers, and legs.”

She enjoys doing birds’ feet.

“It is the texture thing of how am I going to represent this?” she said. “How am I going to show the difference between the the feathers of this bird’s body, verses his wings and his beak when I just have this little gouge?”

Fontenot said she is thinking of teaching at the college level, but she is not ready to go back to school yet.

“I need a break,” the recent graduate said. “I want to travel.

“I just want to be able to focus on making art for awhile — I just want to work on my own stuff without anybody else’s supervision or questions.”

She said she is aware that the way she sees nature is not necessarily the reality of nature.

“I have all these symbolic meanings behind plants and animals,” Fontenot said. “But I realize that is just from what I know and studied and have been told.”

She said she wants patrons to have a unique experience with each piece.

“I understand that not everybody is going to have an experience with animal X or that animal Y, but I’m hoping that they might identify with some of the patterns and subject matter, and invent their own relationship with the work,” she said. “Even if it is not a clear emotion or connection, maybe it is something more subconscious that they are attracted to. I think that is more what I’m going for.”

The show is about having fun with things and, as an artist, it really comes down to you have to like what it looks like, aesthetically, Fontenot said.

“Then you really have to enjoy what you are doing,” she said. “Even through all the frustrations of school and critics and things not going right and mistakes, I think if you really love what you are doing, you are going to persevere and come out with something you are really happy with.”

The Art Studio is located at 720 Franklin in downtown Beaumont.

For information, call 409-838-5393, or visit www.artstudio.org.

ISSUE photo by Andy Coughlan

A mirror, above, reflects Elizabeth Fontenot as she works in her space at The Art Studio. Fontenot uses the mirror so she can see how the print will look when it prints in reverse.

“Bluebirds,” left, is an example of her printmaking, which will be on display at TASI, Feb. 1-22.

14 • ISSUE February 2014

Marty Arredondo

Volume 20, No. 5

Faye Nelson

BAL to host pair of Februar y shows THE BEAUMONT ART LEAGUE will present a pair of exhibitions beginning Feb. 1.

The Scurlock Gallery will host “Sharing Colors,” a group show featuring the work of local artists Marty Arredondo, Sheila Busceme and Faye Nelson.

While each artist will present separate and distinct bodies of work, their chosen visual imagery overlaps in its surrealistic and fantastical undertones.

“The work created by these three artists is exhilarating due to the unusual, ‘far out’ nature of their subject matter,” Sarah Hamilton BAL gallery director, states in a release.

“Combining their work in one gallery space will allow visitors to experience the shared visual dialogue that exists between the three, but also define and better appreciate the divergences and peculiar personalities and style of each artist.”

Busceme, a longtime member, teacher, and tenant at the Art Studio, is a mixed media artist who works primarily in the colored pencil medium. Her chosen subject matter consists of abstracted figural components rendered with an acute attention to detail in brightly colored hues. Busceme first started out in watercolors but also works with acrylics and sculptures made from Sculpey. Her show will contain several newly finished works along with a number of pieces completed in the last few years.

Faye Nelson who has been a member and instructor at the BAL for many years began her art education in 1952.

She completed a BA degree from Abilene Christian College

K R O W T R A

and obtained a teaching certificate from Lamar University.

Nelson is experienced in multi-media and since 1985 has concentrated her energies in colored pencil and graphite.

Her surrealistic approach allows her to develop and arrange images that arouse the imagination and stimulate an intellectual response.

Considered an outsider artist, Marty Arredondo, who works at Vin’s Paint and Body in Nederland as a car painter, incorporates old car parts that are transformed into visions of vivid color and imagery. His work is characterized by its unusual shapes, psychedelic color palette, and surrealistic symbols deriving from his Native American heritage. His BAL show will include approximately 25 to 30 recent works combined with a few older works.

In “Celebrating Artistic Legacies: Herman Hugg and Jerry Newman,” BAL will honor the artistic life and work of the long-time artist/educators.

“The impact that these two late and highly notable artists left on the artistic community in the area is unparalleled,” Hamilton states.

The BAL will showcase approximately 15 works by each artist in the exhibition.

“While we often have living artists showing in our gallery, we also like to remember the artists who were influential in creating the vibrant art scene that we experience today,” Hamilton states.

BAL is located at 2675 Gulf St. in Beaumont.

For more, visit www.beaumontartleague.org.

L L SE UR O Y

@

Mission Statement

Sheila Busceme

JOIN TODAY!

Founded in 1983, The Art Studio, Inc. is devoted to: providing opportunities for interaction between the public and the Southeast Texas community of artists; furnishing affordable studio space to originating artists of every medium; promoting cultural growth and diversity of all art forms in Southeast Texas; and providing art educational opportunities to everyone, of every age, regardless of income level, race, national origin, sex or religion.

PURPOSE The purpose of The Art Studio, Inc. is to (1) provide educational opportunities between the general public and the community of artists and (2) to offer sustained support for the artist by operating a non-profit cooperative to provide studio space and exhibition space to working artists and crafts people, and to provide an area for group work sessions for those artists and crafts people to jointly offer their labor, ideas, and enthusiasm to each other.

GOALS 1.

2.

3.

4.

To present public exhibitions To provide educational opportunities To provide accessible equipment for artists To provide peer feedback through association with other artists and crafts people

OBJECTIVES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

AC X T SE ORG .

6.

7.

8.

To present 10 art exhibitions per year To maintain equipment for artists in a safe working environment To provide better access to artists for the public To offer regularly scheduled adult and children’s classes To develop and maintain public activities with all sectors of the community To develop and maintain equipment to aid artists in their work To provide a display retail outlet for artists To expand programming and activities with increased facility space This project was funded in part by the B.A. & E.W. Steinhagen Benevolent Trust through the Southeast Texas Arts Council.

Volume 20, No. 5

February 2014 ISSUE • 15

Thoughtcrime Submission Guidelines and Disclaimer ISSUE solicits and publishes the work of local authors. Poetry, short fiction, scholarly works and opinion pieces may be submitted for review. All works must be typed and may be sent to TASI by email or by messaging the ISSUE Facebook page.

The opinions expressed in “Thoughtcrime” do not necessarily reflect the opinions of TASI, its Board of Directors, ISSUE’s editorial staff, or donors to TASI. Send typed works to: ISSUE 720 Franklin, Beaumont, TX 77701 or e-mail issue@artstudio.org Authors must submit a daytime telephone number and email along with all submissions. Pen names are acceptable, but authors must supply real names for verification.

All printed works are protected by copyright. The author retains rights to any published work. ISSUE does not notify of rejection by mail or telephone.

Blinding the Pit Pony “It’s time to blind your pit pony,” my father said to me.

“The old one’s old, and cannot work, now, I’ll need the filly.”

“But if we blind my pit pony, then who will play with me?”

“Play’s up,” he said.

The Feel of the Child's Hand

Between the sheets

The feel of a hand in mine Gives me a Thrill and shiver.

I’m making love between the sheets, to you my love, this sinful night A gentle stroke, a soft sweet word, a lingering phrase, my thoughts unfurl.

Caressing you, my sensual love so deeply, ’neath these sheets of white Unwritten are our words of lust, harbored in this ashen world.

First, your baby wraps that little hand Around your finger, The feel of new life Instinctively grasping and Forging the bond.

The toddler cradles his hand in yours, Small and full of trust That you will lead him safely; Intuitively trusting your guidance.

It is good and the Cradled hand grounds me.

“It’s time to learn what miner’s work will be.

Tomorrow’s job begins tonight, bring up the pit pony.”

I’m making love between the sheets. The lamp projects a mellow light.

A soft low sound of music plays…I revel in your company. and though you’re many miles away, between the sheets I dwell …but oh My mind recalls of carnal times. I create my own reality.

I snuggle in your arms this eve. Between the sheets…this sinful night.

Of all the hateful words I’ve heard, they were the worst for me.

First light of

And now as I turn off the lamp, and pull these bed clothes o’er my head.

Those thin, pale sheets are dark and still. I close my eyes and dream until our rendevous…that’s when I’m lead … my mind is my paper, my thoughts is my quill…

even-star was last that she would see.

And that last light, was then the work,

Each hand is different.

The child growing in my hand, Gaining self-confidence but Still innocent, and has the mark of time Embedded in its hold.

Cathy Atkinson

I make love…between the sheets.

and then, the dark for me.

D. Clover

Jesse Doiron

BECOME A MEMBER

POETRY RENAISSANCE Dorothy Sells Clover (poet and author) presents open mic, spoken word, selected reading.

Every third Thursday at The Art Studio, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Admission is $5.

For more information, call 409-363-3444.

THERE’S REALLY NO EXCUSE NOT TO.

SEE MEMBERSHIP FORM ON PAGE 3.

720 Franklin, Beaumont, Texas 77701

Non-Profit Org U.S. Postage PAID Permit #135 Beaumont, TX

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

INSIDE • FONTENOT PRINTS AT TASI • THOUGHTCRIME: MUSINGS FROM AREA POETS • LASCAUX AT HMNS • KVLU’S ‘THE LOCAL SCENE’

When you support The Art Studio with your membership, you receive ISSUE, Southeast Texas’ and Southwest Louisiana’s alternative press, as well as class schedules, invitations to opening receptions and various Studio functions.

Volunteers These people are the life blood of our organization.

WE COULDN’T DO IT WITHOUT YOU! To volunteer, drop by The Art Studio, Inc., or call 409-838-5393.

Elizabeth Fontenot Bryan Castino Heather & Adam Butler Andy Ledesma Rhonda Rodman Sue Wright Cyndi Grimes Rhonda McNally Andy Coughlan Ben Jennings Beth Gallaspy John Roberts Beau Dumesnil Karen Dumesnil Sheila Busceme Kailee Viator Haley Bruyn Bryan LaVergne Gabe Sellers Ian Grice Abby McLaurin Samantha Wheeler Scott & John Alexander Heather Adams Terri Fox Avril Falgout B.J. Bourg Michelle Falgout Dana Dorman Reagan Havens Anna Buchele Nick Wilcox Stacey Haynes

ISSUE

JOIN US

DISTRIBUTION POINTS DOWNTOWN

FOR ART OPENINGS ON THE FIRST SATURDAY OF THE MONTH THIS MONTH:

THE ART STUDIO, INC.

720 FRANKLIN

ART MUSEUM OF SOUTHEAST TEXAS

500 MAIN

BABE DIDRIKSON ZAHARIAS MUSEUM

1750 IH-10E

BEAUMONT CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU

801 MAIN

(IN CITY HALL) BEAUMONT ART LEAGUE (FAIRGROUNDS)

2675 GULF ST

BOOK BAZAAR

1445 CALDER

THE CAFE

730 LIBERTY

JERUSALEM HOOKAH CAFÉ

3035 COLLEGE

NEW YORK PIZZA & PASTA

790 NECHES

SETAC

701 NORTH STREET, STE. 1

STARBUCKS

EDISON PLAZA

TEXAS ENERGY MUSEUM

600 MAIN

SOUTH END/LAMAR UNIVERSITY CARLITO’S RESTAURANT

890 AMARILLO @ COLLEGE

DOS AMIGAS

1590 FRANKLIN

LU ART DEPARTMENT

Recent work by Elizabeth Fontenot

FEBRUARY 1-22 GALLERY RECEPTION IS FEB. 1, 7-10 P.M.

DISHMAN ART MUSEUM OLD TOWN

ANNA’S MEXICAN BAKERY

2570 CALDER

BEAUMONT FRIED CHICKEN

7TH AND CALDER

JASON’S DELI

112 GATEWAY SHOP CNTR

KATHARINE & CO.

1495 CALDER

RAO’S BAKERY

2596 CALDER

SIGN INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS

2835 LAUREL

SUNRISE

2425 S 11TH

SWICEGOOD MUSIC CO.

3685 COLLEGE

THE TATTERED SUITCASE

2590 CALDER

CENTRAL/WEST END BASIC FOODS

229 DOWLEN

BEAUMONT VISITORS BUREAU

This project was funded in part by the B.A. & E.W. Steinhagen Benevolent Trust through the Southeast Texas Arts Council.

IH-10

COLORADO CANYON

6119 FOLSOM

GUITAR & BANJO STUDIO

4381 CALDER

LOGON CAFE

3805 CALDER

PACESETTER

COLONNADE CENTER

RED B4 BOOKS

4495 CALDER

REED’S LAUNDRY STUDIO 77

6025A PHELAN @ PEYTON 6372 COLONNADE CENTER

THIRSTY’S

229 DOWLEN PARKDALE

RAO’S BAKERY

4440 DOWLEN ORANGE

STARK MUSEUM OF ART

712 GREEN AVE.