DARts Seeks Art in Different Places

DallasArtsRevue visits Artists of Rowlett, Texas (A.R.T.) east of Dallas, among hills, lakes, historic homes and parks.

Kathy went to jur a miniature, membership show by a new, suburban art group, held in a busy shopping center bank.

JR went along to soak up local color along the byways back and forth a couple times, provide moral support and company.

Any competitive exhibition is a bit of a gamble. Join us for our Roundtrip Rowlett Roulette story in what could be JR's final version of this story, although he keeps thinking of new things to add or subtract.

 

Story + Digital Photos by JR Compton

Wrapped Shape

The outdoor images were shot out car windows
April 2 and 3 from Dallas to Rowlett and back.
JR likes how the photos resemble art.
 

Kathy judged a show in Rowlett, and we completed a collaborative series to be projected during writer and poet Jim Dolan's Visually Speaking segment of the Literary Cafe at 7:30 Wednesday, April 9 at Club Dada, 2720 Elm Street in Deep Ellum.

Neon Fence

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Our photographic and painted illustrations for Dolan's autobiographic Turnpike short story is similar in interesting and visual ways to this story of going back and forth and again to Rowlett to jury (Kathy) and photo (JR) various aspects of an art show in an area suburb.

Both are essentially road trips, with bits of the romance of the open road, adventure and art.
 

Wall Art

See the listing in the DARts Calendar for more details about the visually literate evening. See Jim Dolan's DARts Supporting Member page to learn more about our favorite writer. Then visit his LotusEaters web site and read more of Jim's verbal visions. Turnpike and our illustrations for it will be there after their Dada premiere.
  

Hill Near Rowlett

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Kathy Jurs A.R.T. Show

The Artists of Rowlett, Texas' First Annual Miniature Judged Art Show through April 30, 2003 in the lobby of the Western Bank & Trust, at Lakeview Parkway and Dalrock in Rowlett, Texas

I went with Kathy Dello Stritto when she juried the A.R.T. show in Rowlett.

Naturally, I didn't completely agree with all her picks for prize winners and honorable mentions. But mostly I didn't say that much while she was doing it. She was very intent.
 

Kathy Judges Art

Ms Kathy would not comment on any of the work for this story, although she did provide A.R.T. with comments for their show program, some of which I've quoted.

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The first piece I noticed among the 76 entries in the membership show was the one Kathy eventually settled on for First Place. In her Juror's Comments, Kathy called it a "wonderful asymmetrical composition close-up of an everyday object."
 

Jane Damon - Andromeda
color photograph

We both figured it was a vase. At the opening, I learned that the artist's husband named it after a scene it reminded him of in the movie, The Andromeda Strain.

Another piece that I liked, but that was lost on Kathy, was this silhouetted figure set darkly against a field of mini blinds. The viewer assumes a darkened room, a plant and something we can't see or know beyond the window.

We do know it's worth peeking at and maybe hiding from. The little mysteries of it seemed perfectly matched to the predominant, monochromatic grays and blue.

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What gives this painting its interest and action is the disruption of the horizontal pattern field by the figure's hand. Other than the signature, there's nothing complicated about what we do see, only in what we don't. And it's always nice when art nudges us into the unknown beyond it.

I like the set and setting — the color matched, double rolled frame, the dark mood, the vertically graduated light from bright at the top down to near darkness, and especially the shaded room.

The artist was less confident with the figure's shape. And the ornate, nearly beaded, overly stylized and nearly illegible signature floating too near the top, disrupts the field in a jarring, unsubtle way.

Another piece that I liked for awhile, then didn't, then did again, was this, livid or maybe lurid, striped painting, shown here at not much smaller than actual size. The paint is thick, studded with cake decoration like bits and textures. It was one of the few pieces in the show that I would like to hang on one of the parrot green walls of my living room.

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Betty Foster - Cotswold Doorway painting in an ornate frame (slightly cropped) and	Kerry Stanford - Frontiersman Andrew Garcia - pencil drawing.

 
Kathy selected all the prize-winners but one. The employees at the bank voted for their own award, which was very nearly a tie between a colorful and flowery painting of a doorway, that Kathy called "beautifully painted" and awarded with Third Place among the 2-D media, and a pencil drawing of what appears to be a local, historical figure.

The doorway won by one vote.
 

Laurieann Dygowsk - Romantic Necklace
photographed during judging — hence the number.

Number stickers were strategically placed over signatures during the judging in the smallish, curtained bank board room, although the juror hadn't known any of the names or artists involved.

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Kathy called the beaded necklace above "gorgeous." Later, in the car going back to Dallas after the reception, I asked about it, since she awarded it the 3-D First Prize. She said it was a piece of jewelry she'd be "proud to wear."

FYI: A.R.T. usually meets at 7 on the fourth Tuesday evening of each month at the Rowlett Community Centre at 5300 Main Street in Rowlett. Contact info is on the A.R.T. page in GoRowlett.com.

The Artists of Rowlett Texas' First Annual Miniature
Judged Art Show at Western Bank & Trust in Rowlett

Photographs by JR Compton