Visual art news, views, reviews and calendars in Dallas, Texas, USA

Home  Index  Calendar  Member art  How to Join  Resources  Feedback  Contact  Reviews  Submissions  Search

Beginning on Continental Gin Tour page 1
and Visiting The Shamrock Hotel

Visiting the Continental Gin Building, continued

Story + Photographs by J R Compton

door painting by Elissa Foster

This object by Elissa Foster was not actually on display in her studio. But when we admired some of her other pieces, she gave us a special tour through a big closet full of colorful doors. This was our favorite.

abstract by Marsha Moser in homey setting

In an unoccupied space off artist Marsha Moser's studio was a collaborative effort at a vivid living room, charged with a large, brilliant orange and gold abstract I wasn't sure about at first in that already loud room. But what else could compete with deep electric royal blue walls?

The room, scattered with comfy chairs, was a lot neater than I'm used to, but I think I could be happy in there. The colors are wonderful. Elissa's door would be a natural.

art lamp by Donna Ball

Along the back side of the building, studios on the ground floor have direct big-door access to a green, shady area about twenty feet deep and as long as the building, decorated with a variety of art and other objects. At the far end, we were promised music later, we had no idea by whom, but therein lay yet another positive surprise.

top

Japan meets Mexico

I am more and more stirred by the strange combination of Japanese and Mexican imagery, colors, subjects and shapes in Elissa Foster's paintings. There's some serious postmodernism going on in there. At first it shocked me. What am I going to say about this stuff, I thought when I photographed her work for her Supporting Member's page.

Then I kept seeing it on each succeeding Gin building visit. It still startles me when I see another or think about them later, but that startlement is more and more delicious, never quite escaping from the bizarre, but in a way somehow light-hearted.

Bob Nunn's paintings

Long-time member Bob Nunn, who must be the kindly grandfather of these extended studios, wasn't present on Open Studio day, one of his three times a week dialysis days. But his friend explained that he's still painting up a storm, having completed 29 of his fantasy flower paintings in 10 days recently for a hotel interior in the Caicos Islands, through a connection from another artist in the Gin Building. Certainly one of the benefits of communal studioing.

I'm looking forward to photographing more of his newer work for his member page. That's a wrap-around 360-degree photograph of his recent retrospective at the lower right above.

Bobby's other band

Turns out the promised music at the far end of the Gin Building's backyard was by Anna's daughter's boyfriend's “other band.” That's what the Dallas Observer called them. The band is The Paper Chase. This band, Ryan, Robert and Rex, left to right above, is the Robert Bruce Weaver III Band.

And what we heard in that lush green cool among their friends and dogs — one way too gregarious and the other too tired out — was sweet, gentle, bluegrassy, swingish music I could have happily sat on that door sill next to Ace, the pooped out pup, and listened to all afternoon into evening. But they quit playing.

A classy culmination in a different artform after an afternoon of studio visits.

Both the Continental Gin building and the Shamrock Hotel had big bouquets on windows sills. The Shamrock's, for all its beauty, looked store-bought. This one coulda been, too, but I liked its autumn leaves, near death subtle odd colors kinda feel, and I felt compelled to snap this on our way out after a tiring afternoon watching art and artists.

Out by the car we found one more object that fairly shouted the presence of artists, this brightly decorated dumpster. Don't know if the waste disposal guys cared much for this white on green box treatment. But we sure did.

 

Beginning on Continental Gin Tour page 1
and Visiting The Shamrock Hotel

Information about helping to support DallasArtsRevue —
including a new, Easy Guide to Joining DARts,
is on the DARts Member Page Index.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

since May 30, 2005

top