Issue Magazine - December 2014

THE ARTS MAGAZINE OF THE ART STUDIO, INC.

DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015

HOLIDAY SHOPPING WITH A DISCO FLAIR SEE PAGE 8

INSIDE: GEEK’S GIFT GUIDE, MONET AT MFAH, BOHO AT V-HAUS, AND MORE

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

For upcoming gigs, visit The Studio’s facebook page

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

A View From The Top Greg Busceme, TASI Director

I JUST GOT USED to writing 2014 on my checks and now it’s almost over. Time flies when you’re pushing 60, and sooner than I expected it’s time for the Holiday Shop-ORama Extravaganza, The Studio’s annual arts sale.

This year we put a little twist on the event with a Disco-Rama after hours featuring the musical witticisms of Space Capsule.

The exhibition and sale, as always, is free, but the cost is a mere $5 for all the fun you’ll have at the Disco Party. Dress like you wanna — I’ll see if my parachute pants still fit.

Be there right after the Holiday Shop-ORama or be square!

Speaking of the sale, this year we are having the best of both worlds as far as craftspeople are concerned. Members of The Art Studio are setting up as opening night vendors for a small fee of $10 for a 6foot space. Or they can set up for the two weeks and sell under the same conditions as exhibiting artists.

Each year new and varied artists, artisans and craftspeople bring their handmade, original work to market here at The Art Studio, where we try to showcase the best this area has to offer.

We are encouraged by recent sales of art which have gone up over the past two years. This is an indicator to us the econo-

ISSUE Vol. 21, No. 4 Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Art Studio, Inc. Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andy Coughlan Copy Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tracy Danna Contributing Writers. . . . . . . . . . . . Elena Ivanova, . . . . . . . . . . JoLee Tanner, Desimond Martin Contributing Photographers . . . . . . Elena Ivanova, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JoLee Tanner Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kevin Dodson The Art Studio, Inc. Board of Directors President Ex-Officio . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg Busceme Vice-President. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Angela Busceme Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Roberts 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 info@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

my is healing in Southeast Texas.

It is also encouraging to the creators that good quality work made locally has no stigma tied to it, in fact, it’s a plus. Dealing directly with the makers is a unique experience.

For the general public it is the experience of knowing the artist who made your treasure. How many times have people shown me a woven scarf, a bit of jewelry or a coffee mug and proceeded to tell me all about the artist and how they made it. (I love that sort of thing).

This is the real pride in ownership — the thing you grab if you had one pass during a house fire.

We fly in the face of a Buddhist’s noble truth: The cause of suffering is desire.

Desire to create the object and desire to own the object bring about their own suffering — a dual greed. For the craftsperson it’s losing a child they raised, a favorite piece that always seemingly goes for too little.

The buyer, gleeful of the new acquisition, may become possessive and guarded, maybe slightly guilty for paying so little.

I celebrate every vessel I make and am grateful for every appreciator who wants to own one of my creations. I think of the cup warming the hands of the possessor of my craft. It warms me. That they call it “my cup” fills me.

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS AT THE ART STUDIO DECEMBER

FEBRUARY

Annual Shop-O-Rama Extravaganza Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . December 6

Kailee Viator Mixed Media Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 7

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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Exp Date Dreaming of Belarus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4 Bohemian? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6 Shop-O-Rama/Disco-Rama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7 Geek’s Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8 Monet’s Seine at MFAH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11 Newcomb Pottery at Stark Museum . . . . . . . . . . Page 13 Around & About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14 Thoughtcrime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15

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4 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

———— TRAVEL ————

Dreaming of Belarus A Pilgrimage to Vitebsk

Editor’s note: ISSUE contributor Elena Ivanova spent the summer in Eastern Europe doing research for a book. This story is the last in a four-part series chronicling her adventures and the artistic discoveries she made along the way.

LONG EVENING SHADOWS WERE already weaving their intricate patchwork on the city’s streets and alleys, but the sun was still blazing as if it had no intention of quitting for the day. “Is it always so hot in Vitebsk in the end of May?” I wondered as I made my way up the hill towards the majestic cathedral that crowned its top. I felt like a pilgrim who, after a long journey, has arrived at the holy site and is overwhelmed by awe, anticipation and exhaustion.

Having reached the high plaza of the Cathedral of Assumption, I was rewarded with a grand view of the Dvina River, the major waterway connecting Vitebsk with the Baltic Sea. The river ensured growth and prosperity of the ancient city since the date of its foundation, in 947, till the age of railroads stripped it of this honorable duty. The opposite bank looked wild and verdant, although I knew that this picturesque facade concealed a modern city district. Nevertheless, I indulged in a fantasy of standing on the spot over a hundred years ago and enjoying the view as Vitebskovites saw it in the early 1900s.

My family’s roots are just north of this area, on the border of Russia and Belarus. However, it was

Story and photos by Elena Ivanova

“My sad, my joyful town!”

— Marc Chagall not my family story that I set out to uncover during my trip. For several years I have been putting together the life story of Belarusian-American artist Leon Schulmann Gaspard, whose name may be familiar to art fans in southeast Texas due to an excellent collection of his works at the Stark Museum of Art in Orange.

When I visited Minsk, I spent days at the State Historical Archive of Belarus looking for references to Schulmann. Here, in Vitebsk, I was on a different mission. This was his native town and it was at the famous school of artist Yuri (Yehuda) Pen that young Leiba Schulmann, as he was known at the time, got his first instruction in art.

My plan was to learn as much as possible about Pen’s school and his pupils who lived in Vitebsk around the same time as Schulmann. This knowledge could help me to better understand the environment that nurtured Leiba Schulmann’s artistic talent.

The most famous among Pen’s pupils was Marc Chagall, just five years younger than Leiba.

Chagall’s memory is much revered in Vitebsk and everything related to his life in this city is preserved and carefully studied. So early next morning I headed to Chagall’s childhood home, which is a museum today.

A one-story brick house on Pokrovskaya Street

Pictured clockwise from top left: STREET IN VITEBSK and SELF PORTRAIT by Yuri Pen, and a memorial plaque to the artist in Vitebsk, seen in a view from the Town House Towers.

Volume 21, No. 4 appeared to be way too small for a family of ten. Two boys had a bedroom of their own and although it was no bigger than a closet, they fared much better than their sisters. Six girls, spaced within 13 years, had to share one bedroom as well. The dining room could barely fit a table and chairs. The adjacent living room was more spacious, but the family did not benefit from it since it operated as a grocery store. There were times when they even had tenants.

Yet Chagall’s parents were not poor by the standards of their time. Through hard work and frugal housekeeping, they saved enough money to replace the original wooden house with a brick one and then added two more wooden structures to their property.

Looking at the photographs displayed on the walls, one gets an impression of a respectable middle-class family.

What did young Moishe, who was destined to become the great Marc Chagall, see when he looked out of the window? “Churches, fences, shops, synagogues stand on every side, simple and eternal as the buildings in Giotto’s frescoes. Around me, all kinds of Jews, old ones, young ones, Javitches, Bejlines, come and go, turn and turn again, or simply trot along. A beggar runs toward his house, a rich man goes home. The “Cheder” boy runs home. Papa goes home.”1 I thought of the busy neighborhood of Chagall’s youth as I walked down the street. The area looked deserted, with overgrown lots and an occasional factory. A skeletal frame of a synagogue stood at a street corner like a grisly ghost from the past.

From his backyard, the future artist could see in the distance the towers and the golden dome of the Cathedral of Assumption. Although located on the other bank of the Dvina, this majestic building soared above the landscape of wooden shacks and vegetable gardens. Later in life, Chagall often depicted this cathedral in his paintings, showing it closer than it actually was so that its massive structure seemed to overwhelm the dwarfish houses of his neighborhood.

Young Leiba Schulmann could have lived in a similar neighborhood. Some of Pen’s students recalled that Schulmann came from a poor family and his father was either a carpenter or a cabinet-maker.

In his early works he portrayed wooden houses and fences stretched along a dirt road, like the ones depicted by Chagall. Other works featured the Cathedral of Assumption, although the artist tended to arbitrarily place it in a location of his own choosing, such as a marketplace.

While in those bygone days Pokrovskaya Street and much of its neighborhood looked like a village, the downtown of Vitebsk boasted paved streets and even a tram line. It was from the platform of a tram that young Moishe noticed a white inscription on a blue placard sheet of metal that said, “Pen’s School of Painting.” Remembering this pivotal moment of his life, Chagall wrote, “Ah!” I thought, “what a clever town our Vitebsk is!” I immediately decided to make the acquaintance of the master.”2 Scholars still debate when exactly Chagall attended Pen’s school. The artist claimed that it was in 1906, at the age of 19. However, even if it happened a few years earlier, as some researchers suggest, by then Leiba Schulmann had completed his studies with Pen. Chagall must have often heard from his teacher about this talented young man who continued his education in Odessa and then in Paris. In the fall of 1907, the proud master exhibited his works side by side with Schulmann and two other former students at a large show at the Second Public Assembly in Vitebsk.

December 2014/January 2015 ISSUE • 5

The Cathedral of Assumption in Vitebsk, top. Marc Chagall’s house in Vitebsk, above, and PORTRAIT OF CHAGALL by Yuri Pen, left.

Today there is no tram line and the house which accommodated Pen’s apartment and the school is gone. Paradoxically, it survived the war, only to be demolished later. A memorial plaque on the building standing on its site reminds us of this remarkable man, a talented artist and a passionate teacher who devoted forty years of his life to instilling love for art in young minds.

Born in a poor Jewish family in Novoalexandrovsk (today Zarasai, Lithuania), Pen achieved something that very few artistically-minded Jews in Russia were able to achieve. He was admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Upon successful graduation he was granted the right to reside in the capital city. However, he preferred to go

to provincial Vitebsk where, in the fall of 1897, he opened an art school for the local public.

Pen’s school was open to anyone who wanted to study art, regardless of age, ethnicity or rank. Those who were too poor to pay enjoyed free lessons. For Jewish youth the school offered a rare opportunity to get instruction from a professional artist. There were very few art schools within the Jewish Pale of Settlement which limited the movement of the Jewish population of the Russian Empire to its western provinces (today’s territories of Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.) Besides Chagall, such future superstars of 20th-century art as

See BELARUS on page 12

6 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

Bohemian? ‘I won’t deny it’

Busceme ‘at home’ in Beaumont arts scene OLIVIA BUSCEME, BAND BOOKING agent, theme party guru and undiscovered artists’ go-to girl, has been on “the scene” in Beaumont her entire life.

The 24-year-old continues to shape the art and music scene in Southeast Texas through her efforts and those of her friends associated with Victoria House.

The two-story 1913 Sears Craftsman Home on Victoria Street is Olivia’s childhood home, which she has turned into a music venue/art commune.

“Why would I want to be grown up and get an apartment if I already have the house?” she said. “I have never lived anywhere else — the Victoria House is me.”

Olivia was literally born into the area art scene — her parents are Ange and Greg Busceme, who founded The Art Studio, Inc. in 1983.

“The Art Studio is 31 and I’m 24, so I was born into making things happen,” Olivia said. “If you want them done, then do them.”

She said it’s natural for her to have an idea and cultivate it through to fruition. She was the stage manager for Beaumont’s first Pride in June, holds a position with Story and photos by JoLee Tanner

Boomtown Music and Film Festival, has been booking bands all over town since her teens, and has recently turned a room of her home into an art gallery. She also is notorious for themed parties celebrating everything from her birthday to “Friendsmas.”

“It is good to have people not feel like themselves, so you make them dress in a theme and you make them feel like they are somewhere else,” she said.

Olivia has so many different costumes they are mixed in with her everyday clothes. Sometimes she even integrates some pieces into her office wear at her day job as a receptionist at the Texas Coffee Company.

“I think (theme parties) open people’s brains — you don’t want to be going to the same party all the time — you want to feel like you are somewhere else even if you are still at home,” she said.

Before the parties, Busceme was known for her relationship with bands all over the area and beyond.

She began booking Band Nite at The Studio when she was 16-years old, and continues to promote concerts.

“I like a lot of different kinds of music,” she said.

See BOHEMIAN on page 10

Olivia Busceme, top, poses with Heather Rushing, Chris Presley, Trevor Armstrong, Jade Oliver and Tack Somers at the Victoria House. Busceme reads thank you letters, above, from bands who have stayed and played at the house.

Volume 21, No. 4

December 2014/January 2015 ISSUE • 7

Where’s the best place to get your gifts? TASI, that’s where!

THE ANNUAL HOLIDAY SHOP-ORama Extravaganza, hosted by the Art Studio Inc., will begin at noon, Dec. 6. The event will include a free reception from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., followed by a holiday disco party.

“This is an opportunity for local artists to exhibit their work and connect with the community,” Abigail McLaurin, Art Studio tenant, said.

“The community can buy original artwork at a ver y affordable price, and support someone’s passion and what they are doing. Customers should expect a great time. Most art events are social events, so they should just come to enjoy art and each other.”

Instead of buying a painting for hundreds of dollars at a store, patrons will be able to buy oneof-a-kind gifts made locally that are affordable.

“We are a pretty good venue and people have faith in what we do,” Greg Busceme, executive director, said. “So what happens here is more people are starting buying our artwork which is ver y important when it comes to credibility. It makes people want to come back ever y year.”

Tenants and members of The Studio will display their wares through Dec. 20. The Shop-ORama will also feature vendors from around the area who will exhibit on Dec. 6 only.

“We are going to have some set up for the twoweek duration of the show,” organizer Elizabeth French said. “When Christmas comes up, I usually shut the show down about a week before. Shop-ORama has been a success, but it’s becoming competitive because our event lasts for two weeks and the vendors have many other places they can sell their products.

“Our solution to that will be allowing vendors to come in and set up for that night. We understand the fact it is Christmas shopping season, so that’s why we came up with the one-day option.

The one-day option will make it more flexible for the vendors come share their stuff as well. Some vendors also leave some of their stuff at The Studio, and we sell it for them so customers will not miss out on anything.”

The Shop-O-Rama will run until 5 p.m., Dec. 6, and will continue with a free reception beginning at 7 p.m. that evening, which will feature music and other entertainment.

“We know a lot of people besides visual artists, like theater artists and musicians,” French said. “So we are tr ying to get together a short performance of some sort by them. We will also have people from KVLU’s Space Capsule doing a visual and musical Disco dance party.”

French said that she hopes people will come and support the local artists in the sale.

“What we are tr ying to do is have a better participation from the community,” she said. “Since it is Christmas shopping, we want to have a Christmas party the first day. It would be like the first party of the season. There will be Christmas music playing and the studio will be decorated.

We are having holiday-themed desserts.

Story by Desimond Martin

“We want people to dress festively, like dressing up like elves or just simply wearing a Christmas sweater. The cheesier the better.”

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

For more information, visit www.artstudio.org.

8 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

The Geek’s Guide: Columnist thinks of perfect nerd presents so you don’t have to WELL ANOTHER BASEBALL SEASON has come and gone, and in its absence the world has been filled with the bitter cold of winter and the promise of hot chocolate and presents under the tree. No doubt you have some truly geeky folks on your Christmas list, so sit back, take a sip of the warm beverage of your choice and let me make your Amazon shopping just a tad easier this year.

Commentary

by Jeff Dixon (Jeff Dixon loves movies and comic books in a way that often terrifies him. You can follow his insane ramblings on Twitter @RoiVampire.)

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY — The biggest movie of the year hits Blu-Ray and DVD, Dec. 9. You can bring home this dazzling sci-fi romp starring Chris Pratt as a lovable outlaw, Bradley Cooper as a lovable mercenary raccoon and Vin Diesel as a lovable talking tree. Marvel Studios did it again and this BluRay is packed with behind the scenes features detailing the special effects, make-up, and of course how director James Gunn put together the best soundtrack to hit the Billboard charts in years.

ARROW SEASONS 1 AND 2 — Without a doubt this is the best comic book-inspired television show to

hit the airwaves in over a decade and arguably one of the best shows on the air at the moment. As someone who has read maybe 12 issues of Green Arrow in my entire life, I can tell you this show requires no prior knowledge of the DC universe but instead a love of compelling and witty characters and intriguing plot threads that never fall short. Arrow took aim at the hearts and minds of its viewers and it struck a bullseye. This is for that comic book fan you know that claims to be “too cool for TV.” BATMAN: THE COMPLETE SERIES — Available for the first time in its entirety, the complete series of the show that kick started comics as a viable form of pop culture in another medium.

Completely remastered, this series has never looked better.

Plus the box set comes with a Hot Wheels Batmobile! How cool is that? Don’t answer. I’ll do it for you. It’s very cool. For that friend on your list who yearns to feel like a kid again, I can’t think of a better gift to find under the tree. If only it was packaged in a replica bust of Shakespeare. One can dream.

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON — This Jimmy Stewart classic celebrates its 75th anniversary this year with a remastered BluRay and a host of special features including never before seen footage and a brand new

Volume 21, No. 4

December 2014/January 2015 ISSUE • 9

The Reckoning documentary, Frank Capra’s American Dream, narrated by Ron Howard. I could tell you there's a better Blu-Ray on this list for the film geek in your life but that would be a bald-faced lie.

CLASSICS: SHE AND HIM — Hey, here’s a stupid question.

Do you want to hear Zooey Deschanel sing “Stars Fell on Alabama?” What about “Unchained Melody?” Of course you do.

You have ears right? This album of classic covers is due the first week of December and it will probably remain in a rotating loop along with the other albums on this list until summer hits.

A BETTER TOMORROW: WU-TANG CLAN — The sixth studio album (Yeah, I was surprised, too) from the best hip hop group to ever hit the stage, “A Better Tomorrow” is a return to form for each member.

Although they'll never be the same without ODB, this album comes damn close to what the Wu brought to the table in their early days while still striving for freshness and originality. For that hip hop geek on your list, you could do no better than this 16-track masterpiece that firmly announces the return of the Wu. THE PINKPRINT: NICKI MINAJ — I’ll most certainly get some flak for this one from the hipsters, but this is my list and not theirs. For the past five years there has been no other female in hip hop with the range and rapping ability of Nicki Minaj. Not since Lauryn Hill (Yeah, I said it) has a female rapper been bold enough to rap and sing on the same album in such a way that makes you yearn for a double album of strictly both styles of music. Minaj has called this album her most daring and experimental which excites me in a way I cannot aptly describe. I can’t wait for this.

REVIVAL BY STEPHEN KING — Set in a small New England town, no surprise there, Revival spans five decades, centering on a young boy and his first encounters with the new minister in town, and moving forward to his reacquaintance with his former pastor as the young boy, now in his 30s, struggles with a heroine addiction. The early reviews are saying this novel will be remembered as one of King’s best works and I for one am intrigued. King does his best work when he is rooted in the everyday and the relatable. Religion and drug addiction have played a large role in his personal life and there look to be no punches pulled in regard to both subjects.

HOWARD THE DUCK OMNIBUS

BY STEVE GERBER — Pulled across time and space from his home planet,

Duckworld, and forced to live among “hairless apes” on a planet called Earth, Howard the Duck explores one of the weirder corners of the Marvel Universe.

Written by Steve Gerber, this comic succeeded for years in a market where it should have failed outright. But thanks to Gerber’s astounding writing and his willingness to stick it to the brass, Howard clawed his way into our hearts where he still remains, sitting idly sipping whiskey from a tumbler and smoking a cigar, waiting for his chance to shine once more.

AVENGERS: EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES BY KURT BUSIEK AND GEORGE PEREZ — Arguably the best run on Avengers since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby stepped away from their creations. Debuting in the mid-’90s, this Avengers run was an answer to all of the gritty comics that made up the ’80s and early ’90s. These were real heroes saving the world and acting like a real team instead of the angsty cry babies other publishers were trying to pass off as characters. For that comic geek that loves a good solid run on a series, this is a hardcover that will look gorgeous on their shelf while providing a quintessential look at these heroes.

That’s it for me folks. I'll be bundled up inside drinking mochas and dreaming of sugar-plum fairies, whatever they may be. Stay warm and stay safe and above all, avoid the mall.

Mahalo!

10 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

BOHEMIAN from page 6 “I’m anti-genre, because you never know what you are going to like until you hear it.”

Whether she is sporting a shaved head, platinum blonde locks or a head full of rainbow-colored curls, Olivia is always on the hunt for different kinds of talents to showcase — and she also sees a chance to showcase her hometown.

“I don’t think I’m very much of an art mommy, but I’m like a mother to the bands. (Victoria House tenants) are like a tour guide for traveling bands.

When they come to the city we are like, ‘This is what’s great about Beaumont.’”

Olivia said “V Haus” tenants and friends show bands a great time, and when they leave they have good memories of Beaumont. She started booking bands at The Studio because someone needed to keep Band Nite going.

“So if you like a thing, and you want to have it happen, sometimes you have to make sure it happens by doing it,” she said. “You can’t rely on someone else to do the thing that you want to do —you just gotta do it.”

Victoria House’s High Street Gallery was born out of a small idea.

“It is just a room where we painted all the walls white,” Olivia said, modestly. “We have our friends show their work every now and then. We have sold quite a few pieces.”

Olivia said she doesn’t think she necessarily “does” anything.

“I just make the things happen when I can,” she said.

As for Victoria House’s style, Olivia describes it as “granny chic.”

“It’s like an antique store and it’s kind of like a junk shop — almost like, ‘Where did that come from?’” she said. “Things aren’t as intentional as a decorated place. It’s not like it is interior decorations — it’s just like the things happen.”

Olivia doesn’t describe herself as bohemian.

“But I wouldn’t deny it,” she said.

Victoria House looks a lot different than when she was growing up. She still has her parents’ art on the walls and scattered around, but many things have been added.

“There are some things I have been looking at my whole life, but obviously you bring a whole bunch of people in and everyone is going to put their own touch on it,” she said. “There is a flavor of everyone who has ever lived here.”

The eclectic decor includes dozens of cameras from every era sitting on top of an upright piano, decades-old radios and adding machines, random knick knacks, like a brass head of Mirabeau Lamar, cattle skulls, a Ramones lamp shade, and a creepy toddler-sized doll named Nancy, who gets moved from room to room as company includes her in festivities.

Many different roommates have called Victoria House home.

“It used to be that everyone who lived here was a musician,” Olivia said. “Now we have two theater people, so I feel like we are more theatrical and before we had been more musical.”

Being the child of artists shaped her sensibilities, Oliva said.

“My dad is a ceramic artist and my mom is just an artsy person in general and she dabbles, but she doesn’t have a degree in it or anything,” she said. “I think my brother and I were raised to appreciate art, and my parents definitely influenced that. I think

Olivia Busceme, top clockwise from front, Chris Presley, Tack Somers, Heather Rushing and Jade Oliver having fun at Victoria House. The group, joined by Trevor Armstrong, above second left, show off Victoria House merchandise. there is no other way I could have gone — it was natural to be a part of the art community.”

Olivia appreciates her upbringing.

“Raise your children in the art community,” she said. “I think if you are raised in the art community, it gives you a different perspective on things. You are

exposed to different things than normal people.”

Out of all the events Busceme and her V Haus friends create and execute, she is most proud of the hospitality she is able to offer traveling bands.

“I think the main thing is we are a B&B for traveling musicians,” she said. “When I book bands, even though we don’t let them play at the house anymore, they are always welcome to stay at the Victoria House. It’s a pretty big thing with bands on tour to have a place to sleep. We have them stay here for free and we just take care of them.

“We have these spare mattresses that we will pull out and we have all these couches. We have this much floor space, so we don’t want to waste it — we can sleep tons of people.”

Victoria House has hosted nearly 40 people in one night and made breakfast the next day.

“We actually have a book of thank you letters that the bands leave for us,” Olivia said Those interested in having a themed party, showing art, booking a band, or just wanting to be on the invite lists for all the magical events, can email victoriahousetx@gmail.com.

Volume 21 No. 4

December 2014/January 2015 ISSUE • 11

Reflections in the Water, Reflections of Oneself ‘MONET AND THE SEINE: IMPRESSIONS OF A RIVER’ AT MFAH Monet is just an eye, but good God, what an eye!

— Paul

Cézanne

THE PALE SKY HAS barely acknowledged the arrival of the new dawn when a strange-looking boat noiselessly pushed away from the shore and drifted into the middle of the river. It carried a small wooden cabin on its deck, so the boat looked like a floating house. The cabin could open on both sides to provide an unobstructed view up or down the stream. If a visitor were permitted to come aboard, he would find there unusual tackle: an easel, palettes, brushes and paints.... The owner of this boat was not an avid fisherman, but an artist, Claude Monet.

Sunlit gardens, water lilies, haystacks and the Rouen Cathedral — these are some of the famous images that the name of the celebrated Impressionist master evokes in our memory. Monet lived a long life — 86 years, and his creative output was overwhelming.

The exhibition at MFAH takes a close look at one aspect of his art — his obsession with the river Seine.

The exhibition features 52 paintings which came to Houston from all over the world. Every one of them has been carefully selected as a milestone in the artist’s journey — in time, space and artistic achievement. From the busy river port of Argenteuil on the outskirts of Paris, to the quaint village of Vétheuil and, finally, to the tranquility of Giverny, each painting may be regarded as a Monet self-portrait as he matured as a man and an artist.

The Seine was more than a subject of his artistic inquiry. It was his first love, his muse, his teacher. As he spent day after day on the river capturing its changing appearance — at different times of day, weather and season — Monet was turning into the great artist that we know today.

How did it all start? Coming from a family that was involved in a boating business, young Claude was intimately familiar with life on the river. He spent his days on the water even before he knew that he wanted to be an artist. So it is hardly surprising that in his early works, like Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen (18721873), he recorded the images he saw every day — the rigging of ships in a busy harbor and the way water is refracting and reflecting the ships and the sky.

In this work Monet is still searching for his own voice. His palette is not as bright, the objects are more solid and the brushstrokes are more controlled than what we usually expect to see in his works. Yet he is already using the composition which would later become his signature style. He divides the canvas into two almost equal parts, so the expanse of water in the lower half encompasses the full reflection of the boats, the shore and the sky. As time went on, the implied line midway across the canvas, be it a shoreline or a horizon, would become an axis along which the painting may, literally, be rotated and turned upside down without losing the integrity of the image.

Monet’s friendship with Eugène Boudin, the famous landscapist of an earlier generation, played an important

Review by Elena Ivanova

role in shaping his artistic vision and technique. They met in 1857 when Monet was only 18 and Boudin persuaded his young friend to give up his caricature drawings and to become a landscape painter. It was Boudin who encouraged Monet to paint, not just sketch, en plein air instead of doing the major work in the studio, which had been the established practice for centuries.

Monet took the advice of his older colleague to heart and equipped himself with a studio boat which allowed him to paint the river directly from observation as he moored himself at a chosen spot. While he was not the only one who had a “floatable studio,” he certainly used this advantage to the fullest.

“The Church at Vétheuil” (1879) represents Monet at the breakthrough point of his career. The canvas is scintillating with brilliant color applied in small brushstrokes in a mosaic-like fashion. The Gothic church and the red-roofed houses clustered around its ancient walls look as if they are infused with sunshine, their materiality almost dissolved by light and air. Their reflection in the water appears to be in constant motion, now coming together, now breaking apart.

The painting seems to be announcing, loud and clear: “The age of Impressionism has arrived!” The term was coined only a few years earlier, in 1874, by critic Louis Leroy. Reviewing the exhibition of Monet and his friends at the studio of the photographer Nadar, he derisively referred to the group as “impressionists,” picking on the title of Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise.”

Leroy declared that “wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.” However, neither scathing reviews, nor lethargic public response impeded the progress of the new art movement.

Looking at this happy landscape it is hard to imagine that Monet was entering the darkest span of his life.

Financially destitute, he could barely care for his family.

In September of 1879 his wife Camille died and Monet plunged into the depths of despair. Things got so bad that, after being evicted in the middle of the night, the

Claude Monet, THE ICE FLOES (Les Glaçons), top, 1880, oil on canvas, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont Claude Monet, THE BOAT STUDIO, 1876, oil on canvas, The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania. (Not featured in the exhibition) despondent artist threw himself into the river wishing to end his misery. However, he was too good a swimmer to perish among the waves....

A few months later, the river led him to a new discovery which eventually broke his bad luck spell.

See MONET on page 12

12 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

BELARUS from page 5 El Lissitzky and Ossip Zadkine also commenced their art education at Pen’s school.

While in Minsk, I had the pleasure of meeting a grand niece of Pen, Anna Gerstein. A retired theater critic, she is energetic and agile despite her venerable age. We spent a delightful morning at her apartment drinking tea and talking about the time she and her parents stayed with “uncle Yuri” in Vitebsk. “He had three rooms, but the only big room was taken by his studio,” she reminisced. “The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with his paintings and those of his pupils. He also taught in this room. He slept on a couch, which was the only piece of furniture in the adjacent room. There also was a tiny room by the kitchen.”

It was in this tiny room facing the backyard that the 82-year-old artist was viciously murdered on the night of March 1, 1937. The official report was that the motive was burglary. “Anna Grigorievna, do you think it was politically motivated?” I asked. She replied, “The truth has not been told yet… There was a public outcry when it happened and some petty thieves were promptly picked up. They confessed, were tried and sentenced to a prison term, but later they recanted their story, said they had nothing to do with Pen’s death.”

She didn’t have to say it – we both knew Soviet history. 1937 was the year of the Great Terror. Along with an open witch hunt for foreign spies and traitors, a secret campaign against prominent cultural figures was carried out by Stalin’s henchmen.

Although Pen never meddled in politics and cared only about art, he stayed in touch with his former students who now lived abroad — Chagall in France, Schulmann in America. Maybe a trivial thing, like an exhibition catalog with a foreign return address, was enough to seal his fate….

MONET from page 11 During the cold winter of 1879-1880, Monet witnessed a rare natural phenomenon, known as ‘La débacle,’ or the breaking of the ice. After deadly December frosts, a thaw set in on Jan. 5.

In the morning the artist woke up to the loud cracking noise. The Seine was covered with floating plates of ice that rustled as they rubbed against each other on their way down the stream. This eerie parade continued for several days allowing Monet to create a series of paintings on the subject, the first one in which he explored the same motif at different times of the day.

“The Ice Floes (Les Glaçons)” (1880) exemplifies the artist’s fascination with this unusual scene. The pale pink palette conveys the sense of warmth and gaiety that contradicts our mental image of the river in winter. Monet challenges the viewer to set aside preconceived notions and to open our eyes to the world around us. The ice floes on the mirror-like surface of the river look so much like the wispy clouds on the pale winter sky that the land and the sky seem to be interchangeable.

In the following years, Monet fully

PORTRAIT OF SCHULMANN, left, by Yuri Pen. Anna Gerstein, above.

This is the last installment of my travelogue. My magical travels in Belarus came to an end. I found what I had set out to discover: I got a glimpse of life of young Jewish art students in the early 20th century. At the same time, on my journey, I collected my own memories which are too extensive to fit into the format of a magazine article. This travelogue may be looked upon as a sampler plate which gives readers a

realized the potential of recording the same image under the changing light.

The exhibition at MFAH brings together for the first time the famous series “Mornings on the Seine” which the artist created in 1896-1897 and exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit in 1898. These paintings were a culmination of Monet’s interest in the river. Light, mist, interplay of shadows on the water as the day is slowly emerging from the pre-dawn dusk — these are his main artistic concerns.

The colors are muted and the shapes are indistinct and soft around the edges which makes them look like Rorschach stains. These images seem to belong simultaneously to the visible world and to the realm of abstraction.

By then the artist had been living comfortably in the picturesque village of Giverny. As the new century dawned upon his lovely house and luscious garden, Monet’s romance with the Seine came to an end. It has been suggested that he turned to painting his garden to escape from American fans who followed him wherever he went wishing to learn from the master. However, it also may be that the relationship between the artist and the muse of his youth had run its course. Like any meaningful relationship, it left an indelible mark on Monet’s sensi-

taste of various wonderful things that Belarus has to offer. By the way, did I mention that Belarusian pastry and dairy are the best I have ever tasted?

1 2

Marc Chagall. “My Life.”

Peter Owen Publishers, 2011, p.10.

Ibid., p.59.

Claude Monet, SHIPS RIDING ON THE SEINE AT ROUEN, 1872/1873, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection bilities and shaped him as an artist. It is hardly an accident that lily pads in his celebrated late paintings bear a resemblance to the ice floats from ‘La débacle’ series.

The exhibition “Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River” will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, through Feb. 1.

Volume 21, No. 4

December 2014/January 2015 ISSUE • 13

Equals in the Craft NEWCOMB POTTERY PAVED WAY FOR WOMEN’S EDUCATION THERE IS A LOT of talk in the news right now about feminism. But what is it really? It’s really a simple philosophy of equality of opportunity.

This equal opportunity, while exploding into the consciousness in the bra-burning ’60s, is not a new concept. In the arts, the women of the Newcomb Pottery were taking advantage of education to practice their craft in New Orleans.

The Stark Museum of Art in Orange is currently exhibiting the fruits of their endeavors in “Women, Art & Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise” through Jan. 4.

The exhibition features a variety of ceramic pieces designed by the women, as well as a variety of sketches, studies and drawings that highlight the educational foundations the women received.

Founded in post-Civil War New Orleans, the enterprise developed out of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, which is now associated with Tulane University. The school was funded by a gift of $10,000 by Josephine Louise Newcomb in memory of her daughter, who had died at age 15 from diphtheria. It was the first coordinate women’s college in the United States.

“The Newcomb Pottery enterprise would emerge as a quietly radical experiment — an unprecedented opportunity for Southern women to train as artists and support themselves financially, working as a collective,” the exhibition cards states.

“Guided by the principles of the British Arts and Crafts movement, the young women of Newcomb developed into hardworking, skilled, independent craftswomen who bore little resemblance to the stereotype of the southern belle. The enterprise produced a rich body of work — not only pottery, but also metalwork, textiles, bookbinding, jewelry, and other handicrafts.”

The arts and crafts movement came to the forefront in America through the work of Gustav Stickley, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright. As time passed, the women adopted influences from other movements, such as Art Nouveau.

The school opened in 1886 and the pottery produced for-profit work from 1895 to 1940. It began under the supervision of art faculty members William and Ellsworth Woodward. The women strived to be innovative and bold.

“If we be discouraged let us never become dull,” Mary Sheerer, Newcomb faculty member and potter, said.

As the years went by, the work, and the world, changed.

“But the spirit of self-actualization, experimentation and exploration never left the women of Newcomb, and remains the enterprise’s legacy

Review by Andy Coughlan

today,” the exhibition cards state.

The opening image that accompanies the exhibition features the women hard at work in the facility.

“The little band of stout-hearted students who worked shoulder to shoulder with Miss Sheerer in the low, gaunt, barnlike room…. the memory of those days of “fond adventure,” of sharply alternating rapture and despair, of big heartbreaks and bigger dreams is still poignantly sweet to the dauntless women who…worked together,” Harriet Joor, Newcomb artist, wrote in July 1910.

The works themselves are beautiful. The glazes are bright and gorgeously rendered, and many incorporate textures that beg to be fondled. Such are the frustrations of any 3D exhibition. One desperately wants to pick up the work — after all, the works in the show, in order to fulfill their original purpose, are more than just decorative. They also are designed to be functional.

The women were not simply craftswomen. They were given opportunities to study art history to really build a foundation for their work.

William P. Silva, in Art and Progress in 1911, writes, “It required much loving enthusiasm to keep out despair, when time after time the work of weeks was destroyed in a single bad kiln. But they wept and then smiled and tried again and so step by step they went from experiment to knowledge, from repeated failure to ultimate success, and within less than four Students Working in Newcomb Pottery Studio, top, on the Washington years the product became so truly good that the little Avenue campus, c. 1905. The studio differed from the Pottery collection hastily gotten together for the Paris exposi- Decorating classroom on the second floor in that the studio was the area where Joseph Meye turned the pieces, glazed, and fired the work.

University Scrapbook, University Archives, Tulane University. The daffodil See NEWCOMB on page 14 vase, above, dates from 1897.

14 • ISSUE December 2014/January 2015

Volume 21, No. 4

NEWCOMB from page 13 tion of 1900 was awarded a bronze medal.”

It is interesting to see the study sketches that the women made. Selina E. Bres’ drawings show the attention to the history of the craft that the women were encouraged to pursue. The study sketches feature designs from different periods, from ancient Egypt to Byzantium, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

It is a real treat to see the preliminary sketches — drawings that are then reduced to capture the essential forms that will be the basis of the design.

Pauline Wright’s study for the red cedar tree design, 1916, hangs next to an embroidered table runner. As is the case with many of the Stark Museum exhibitions, Newcomb is a process show. It is no mere collection of pretty pots. It is a careful examination of a craft and the detail and education that goes into it.

It is also a celebration of a pioneering group of women who defied the conventions of the time to build a legacy.

It is on the shoulders of these “stout-hearted students (working) shoulder to shoulder” that today’s women artists stand — on which we all stand.

The Stark Museum of Art is located at 712 Green Ave. in Orange.

For more information, www.starkmuseum.org.

Mission Statement 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.

The Stark Museum of Art hosts “Women, Art & Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise,” above, through Jan. 4. The exhibition features drawings by Selina E. Bres, top, which show the school’s dedication to art history and buidling a foundation on which the designs were based.

LR L SE U O Y

K R O W T R A

@

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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.

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4.

C A X SETORG .

5.

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 21, No. 4

December 2014/January 2015 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.

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Sera’s Toast The sun sets on his east Texas pasture, taking the day with it in a silent blaze. Wayne rambles over bumpy roads, rounding up memories as if he could drive them all home and park them in his driveway for show. Retelling his heroic past from a Lazy Boy chair, his wife of 65 years, Judith, nods respectfully, though she’s heard it all before. His thoughts are now comfortably scrambled in vodka and Coca-Cola. His best friends these days, two Aberdeen Terriers, herd him toward the bed. His farmer-sized hands steady him against thin walls. Wayne leans against the bedroom door shutting it with his weight then hits the mattress with a thud. Like centurions, the terriers file in, surrounding Wayne’s long, lean body.

Judith puts her ear to the door. With the sound of his snore, her shoulders drop and her back straightens. She lights a Virginia Slim and sits down to enjoy the first quiet moment of the day. A halo of smoke gathers around her head when she hears a knock at the back door. Placing her cigarette in a crystal bowl, an ashtray souvenir from Germany, she lifts herself from the easy chair. Seraphina has come to return the lillies Judith had placed on the New Year’s altar. Sera, that’s what Wayne called her for short, is a widow, an old friend.

He had once said to her, “Listen sweetheart,that’s a pretty name but it’s longer than you are tall. Can I just call you Sera?”

She was a “good-natured gal” he had always said. She had to be, married to Sonny, his partner in a Venezuelan oil drilling company in the ‘60s. They made the deal one night over a bottle of Jack, in a thatch-roofed bar in Caracas. When they stumbled through the door together, arms over shoulders to tell Sera, she raised her glass. In a mixed accent of Portuguese and Spanish she proposed a toast, “Well, eef we loos it all tomorrow, we jes start over. Sheers!”

They had a hell of a run until Sonny started stealing and Wayne sent him back to Texas on a second-class charter.

As the bouquet passes between Judith and Sera, a quaking blast from the garage shakes red pollen from the stamen onto the white, wilting petals.

There are not many unpredictable night noises so far out

in the piney woods. Dogs bark at owls and every now and then, a coyote. Exxon/Mobil trucks occasionally rumble on and off of the property to check their wells. But when the dogs are asleep, there is only the lowing of distant cattle to suggest waking life.

Before Judith can gain a grip on the flower pot, she sees fire clawing at the back door. Startled, she stumbles over soil and shards from the shattered lilly container shoving Sera toward the front door.

She yells for Wayne, but there is no reply.

The terriers scatter, disappear as the bedroom door flies open. Wayne lay still and quiet, but for the snoring. He blows air through his nose and lips, like a horse nicker and rolls onto his side.

The two women struggle with all six feet and two inches of his dead weight until he flops to the floor.

His eyes peel half open as he sits up. Grabbing him under his shoulders, they drag him outside, just as flames over take the home.

It is only a pre-fab house, not like the handsome homes they had known before retirement. But it held nearly every reminder of their combined 140-some years of life.

Coatless and shoeless in the cold January night, the three are now monoliths in the field. Sera’s stature is noticably diminutive next to Wayne, her arms outstretched to wrap and warm the couple.

Flames burn, blot out the stars.

In minutes, the home is reduced to cinders. Indifferent to their loss, the flames turn and begin to feed on surrounding tree branches. The fire department calls. They are lost. The small dirt road turnoff is not visible in the night. A short red truck follows the glow on the horizon, getting there in time to save a few Venezuelan trinkets but not in time to save the two tiny terriers. The three watch the horror with tear-stained faces, imagining what must have become of the loyal companions — staring, glassy-eyed, no tears left.

The final flame is exhausted. A blanket of pitch dark covers the now open field, like an old quilt with stars for pinholes.

DonnaRae Wisor

Well, Tickle Me Pink Or yellow Or blue Or purple But you tickle me pink With your smile and laughter Making me laugh with glee It's marvelous to have a Friend like you who keeps The rainbow in the skies The magic, the colors The promise of a pot of gold Tickle me pink Cathy Atkinson

Give Thanks If we were oceans deep We’d thank God for the wind That makes us dance with Waves and mists.

If we were grass We’d thank God for the rain The seas have carried To make us green and grow.

If we were beasts We’d thank God for the waters and the lands for we need these to prosper.

But we are men And thank God not enough For all his love does offer.

Jesse Doiron

Simple Questions How could it be missing Before it was ever found?

How could there be silence Before the birth of sound?

How could there be an up When no one knew of down?

How did he know he was alone Until she came around?

Andy Coughlan

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